“Nina,” he greeted me with a nod. “Nice to see you again.”
Jane looked eagerly between us with that same expression she’d worn since we had returned from Italy. We hadn’t told anyone of our engagement—or even that we were involved, thinking it would be best not to risk it for everyone’s sake during the trial. But now it was over. Wasn’t it?
“It’s nice to see you too, Matthew,” I said. “Jane, would you mind zipping me up?”
“I’ll do it.”
Matthew quickly crossed the room and turned me around, his hands firm at my waist. His fingers danced up my back ever-so-briefly before he pulled my zipper closed.
“There,” he murmured as his fingers drifted down my shoulders. “You’re perfect.”
“Looks like someone has a crush,” Jane murmured to Eric, who just shook his head at her.
“Mind your business, pretty girl.”
As Jane and Eric became absorbed in their own repartee, I turned to find Matthew looking at me with the ever-present love and heat that never seemed to fade no matter how often we managed to slip away to the Grace or his house in Brooklyn when his sister was gone.
His gaze flickered down to my bare neck.
“It’s in my purse,” I murmured so only he could hear, knowing he was wondering where my chain—and its ring—was. “I had to take it off for the fitting.”
He nodded briefly, then turned around so we were facing Jane and Eric and standing a solid three feet apart.
“So, you’re staying for lunch?” Jane said, her cheeks slightly reddened from whatever Eric had whispered in her ear.
Matthew nodded. “If you don’t mind me crashing. I was in the neighborhood…”
“Of course, of course!” Jane said. “You don’t even have to ask, Zola, really.”
“It’s fine,” Eric concurred, though a bit less excitedly. “We’re having chicken. One of Jane’s mom’s recipes, I think.”
“Eric! Is Jane down there?”
Eric popped his head out of the room toward the stairs. “Yeah, what’s up, Tony?”
“There’s a couple of guys here with a truck full of boxes for Jane. Can she come verify? I don’t want to have them brought in until she says. It’s a lot.”
“Oh!” Jane erupted and clapped her hands like a small child. “Yes! That’s the new fabric from Paris! Eric, wait until you see this. I have big plans for your next suit!”
Eric rolled his eyes at me, as if playing dress-up for his wife was just about humoring her. But the glimmer in his eyes and quirk of a smile at the corner of his lips told me he was more than happy to be her mannequin.
The two of them tromped up the stairs to look at the new shipment, leaving Matthew and me alone in the room. As soon as they were gone, Matthew slipped a hand around my waist and crushed me against his chest. He didn’t kiss me, just held me tight. My arms wound around his neck, and I found myself wanting to be as close as I could. Immediately, a sense of safety and homecoming coursed through me. This was where I belonged. I never felt quite at home except for these scant minutes I was with him.
After several long breaths, he released me and brushed a few errant hairs back from my face.
“Hello,” I said as I stroked his cheek.
Then he did kiss me, slow and sweet before offering a melancholy smile. “Hi, beautiful.”
“What are you doing here today? I wasn’t expecting to see you until tomorrow.” I was supposed to be coming to his house just after nine, after his sister was gone for the day.
He pressed his forehead to mine and exhaled, sounding as weary as I felt. “I just really needed to see you. I hope that’s all right.”
“Of course it’s all right. But what happened? You look like you’ve been run over by a taxi.”
He sighed again, then dropped to the loveseat behind us and scrubbed his face with his hands. “I was fired today, baby.”
“What?” I sank beside him. “Oh, Matthew, that’s terrible.”
“Cardozo called me in to discuss the verdict. Hence the suit.” He gestured at himself. “Like an idiot, I thought it might mean I was going back to work, so I dressed for the occasion. Just, the opposite, though.”
“Well, for what it’s worth, you look very dashing.”
The corner of Matthew’s mouth tugged upward, but no smile emerged.
“What happened, then?” I pressed. “Calvin knows nothing, I’m sure of it. He would have said.”
“It was Ruggeri, that prosecutor I met in Florence. I don’t know why, but apparently she called the DA to make sure I was legit. Except he didn’t know why I had taken leave. And he wasn’t too happy to find out that I had gone with you to Italy.”
Guilt lodged in the pit of my stomach. It must have been all over my face, because Matthew immediately wrapped an arm around my shoulders.
“Hey, hey, shh,” he comforted me, pulled me in to his chest. “It’s not your fault. I put myself on that damn plane, Nina. I didn’t have a choice.”
It didn’t help. Would there ever be a day when my presence in his life wasn’t completely destructive? He didn’t have a choice? Was he just willingly throwing himself onto the fire?
“I just don’t know what I’m going to do,” he continued. “I can’t keep working at the bar. To start, I just don’t earn enough. I’m barely making ends meet right now, but the idea of begging for a job with some nasty criminal defense firm makes my skin crawl.”
“Not everyone who needs a defense lawyer is terrible,” I told him. “I needed one, didn’t I?”
He looked up. “That’s different. You also have a habit of martyring yourself for the people you love.”
“And you don’t? Who’s the one who works day and night at that terrible bar so he can take care of his sister and niece?”
We blinked at each other.
