“Are you serious?” I asked. “Tomorrow, you’re going to be a free woman?”
“Yes!” she said. “So I want to celebrate tonight. A little, if you don’t mind.” She crowded the screen like an excited little girl, her face shining with eager happiness. It was contagious.
“I want to tell everyone,” she said. “We can make our announcement later this week, but tonight, Matthew, once we’re inside, we don’t have to hide anymore! It’s a closed event. No photographers. They’ll even collect cell phones inside the ballroom. We can dance all night if we want to, not just for one song…” She smiled sweetly to herself, clearly caught up in the same memory I’d had. “I wanted to celebrate. This is just one token of my gratitude to you. For all you give me. For how much you love me. Please say you’ll accept it.”
“Deal,” I said, unable to keep the stupid grin off my own face. I couldn’t lie. I’d do just about anything to make her happy. “Now what, duchess?”
“Now,” she said. “Will you please let that poor seamstress back into the house to do the final adjustments? She’s probably getting cold on your front porch.”
I blinked. “You mean the messenger?”
“Who is actually one of the seamstresses who brought the suit all the way from Paris, yes. Please go downstairs and let her do her job.” Nina preened prettily for the camera. “And then I want you to come straight here when you’re done, please. So I can show you in person just how handsome I think my fiancé looks.”
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Nina
“My dress was designed by Jane Lee,” I said for what had to be the twentieth time since I’d exited the limo that had dropped me and Eric outside the event.
We were some of the earliest arrivals, being lower-profile guests and attracting less fanfare than some of the true celebrities the museum and Vogue had courted for this year’s event. As instructed, I was using Jane’s Korean name, which she was trying out as a potential designer label. Eric hadn’t looked particularly happy when she had informed us of her decision, but I understood. There would be enough remarks about her fledgling career being propped up by the de Vries name without actually using it in her brand.
“What about your jewelry?” asked the reporter, a sassy young girl in a sleek white column gown and questionable accessories.
“Oh, it’s my own,” I said, touching the small medallion of St. Anna I was actually wearing on a gold chain, just over my breastbone. “A gift from a friend in Rome.”
“Ooh, Rome!” cooed the girl.
Other than the diamond studs in my ears and the pounded metal cuff on my wrist, Matthew’s necklace was the only other piece I was wearing amid a crowd of Harry Winston wreaths and Bvlgari crowns. I had chosen to let the luster of the dress speak for itself, styling it with a sleek updo that matched the draped effect of Jane’s toga-styled design. It was the crystal beading that really made it special, each piece sewn individually throughout the gorgeous fabric Jane ordered. I had requested the family’s stylist do very little in the way of makeup—just a few brushes of white-glittering highlights over my cheekbones and on my chest that gleamed in the right lights, like I was a statue in Greece.
As I spoke, I looked over the reporter’s shoulder toward the top of the steps. Matthew was supposed to be meeting me inside after gaining access via the security entrance on the side of the building like last year. As much as I had wanted to walk the red carpet hand in hand with him, we both admitted it would be better to wait for our official debut. After all, the papers still weren’t signed.
“Thank you,” I told her, and decided that I was done speaking to the rest. Jane and Eric were busy on the other side of the steps chatting away with a reporter from the Village Voice, so I took the opportunity to make my escape and find the man I really wanted to see tonight.
The museum was lit up, just as magical as ever for the gala. Cora had really outdone herself this year, having wrapped the museum’s massive neoclassical colonnades completely with glittering lights and flowers, and actually reconstructing a ceiling-high Trojan horse out of white hydrangeas that towered in the main lobby.
I followed the trickle of people into the exhibit, glancing left and right. Where could he be?
“Looking for something?”
I jumped as his deep voice wrapped around me, then turned to find Matthew standing next to an exhibit of gorgeous Roman paintings suspended over a water bath.
He looked positively regal in his new midnight blue tuxedo, which fit him even more perfectly than I’d imagined, managing to render his shoulders sleek and broad at the same time, tucking exquisitely at his trim waist, extending down through his long, muscular legs. In typical Matthew fashion, he had added a few twists of his own—a white silk pocket square in the front and antique sterling cuff links that looked to be engraved with his grandfather’s—and therefore Matthew’s—initials. He was breathtaking.
At the time I placed the order, right after we returned from Italy, I couldn’t really explain why I had felt such an urge to get it for him, particularly when we were forced to come to this event separately, covertly. But as he stood there, surrounded by the literal works of art, I knew exactly what it was. Matthew, just as much, or perhaps more than any of the rich museum benefactors, loved beauty. He took more pride in his appearance, in enjoying the good things in life where he could get them, than anyone else I knew. Yes, I had grown up with luxury my entire life, but I didn’t think I had truly started to
