“Mr. Gardner,” said Levy. “I don’t know what this is about, but—”
“Levy, you have to push through the probate fight. I need that money! As soon as you get it, you’ll get paid, I promise.”
“Mr. Gardner, as I’ve told you several times, the likelihood now of winning your challenge of Celeste de Vries’s will decreased substantially when you were indicted. It would be wiser now for you to take the money from your bankruptcy filing and move on from your fight with the de Vrieses.”
“I don’t fucking care about a fight!” Gardner hissed. “I just want to take them down. It’s what they deserve! They will not win this one, not after ten years!”
There was a long sigh, audible even on the busy street.
“Mr. Gardner, you haven’t paid your last bill. I’m sorry, but until the bankruptcy goes through, I’m afraid I cannot do any more on your behalf in this trial or your divorce, nor will I. And if you do not secure representation or respond to Ms. de Vries by the end of March, she may be able to petition for divorce on grounds of abandonment. I don’t think I need to tell you that would be very bad for your case.”
Gardner swore. He had known from the start that tactic was never going to work. Nina had the might of Eric’s money behind her. And now that rat bastard was going to be caesar?
He, on the other hand, had jack shit.
“Fucking fine,” he snapped before cutting off the call. But instead of putting his phone away and descending into the train tunnel, first Gardner pulled up a web browser and typed in a search.
“There’s more than one way to skin a cat,” Gardner muttered to himself as he looked through the results. “If Nina thinks she’s bested me now, she’s got another thing coming.”
II
Secondi
Chapter Ten
January 2019
Matthew
The train was late. That in itself wasn’t particularly surprising.
But the train was late when I had double parked the black Ferrari (Eric’s assistant had gone a little overboard with the rental—not that I was complaining) outside at the curb after bribing a station agent to watch it for twenty minutes.
I pulled on the brim of my fedora and checked my watch. We were at eighteen now.
I had originally planned to pick her up right after she landed, but had scrapped that as soon as I’d arrived two days prior and discovered how fucking big Fiumicino Airport was. Sifting through international arrivals for Nina would have been like finding a needle in a haystack, beautiful blonde needle or not.
Jane had informed me, however, that Nina wanted to travel a bit more modestly on this trip, despite Eric’s offers otherwise. She had insisted on flying commercial and taking public transportation to Florence. Like she was still a nineteen-year-old student and not a thirty-year-old heiress. She wasn’t even taking security, now that news had gotten out about Calvin Gardner’s bankruptcy. Her argument was that the paparazzi wouldn’t recognize her here, nor would there be an investigator, so why worry?
“I get it,” Jane said after Eric and I had both voiced our doubts about her plans.
“Why?” I demanded. “You guys have more money than God. If I had access to a company plane or a charter that cost me the equivalent of a bagel for most people, I’d never deal with TSA again.”
“Exactly,” Eric said. “What is the point?”
“It’s about independence,” Jane said. “The first time Nina went to Italy, it was to find herself. My guess is, she’s not just doing this for Olivia. I think she’s going back there to get a taste of herself again, too. And when you’re nineteen, that starts with getting around on your own.”
“Il Leonardo Express dall'Aeroporto di Fiumicino è ora in arrivo al binario quarantadue.”
The announcement of the train’s arrival blared almost unintelligibly over the intercom, and I held up a hand to block the sun as I watched the train from Fiumicino slow as it approached, its red-painted nose pointed where I stood. I tried to wait patiently as the train stopped, and people began to pour out of its exits, luggage in tow, all of them eager to stand up and get moving.
No blondes, though. No tall ones anyway. With exquisite bone structure. And legs that stretched for miles.
I searched and searched until most of the train seemed to have emptied. Shit. Had she missed it? Had I written down the wrong one? Or she decided to hell with the whole remembering-her-student-past thing and gotten a car instead?
So much for a good surprise. Calling up to her hotel room wasn’t nearly as romantic.
“This way, um, per favore.”
Down at the end of the platform, I finally caught a familiar sight: Nina, caught in a ray of sun that lit up her chin-length hair like a halo. Immediately, I started jogging toward her. She, however, was too busy to notice, trying in broken Italian to direct the porters carrying her four giant suitcases.
“Per favore portami a—shoot, how do you say ‘just bring it to a taxi’?”
“Scusi, signorina,” I said, ignoring the fact that she was married to use the more playful “miss.” “Can I be of some assistance?”
At the sound of my voice, Nina whirled around with a squeak.
“Matthew?” She glanced around like she thought the boogie man might jump out from behind me. “Matthew, what—how—what are you doing here?”
The look on her face was almost as adorable as the way she was stuttering. And by adorable, I mean uncertain and perfect and completely fucking kissable.
I hadn’t seen Nina since the night of Jane and Eric’s party, and since then, I’d been spending my time taking every shift I could at Envy, tying up odds and ends for my family back home, attending Mass with Nonna five separate times over another chaotic Zola family holiday season. All while anticipating this exact moment.
This right here—this was my real merry Christmas.
Or in this
