scarves, bottles of wine and olive oil, pieces of art she wanted to hang but didn’t want to spoil with the lie of her new life. Things she was saving for after. When she was free. Maybe when she would see him again.
He had to know about the baby.
“Was this…Peppe…before or after you met your husband in Florence?”
Celeste, Nina realized, had never said Calvin’s name out loud. Not once in seven months. He was always a thing that Nina was responsible for, like a dog or a houseplant. “Your fiancé” or “your husband.” An object. Something that could be thrown out.
The two women stared at each other, and for a moment, Nina wondered if Celeste knew her secret. If underneath her barely masked contempt for Calvin, Celeste had allowed her only granddaughter to marry a scab of a man, had been willing to sacrifice Nina’s happiness and her great-granddaughter’s paternity simply to save face. It would have been one thing for Nina to protect the family from her shame. It would have been another completely if they had actively been a part of the deception.
What would that say about Celeste?
What would it say about Nina?
“Nina.” Celeste’s tone sharpened. Her hand stretched out farther. She wouldn’t ask again.
Nina swallowed and pressed the note to her heart. But eventually, inevitably, she handed it to her grandmother. And, like the parchment was an errant piece of kindling, Celeste immediately tossed it into the fire, ignoring the way her granddaughter fought sudden tears as she watched the paper singe and curl as it caught aflame.
“Now,” Celeste said. “I want to meet my namesake.”
She leaned over the carrier, and Nina fought the urge to yank the baby away from this family’s inspection. Suddenly, she wanted to run her back to the elevator and into the Escalade, away from anyone who might and probably would find her wanting. She was perfect and always would be. In all her imperfections.
“Oh, God, finally. There you are, princess.”
Celeste and Nina straightened at the sound of Calvin’s voice. Was that irritation on Celeste’s face, or just her normal dissatisfaction with most people? It had been a long time. Nina found she couldn’t quite tell.
“Where have you been?” Calvin hissed as he hurried to stand beside Celeste—beside her, not his supposed new family. He was overdressed in white tie, while Nina knew most of the men in the salon would probably be in suits appropriate for a cocktail party. Was he taking his cues from Upstairs, Downstairs? Did he think the New York upper class changed into formalwear before every meal?
Nina forced her face to remain blank. Calvin had appeared in the hospital exactly once after the baby was born, wondered aloud why she looked like a “wimpy little slug,” and then promptly left for another “business trip” that had taken him to God-knows-where for the rest of the time the baby was in the NICU and Nina was praying for her life.
“Did you expect me to do this alone?” he asked her. “Your entire family is in there wondering where you are.”
“Calm yourself,” Grandmother ordered, leaning away from him slightly, as if he exuded some kind of stench she wanted to escape. “She has a new child. And it’s Christmas. We can be a bit more forgiving, can we not?”
Nina simply ignored him as well as the idea that anyone in her family could be the slightest bit forgiving. She hadn’t forgotten what had happened three nights earlier. The way he had stumbled into her room sometime past two, swimming in bourbon. The way he had collapsed onto her bed and fumbled around the duvet, grasping for her bare limbs while mumbling something about “doctors” and “more than six weeks” and “done waiting.” And then he had promptly passed out.
Nina had spent every night since in the nursery.
“It seemed easier to make our entrance once she was already asleep,” Nina said. And then, because she couldn’t help it: “She is precious, isn’t she?”
“She is,” Celeste admitted as she bent over the tiny bundle. “Quite beautiful, really.”
“Just like her great-grandmother,” Calvin ventured, wet-mouthed.
Celeste did not look impressed. Nina could have told her idiot husband that naked compliment wouldn’t curry her grandmother’s favor any better than hopping around her shoulder like a pigeon would, but she doubted it would do any good. Celeste valued acumen and competency in her men. Calvin seemed to have neither.
Nina reached down and picked her daughter up. The baby cooed slightly in her arms and smacked her