I never wore black to work. My sisters said it made me look like a gangster. The Italian genes in our family made a pretty clear stamp on the six of us. Frankie, Marie, Kate, Lea, Joni, and I all had deep green eyes, olive skin, and dark brown hair that gleamed like oil slicks under street lamps. After friends in law school started calling me Vito Corleone just to piss me off, I decided I couldn’t have judges thinking the defendants were guilty because their prosecutor looked like a crook. So I saved the pinstripes and undertaker colors for nights like this, when looking a little bit dangerous acted more in my favor than not.
Envy was my favorite bar in Manhattan. Buried under a crumbling brick walkup on the Lower East Side, it was far enough from work that I never ran into colleagues, close enough that I could get home on a single train, and on the polar opposite side of the city from the rest of my nosy family. I may have lived with one sister, but I was as likely to run into one of the other gossip fiends in certain neighborhoods as I was to see a taxi. That alone made it worth spending time in a bar named after one of the seven deadly sins.
Envy also happened to offer the occasional free drink, considering it was owned by someone I had known my entire life: Jamie Quinn, my best friend.
“How you doing, Jamie?” I shook out my trench coat and adjusted my vest before sitting down at the bar. My hair was soaked—I’d had to leave my hat at home to dry.
“Zola.” Jamie accepted my fist bump. “Wasn’t expecting to see you tonight. Not in that fuckin’ hurricane out there.”
The city was a river. I was going to be up until three in the morning polishing my shoes to get these stains out, but what was I going to do? Wear rain boots with vintage Armani? Get the fuck out.
I shrugged. “I needed a change of pace. The rain makes a man feel cooped up, you know?”
“I hear that,” Jamie said. “I opened a Chianti yesterday afternoon. You want?”
I shook my head. Jamie’s house Chianti was decent, but not after more than a day, when it would taste like vinegar. “Don’t think so. Aperitivo tonight.”
Jamie nodded, unsurprised. “Right up.”
He made quick work of my drink—his own twist on a Negroni that he served with a tray of house-marinated olives—then scuttled down to pour PBR for a bunch of NYU kids straying from Third Avenue. I ate an olive and looked around. The bar was unusually quiet for a Friday night. Only the adventurous were out and about. Well, and the lonely.
“Can I join you?”
I turned to find a cute girl with curly brown hair eyeing the stool next to me. She was short and curvy like my sisters, with a button nose and tits that would probably entertain any man for at least a few hours. She licked her lips. Yeah, she was looking for something. A little trouble. A little fun.
Outside, thunder shook the city. In here, I was unmoved.
“Sorry, sweetheart,” I said, trying for friendly, but distant. “I’m waiting for someone.”
She pouted a little, then took off to the other side of the bar to ask another man the same question. And here I thought I was special. I snorted and turned back to my drink, Frankie’s taunts floating back yet again. A little tail was just the thing for this strange mood, and here I was, turning it away. The question was why.
Big brother, you know why.
Good God, I couldn’t escape that know-it-all, even here. But she was right. Dammit, she was right.
I did know why. The problem was them.
It was a case I’d been working on the side for months. The investigation against John Carson was one my boss had refused to take officially, though he had hinted that he wouldn’t stop me or one of the investigators if we wanted to look into it. It was one of those political tightropes. If nothing came of it, or worse, if I got into a bit of hot water, the DA would be able to claim he had nothing to do with it. But if we had a part in nabbing the bastard, it was a damn nice feather in his cap.
Because John Carson was a bad man. One of the worst. A business tycoon who worked in ammunitions of all things, which made him best friends with half the U.S. armed forces and a good percentage of congress and the intelligence community. He owned several labs located around the old Navy Yard and south Brooklyn, which put him right in our jurisdiction.
He was also a psychopath targeting two personal friends.
I had known Jane and Eric de Vries for close to five years. During that time we had been at most friendly acquaintances. But after the two moved to the city to get married and caught the ire of John Carson—who happened to be Jane’s biological father—they needed help from someone they could trust.
Frankie was right about something else. I couldn’t stay away from a challenge.
So, as I’d stepped in to help the de Vrieses, I’d also gotten to know them better. And tonight, I really couldn’t get them out of my head.
It wasn’t like that. Okay, sure, I had a thing for Jane back in the day. But that was a flash in the pan. A momentary crush, long since passed, even if Eric had been a bit threatened by it. But I’d never really thought much of either of them until I’d gotten involved in their case. When I really started seeing them together.
They were lightning. Pure kinetic energy. It was in the way Eric couldn’t stop looking at his wife, the way she seemed completely drawn right back to him. They were opposites. A marriage of fire and ice. And yet, they also seemed made for each other. I’d never seen anything like it.
Everyone is fine with store-bought pasta until they make it from scratch. I was starting to feel like relationships worked the same way. Like I was missing out on something I hadn’t even tasted. Some of my best friends had it. Their friends too.
Why couldn’t I?
“What the fuck is wrong with me?” I muttered as Jamie returned.
My friend shrugged. “Beats me. That girl was hot. She would have left with you in five, ten minutes tops. What’s with the brush-off?”
“I don’t know. Something about her.” It was a stupid answer, but the best I could come up with. “No one in New York has any style anymore, do you notice that? Everyone looks homeless.”
Jamie just raised a brow. “You’re in a mood tonight.”
“Those college kids, for example,” I continued, gesturing toward the people he had been serving. “Look at them. Jeans that don’t fit right. Shitty sneakers. Not one high heel. Not a single collared shirt. Where’s the pride, huh?”
“Careful, Zo, you’re starting to sound like my grandfather.”
I shrugged. “If I sound like my nonno, I’m better for it. I refuse to sink to the bottom of the barrel. His generation had standards, and so do I.”
“Well, Shirley Temple back there didn’t look like she jumped out of a dumpster.” Jamie started polishing a glass. “You know what the problem is, Zo. And it ain’t her shoes.”
“Oh, yeah? What’s that?”
Jamie held up his left hand. “Pretty sure she needs a ring on that finger.”
I rolled my eyes. “Don’t start with that, man.”
“You asked,” my friend retorted. “Tell me, when was the last time you picked up a broad who wasn’t married, engaged, or in a serious relationship, hmm? And we’re not just talking one-night stands to get your rocks off. I’m talking about a woman you were really interested in.”
I opened my mouth, but found I had no comeback. Fuck. He had me there.
“See? What’d I say?”
“I’m not that bad,” I finally protested. “What about Sherry?”
Jamie made a face. “You mean she who banged half the neighborhood while you were in Iraq? Zola, why in the fuck would you want to bring her up?”
“Because she wasn’t involved with anyone when we met,” I said, though he was right. I didn’t particularly enjoy remembering how my college girlfriend stepped out for years while I was serving in the Middle East to earn my future law degree. I shrugged. “She’s proof I don’t need it.”
“That ain’t much better.”
“I’m not that bad,” I said again. But even I couldn’t believe it this time.
“How about your neighbor? The one who had to move before her husband caught you?”
I rolled my eyes. “She wasn’t really a neighbor. Renee lived two blocks away.”
“And Allison Spinetti, your neighbor’s babysitter? Her boyfriend was pretty pissed off.”
“Stop.”
“And then, of course, there was Mrs. Fiore,” Jamie continued.
“All right,” I said sharply. “We do not need to revisit that.”
“We don’t need to revisit the fact that you nailed the hottest teacher at Our Redeemer while the rest of us were learning basic algebra?” Jamie chuckled. “I disagree, my friend. We need to revisit that regularly, if only to admire the accomplishment. And demonstrate a pattern.”
“It was after hours,” I said, as if that mattered. As if it mattered at all when both cheerleaders I’d turned down for the prom so I could do “extra math tutoring” almost found me and my teacher making all sorts of noise in the janitor’s closet.
See what I mean? Not a good guy.
“It’s not an ‘older women’ thing,” I said, trying to explain. “It’s a—”
“‘Taken women’ thing,” Jamie finished for me. “You got grass-is-greener syndrome, Zola. You always did. You see a woman another man wants, and you think you’re missing out.”
I stared into my drink for a long time, suddenly hating the bitter scent of Campari. Was that what it was? Was that the root of this stupid fuckin’ restlessness that overcame me from time to time? Simple fear of missing out?
Thou shalt not covet another man’s wife. Goddamn. Jamie might’ve been right. When it came to women, all I really did was covet, didn’t I?
I hung my head, suddenly feeling like I was in church, about to take my penance. Knowing every request for forgiveness was a damn lie. Dying for a bit of absolution, but sure I wasn’t worthy.
God. Damn.
“Her,” Jamie said, pointing to a trio of cute girls in the far booth, which included Ms. Corkscrew Curls from before. “If you want to turn a new leaf, she’s a good place to start, yeah?”
I sighed. “Which one?”
He shrugged. “Whichever one revs your engine, my friend. I don’t give a shit. The middle one’s got nice tits, though, I’ll give her that. And we already know she likes you.”
Jamie drew an appreciative stare over the girl’s assets. She looked up and caught him mid-survey. Her mouth dropped with shock, but desire flashed in her eyes when she caught me looking with him.
I could see the appeal. I guessed. But when her redheaded friend started making eyes at me too, I turned back to my drink. I was getting more from the orange peel in my glass than those girls.
“I think I might be flying solo tonight,” I said to Jamie.
“What about her?”
I turned toward the other end of the bar, and for a second, my heart stopped. If I hadn’t already been sitting, I’d have fallen over.
The woman had a halo. At least, that’s what it looked like from here. As if a white-gold corona emanated from her entire body, framing her in the dim surroundings. Her beauty pulsed, a beacon in the darkness, glowing like an angel’s aura. On this dank, wet, January evening, she was a ray of light.
She also clearly wasn’t from around here. Her clothes were too tailored and clean for this time of night and this part of the Lower East Side. She wore an ice-white blouse and matching skirt, with bright blonde hair gleaming over her shoulders like the trio of gold and diamond bracelets on her slender wrist.
My gaze slid down her body, over the elegantly crossed legs to the three- or four-inch stilettos that immediately put a whole host of dirty thoughts in my mind. Heels. Finally, a woman in New York wearing heels again. The kind that made a man want her legs around his waist just to feel those shoes digging into his back while he gave it to her good and long.
Completely oblivious to my ogling, she sipped her wine, which stained her full lips red. Her pinky raised as she held her glass. The effect was immediate. Suddenly all I could imagine was sticking that dainty thing in my mouth and sucking until it was black and blue. Defiling this girl. This woman. This complete and utter lady.
“Hey…he likes one, eh?” Jamie leaned over the bar and slapped my shoulder. “Very nice, very nice. No ring, I see. Probably batshit crazy, then, but have at it.”
“What’s she drinking?” My gaze hadn’t moved an inch.
“That’s the Brunello. Sangiovese. Best I got by the glass.”
I smiled to myself. She was dressed head-to-toe in pristine white, but drinking a rich red wine. This was a woman who wasn’t scared to test fate.
The wine was Italian, too. I took it as a sign.
I slid off my barstool as if in a trance. “Another round for both of us, Jamie.”
Jamie smirked. “Coming right up.”
While Jamie got our drinks, I made my way down the bar, trying to be cool in the face of this woman’s grace. Some people look great at first, but close up, you realize what a mess they are. This girl, though, was immaculate, and the closer I got, the more her perfection became apparent. It was in the straight column of her back. The slim yet rounded curve of her hips. The elegant lines of legs that went on for miles. She was clearly lost in thought as she finished the last of her wine, tapping white-tipped fingernails against the glass bowl.
I leaned next to her on the bar. “Get you another drink, doll?”
That surprised even me. I wasn’t a stranger to nicknames, especially when I spoke to women. Sweetie, gorgeous, honey, babe. I could swap them out with anyone, to the same giggling effect.
But “doll.” That was a new one. And yet, familiar. Almost sacred. “Doll” was what my grandfather had called Nonna. Like it was 1958 again, and they were lovesick kids, sneaking into the Copa to see Dean Martin.
And yet, as the woman turned to me, the name clearly fit. She was as stunning as any classic movie star, with porcelain skin, carnation-pink lips, a lush sweep of lashes that framed dove-gray eyes. Her still bearing also made her appear more like a sculpture than a real person. Like a doll. A beautiful, beautiful doll.
She smiled with uncertainty.
I wanted to make her scream with pleasure.
I held out a hand. “I’m Matthew.”
Another surprise: my given name. Who was I tonight? Only my grandmother still called me that. To my mother, my aunts and uncles, all my sisters, I was Mattie, sometimes Matt. To everyone outside my big family, Zola.
The woman looked down at my hand, then back up, pursing her heart-shaped lips as she took measure. When her eyes found mine, I was relieved I was holding on to the bar. Her face was a perfect mask, but holy shit, those eyes. A pair of silver stars that sparked with life.
Life…and pain.
“Nina,” she said as her fingers touched mine. “It’s very nice to meet you.”