“Yes,” I said. “I think I will come for a brief dip. Let me just go upstairs and change.”
Chapter Sixteen
“It’s just a swimsuit,” I told my reflection for the fourth time. “Everyone wears them.”
Everyone except you.
Lord. My internal monologue was really getting out of control.
I’d been in this room for forty-five minutes and I’d changed in and out of these two bits of fabric four times. Every time I turned to leave, I’d come right back and strip it off in favor of another sundress. And then when I got to the door, Olivia’s eager, surprised face and the flash of lust on Matthew’s would turn me on my heel. Back on went the suit.
“It’s a suit,” I muttered. “You’re not Lady Godiva. You’re still dressed, for God’s sake.”
And it was true. The white bikini was tasteful. Unremarkable. No more revealing than anything others would wear. Yes, the floor-length white cover-up I wore over it was sheer and open, but it was still floor-length. Beyond that, I’d pulled my hair back in a neat bun at the top of my head and kept my jewelry to its quiet minimum with only my wedding rings, a pair of diamond studs, and the small pendant around my neck that had been a gift from my father when I graduated high school.
“No one will notice anything,” I told myself through my teeth. I blinked. I was lying. And terribly too.
Because the truth was, this was more of my body anyone in my family or circle of friends had seen in ten years. I would walk down to that patio and they would all stop and gawk. Gin-soaked comments would be made, like: “Aren’t you the cute little showgirl?” or “My, my, who are we trying to impress?”
I’d become the one thing I’d tried never to be: a spectacle.
Anxiously, I toyed with my necklace as I turned from side to side, examining myself. I had nothing to be ashamed of, after all. Daily sessions with a trainer on top of spinning classes, Pilates, and Barre kept everything perfectly tight along with the balanced, carefully allotted calories Marguerite provided. I might have been thirty and a mother, but everything was still, for the most part, where it had been for the last decade. And I intended to keep it that way, thank you.
Sometimes I had to remind myself I was still only thirty. Only half of my childhood friends were even married, and even if they were, many still lived like they were ten years younger. Lounging around in the smallest scraps, their bodies waxed, polished, and, yes, artificially inflated in some parts. Never too lavish. Never cheap. But always on display for their husbands, their lovers. Always there for someone’s pleasure, even if it was just to look.
I, on the other hand, had been prim and proper to the point of eccentric. Everyone believed me when I said it was for my daughter. For my family. That I had a role to fill. No one questions statements like that when they’re coming from a family like mine. The de Vrieses didn’t just follow the rules of propriety—we made them. And so, if the granddaughter of Celeste de Vries intimated that it was improper for a young mother to wear a string bikini, no one whispered a word against it. No one wondered if the expensive cover-ups hid more than just maternal body. No one checked for bruises.
No one had ever bothered to look beneath.
Until him.
I pulled the sheer fabric aside. There was a shadow of one bruise still lingering on my thigh, but it was practically gone now. The worst was the one on my inner thigh, but I could keep that hidden if I just kept my legs together.
I chuckled. That sounded like an admonishment I would have received from Grandmother before coming out.
A lady keeps her legs crossed, Nina.
I shook my head. I wasn’t a lady. Not anymore. Maybe not ever.
With a bit of defiance, I grabbed my lipstick off the vanity and held it up. I had thrown another tube of this at Matthew in the middle of the street…and then replaced it the following day. Never in my life had I worn this color until I met that man, and I hadn’t worn it in over two months. Not since I had last seen him.
I shook my head. I shouldn’t. Really. But even as the thought crossed my mind, I found myself drawing the deep crimson carefully over my pouted