restricted to just the city. It was clear to me that he was trying desperately to cover up whatever business he was doing that he didn’t want Matthew to discover, though I couldn’t have said for sure, given that he did most of it outside the apartment.
I had honestly thought he’d forgotten about it. Apparently not.
“A nice white wedding would certainly help things,” added Merrick unhelpfully. “Pretty wife all in white. Little girl. Make you look like a family man. There are all sorts of ways to manipulate the press.”
“I—” I swallowed. I had no idea what to say to these two men who were examining me much as they might a mannequin in the displays at Bergdorf’s. “I really don’t know. Don’t you think it’s a bit…much?”
Calvin looked between me and Merrick irritably. My insides shrank. I knew that look. That look was not good.
Merrick stood and packed his briefcase quickly. “I should be going. Gardner, I’ll see you at my office tomorrow morning. We need to go over the rest of the files they sent today. There are a few things I think we can get thrown out if we play our cards right.”
Calvin nodded, his beady eyes still firmly on me. “Tomorrow.”
We waited tensely until Merrick left. Then I edged my thigh away from his sweaty touch.
Wrong move.
His chair screeched on the floor as he suddenly swept around and caged me against the table.
“What did I say?” he demanded in a low, nasty voice tinged with vodka. “What do I always say? Don’t. Embarrass. Me.”
“Calvin,” I said quietly. “Please. Olivia is here.”
“Unless you’d like me to bring up your part in all of this. I’m sure that smarmy DA would love to learn how you and the great de Vries family provided the money that started this whole thing.”
I swallowed. My chest prickled. It was a familiar threat.
Truth: I didn’t exactly know what happened anymore in the houses and buildings purchased in part with the money I had given Calvin from my trust. Massage parlors, he had said once. Adult video stores, he had admitted another time. Nothing illegal. Technically. Perhaps some small-time gambling. But nothing like the first year, he swore up and down. Nothing like the things Carson and Letour had done without his knowledge. And the second he had seen it the night he was photographed, he had walked away.
I wasn’t sure I believed that. I didn’t want to know. Because the other truth was this: If Calvin was locked up and I was too, by virtue of my involvement, Olivia would be alone. She would go to my mother because there was no way that Calvin would change our living will to give Eric and Jane guardianship. She would lose both her parents, not just one.
I couldn’t do that to her, no matter what the cost.
Calvin shoved me against the table hard enough the wood dug painfully into the small of my back.
“I want this wedding, Nina,” he said. “Is that clear?”
His beady eyes stared at me while a drop of sweat lingered over his left brow. My stomach clenched as I braced myself for the slap.
“Is that clear?” he said again.
I still couldn’t bring myself to say yes. I had walked down the aisle to this man once before, my stomach full of knots, a child inside me. The thought of doing it again, in front of everyone I knew? It made me want to vomit right here, all over the heirloom table and Aubusson rugs.
I squeezed my eyes shut, waiting for the inevitable blow. It was always worse when I said no. But instead of doing what he so clearly wanted, Calvin took another tack. He touched my chin with one thick finger—his gesture of tenderness.
“Look, princess. I understand it’s a surprise. But I’ll be honest. The vows—they’re obviously not just for you. I know you wish they were, but they’re not.”
Obviously, I thought. But I didn’t respond.
“The truth is, we need some better PR, like Merrick said. I’m getting hammered in the damn press, Nina, and it’s only going to get worse once this fucking trial starts. The judge hasn’t even set a date. Did you know that oily wop actually filed for an extension of the—whatever the fuck this period is called—and the judge actually gave it to him? It’s all turned against me.”
Resisting the urge to spit in his face at his denigration of Matthew, I only offered the term I knew. From him. “Discovery?”