She saw her daughter as clearly as anything in the room. A beautiful, golden-haired child. Or maybe dark, like her father. Her real father.
She would coo and smile and laugh and cry. And she would be loved. So, so loved.
Or would she?
Almost as quickly, the vision of the little girl faded, and Nina saw the rest of her daughter’s life ahead of her. The one she had led herself.
Endless nannies, etiquette lessons, and meals at huge empty dining room tables. Playing alone in a nursery without a sibling or many friends. Day school, then boarding school, plus finishing lessons of every kind. Expectation after expectation piled on her, until one day she would burst if she didn’t make at least one mistake for herself at last.
And when she did, she would turn around and find hardly anyone there to hold her through its inevitable fallout.
And on her daughter’s behalf, Nina never felt more alone. Because how could she love a child when no one had ever taught her how.
I love you, principessa.
Had that even been love? How could it have been when he had found it so easy to leave her? Peppe had looked at her with such fondness, had touched her body with such reverence.
But love?
This far away, Nina wasn’t so sure anymore.
I’ll be there, she thought fiercely as she watched the baby move. I’ll protect you from all of it. No matter what. We might be alone, my darling, but I promise, you’ll always stay safe.
Chapter Eleven
November 2008
“Oh God!” Nina shrieked. “Oh God!”
“Just hold on, Mrs. Gardner. This will pass.”
The nurse’s voice was calm, indulgent, masking the pity that every single person at Mount Sinai Hospital had demonstrated in one way or another since Nina had been admitted two hours earlier in the care of a servant. Her cook. Marguerite seemed to like her, but not enough to stay through labor.
Since then, Nina had been alone in one of the luxury suites of Mt. Sinai, waiting through contractions for her daughter to be born.
The staff’s whispers were hushed, but not hushed enough.
“Newly married.”
“Husband out of the country.”
“De Vries family.”
“All alone.”
She didn’t have it so bad, she tried to tell herself. How many women around the world gave birth at home every day? Without the benefit of a hospital like this? Without all the things the de Vries name commanded in this town: the best medical staff in New York City waiting on her hand and foot, a private room in the most exclusive hospital, ice chips, flowers?
Things, Nina thought bitterly as she groaned through another heavy contraction. They were just things. And in this room, when her body was starting the process that literally every mother on the planet had endured before her, what did things matter when she had no one to hold her hand?
Not one. Fucking. Bit.
Yes, fucking. Because that was what went through her mind when the iron band around her belly crushed her like this. They didn’t. Fucking. Matter at all.
Nina. Evelyn. Astor. De Vries. Gardner.
Her names were staccato shots through her mind as the contraction throbbed—they were all she could think about as she had this baby. Almost six weeks early.
Nina for the daughter she was.
Evelyn for some unknown great-aunt.
Astor for the father she’d barely known since she was a child.
De Vries for the family she had striven her entire life to please.
Gardner for the man she was chained to.
All family. And where were they now?
Her mother was in Cabo, sunning herself on a friend’s yacht. Her husband was in Thailand with some fool named Letour. Eric was still lost somewhere else around the world. And Grandmother was too old and too much of a hypochondriac to set foot in a hospital at all.
Nina had no one. She was completely by herself.
“Ahhhhhhh!” she shrieked as the contraction reached its zenith. “Goddamn you, Peppe!”
Yes, her aversion to cursing had definitely disappeared this evening. But the nurse didn’t even blink.
“Breathe, Mrs. Gardner. Just breathe. Remember what you learned in your classes.”
“I didn’t finish the fucking classes!” Nina spat as her face scrunched up in agony. “I stopped after the second one.”
After seeing all those ridiculous couples flashing smiles and cooing at each other, she had simply been too mortified—and sad—to continue. Dr. Jenkins had told her to do whatever it took to keep her spirits up. Well, that class definitely did nothing for her.
“Didn’t go to the…” The nurse shook her head, but was wise enough not to finish her sentence.