Three

“I took the liberty,” I said as Jamie brought over our drinks. “Figured you might enjoy another round.”

Nina accepted the fresh glass of wine and eyed my drink. “What’s that, a cocktail? I don’t see a lot of men enjoy those anymore. You and my cousin, come to think of it. Although he prefers martinis.”

I held up my glass in a mock toast. “It’s a Negroni. Civilized and wild all at once, like God intended a good drink to be.”

Her eyes glittered. Well, well. We had a live one here. My heart picked up a few notches. Yeah, this was going to be fun.

“Thank you,” she said, holding up her glass. “I had better be careful, though. Otherwise I’m bound to get a bit tipsy.”

“Nothing wrong with that, Nina. I’ll take care of you.”

She blinked, unimpressed, but her cheeks flushed slightly. “I’ll keep that in mind, Matthew.”

“You can keep whatever part of me you want, doll,” I replied. “Cincin.”

Her brow arched as she clinked her glass to mine. “Are you Italian?”

I nodded. “By way of New York, but yes. My father’s people all came from Rome and Naples. My mother is Puerto Rican and Italian too.”

“Are you close to them?”

I nodded. “My grandparents, yes. My mother lives in Connecticut, so I don’t see her much. My pops passed. Car crash.”

“Oh.” Nina held a delicate hand to her mouth in shock. “Oh my, that’s terrible. I’m so sorry, Matthew.”

I shrugged. “I appreciate that, sweetheart, but it was a long time ago.”

I didn’t bother to tell her that my parents barely raised me and my sisters. That my father was an alcoholic lout and my mother enabled him. Until I was twelve or so, the girls and I would watch Ma unsuccessfully cover up black eyes before taking us to school. I’d purposefully leave things in the hall before bed, then stare at the ceiling wondering if he was going to give her another bruise when he got home from the bar or if he’d take the bait and give it to me instead.

I didn’t say that in the end, it was the bottle that killed him and two other people in the Lincoln Tunnel that night. I didn’t say that when he died, a part of me was glad to be rid of him. Same as I told the priest at my very first confession two years later, though I had never stopped feeling guilty about it.

Nina pursed her lips as if she was reading my mind. I fought the urge to look away.

“My father is gone too,” Nina said at last.

“I’m sorry to hear that. When did he pass?”

“Oh, he’s not dead. He simply left the country when I was a little girl. He lives in London now, I believe. My mother was never particularly parental, so I was largely raised by my grandmother too, as it happens.”

Her voice was low, almost as if it was the first time she had ever admitted any of this. In just a few words, Nina established that she and I had more in common than I thought. Fucked-up childhoods. Absent parents. What had she gone through since? Had she wondered through the years if there was anything else she could have done? Had she chased her father’s memory as I’d chased mine, with as much hate as desire for his approval?

And yet, as questions flurried, only one lingered: who in their right mind could leave a woman like this?

How the fuck could he?

I’d probably never meet Nina’s father. But if I did, I knew I’d hate him.

I blinked, struck by the intensity of my thoughts. Good fuckin’ God. One second, I was mentally banging this chick, the next defending her honor. I really was losing it tonight.

“So, Nina,” I said, eager to change the subject. Our mutual daddy issues were a bit heavy for the moment. “Let me guess. You’re from out of town.”

Her slim blonde brow rose again. “What makes you say that?”

“You don’t look like the average Lower East Sider.”

I gestured around the bar, which was starting to fill with the usual crowd of hipsters, investment bankers, and starving artists. More than too much black (myself aside), a lot of shapeless jeans, scuffed boots, and poorly fitted suits. No one who looked like they had just walked off a runway. No one like her.

“And you do?” Nina cast a look up and down my three-piece, then around the room. Okay, point taken.

“Would you rather I changed into jeans and a graphic t-shirt? I can grow a beard if you want, but you’ll have to give me a few weeks.” I wrinkled my nose. Just the thought of having a fuckin’ animal pelt on my face disgusted me.

Nina giggled. Something inside me sparked.

“I didn’t say I didn’t like your clothes,” she said. “Anyone can appreciate vintage Armani.”

I quirked a smile. “Very nice, very nice. You know your stuff.”

Nina gave a shy nod. “My grandmother is—was—” She cut herself off abruptly and pulled at a lock of hair. “She enjoyed fashion, particularly the classics. I suppose I inherited some of that.”

“Tell your grandmother she has good taste too.”

She looked down, allowing a sheet of blonde to curtain her face. Shit. What did I do?

“All right, so we’re both outsiders here,” I said, eager to draw her back.

“I just said you don’t fit in,” Nina replied before taking another sip of her wine. “Obviously you’re from New York.”

I blinked, feigning confusion. “What? How is that obvious?”

Despite years of school and hours perfecting my diction in front of judges, I’d never completely get rid of the thick Bronx accent that marked my birthplace. And to be honest, I didn’t want to. I was proud of where I was from.

Nina giggled again. I felt like a light turned on.

“So we’ve established that I’m a Bronx native,” I said. “Belmont, born and raised. But what about you? Let’s see…” I tapped my fingers on the bar top, like I was measuring the possibilities. “I’m going to guess Beverly Hills.”

Her hair flipped back, revealing an adorable scowl. “I look like I’m from Los Angeles?” Disdain dripped off her tongue like acid that would burn through sheet metal.

“Okay, wow, clearly an East Coaster.” I chuckled into my Negroni, now enjoying the bitter mix again.

“Is it my hair?” Nina picked up a lock again and examined it. “I happen to be a natural blonde, I’ll have you know. But maybe I should go dark. I’d fit in more.”

“Don’t you fuckin’ touch a single strand, doll.”

My voice was sharper than I intended. Nina dropped her hair, and I followed its progress as it landed over her collarbone, tickling the edge like a feather. Her cheeks pinked all over again, as if she sensed the tension rising off my body in waves. I didn’t understand it. First the story about her father. Now the idea that she change her hair. I didn’t know this girl, but any suggestion that she was less than spectacular turned me into a fuckin’ bulldog.

“It was my mistake,” I said smoothly. “Upon closer inspection, you’re not anything like that kind of girl. You’re too…classic for California.”

“Classic? Like a Greek statue?”

I snorted. “Or vintage Armani, right? No, I just meant you have that look about you that old New Englanders have. Polished and well-preserved.”

“You make me sound like a fruit spread.”

I shook my head. Goddammit, I was fucking this up. At least she seemed amused.

“I just mean the way you speak, the way you hold yourself. Your family has probably been here for four hundred years, not fifty, like mine. I’d bet money you’re a legacy.”

Again, there was that sadness. An uncertainty I already fuckin’ hated.

Fix it, fix it, I chanted to myself. Crack a joke. Sing a song. Do fuckin’ anything to bring her back.

So I did what always worked. I pulled out a classic.

“‘Of all the gin joints in all the world, you had to walk into mine,’” I quoted softly.

Nina blinked. Okay, not a classic film buff, then. I’d have to fix that.

“What’s that from?” she wondered. “I’ve heard it somewhere.”

“Just an bit from Casablanca.”

“I’ve never seen it.”

I balked. “Seriously? It’s one of the best movies of all time.”

Her expression remained completely blank.

I set my glass on the bar, gesturing wildly. “Humphrey Bogart, Ingrid Bergman. World War Two, former lovers. She’s the wife of a resistance fighter, and the only man who can get them away is old Humphrey, who’s still in love with her. It’s the most quotable film in history. You know.” I held up my drink again. ‘“Here’s looking at you, kid.’”

It was supposed to make her laugh, my bad impression of Bogart. But instead, Nina’s eyes watered, and she grabbed her wine.

“Nina?” I asked. “Did I say something? Is—is everything all right?”

“Oh, please,” she gasped after she had drained the entire glass. “Please stop. I can’t—I can’t take any more.”

I did stop. More out of shock than anything else. The thing is, New Yorkers are usually direct, so I was used to people without filters. Hell, I had five sisters who would tell me every fuckin’ thing running through their heads at a moment’s notice. Nonna usually took a solid thirty minutes every time we spoke to update me on the state of her life and half the neighborhood.

But Nina remained quiet. Several minutes later, and she said nothing at all.

“Can’t take what?” I asked. “What’s wrong?”

“This. Conversation. I don’t know. I’m sorry, Matthew, I really am, but I just can’t do this.” She gripped the edge of the bar hard enough that her fingertips turned white.

“Hey,” I said, hovering a hand over hers. “I don’t mean anything by it. I was just trying to get to know you a little. If you want me to leave, I can—”

“No,” she interrupted again, suddenly. “I don’t—I don’t want that. You seem very nice, and I would like the company. I only…”

She trailed off, and it occurred to me that Nina wasn’t someone given to outbursts. Or saying what she wanted. She was the opposite of the women I knew. Fair where they were dark, willowy while my sisters were built like olive trees. Soft-spoken instead of boisterous.

Nina was someone who needed a moment of quiet to gather her thoughts. She didn’t need to be pushed.

At least, not yet.

After another moment or two, she toyed with the stem of her empty wineglass, then looked back at me with eyes that, I finally noticed, were slightly pink around the lash line. At some point today, Nina had been crying. Hard.

A pang shot through my chest, and without even thinking twice about it, I wanted to punch whoever had done it in the face. I wanted to find the bastard and wring his fuckin’ neck. Shove him to his knees and make him beg for her forgiveness before I taught him some proper respect.

Whoa. That was zero to sixty in about two seconds. I swallowed hard, and this time, I did tug at my collar. I needed to calm the fuck down. Maybe I needed to walk away altogether.

“Matthew,” Nina said. “I would—I would like to sit with you, I think. But I just don’t have patience for any more small talk tonight. My reserve is simply gone, and I feel I would be very bad company. For anyone.”

I set my hand on hers, and we both started like we had been shocked. To be honest, I’m not a hundred percent sure we weren’t. A current of something flew through my fingers when they touched Nina’s cool skin. Something addictive. Something dangerous.

“Nina,” I said slowly. “We can just sit here if you want. I don’t mind, really. I was having that kind of night myself.”

Her face softened. “Were you?” she wondered softly, almost to herself.

I nodded. “Something just wasn’t right.”

“No,” Nina agreed, her voice quavering. “It wasn’t.”

“We don’t have to talk,” I assured her again.

But I didn’t release her hand. And she didn’t take it back.

“Do you know how long it’s been,” she wondered as she watched our fingers slowly, slowly entwined with each other, “since someone held my hand?”

That ache in my chest throbbed again. Her voice was so sad, so fuckin’ tragic. I would have done just about anything to see her smile. I wanted to hear that shy laugh. Just one more time.

But the truth? I realized then that I’d take her tears too. I’d take anything this beautiful woman had to offer me tonight. Anything at all.

“Why don’t you tell me what happened?” I asked.

I brought her hand to my knee so I could cradle it between both of my palms. Nina emitted a soft sigh, but she didn’t pull it away.

“Go on, doll. I got all the time in the world.”