noticing Celeste’s less-than-immaculate appearance to reply. It wasn’t like her grandmother to refuse a glass of wine. Her Hermés scarf, her hair, her nails—that was all in order. But something about Celeste didn’t quite look her normally polished self.
“Grandmother,” Nina said. “Are you quite well?”
“Quite,” Celeste responded, perhaps a little too sharply. “Are you?”
Her gray eyes glinted as she cast up and down Nina’s body, clearly looking for remnants of Olivia—a bit of spit-up, maybe a stain or two. No luck. Not this time, anyway.
“I couldn’t believe it,” Celeste continued, “when your husband mentioned you were still doing…that”—she waved a disdainful hand in the direction Olivia had gone—“after more than six months. You’re depriving that child of solid food, Nina.”
Nina reared, dander raised all over again. “Grandmother, the doctors say Olivia will need milk or formula as her primary food source until she is at least one.”
“Then formula it should be. You were raised on it, as was your mother. I won’t have you ruining your looks just for the sake of your child whose needs can be met otherwise. This family has appearances to keep up, girl.”
And there it was. The outright decree that first and foremost, the purpose of the de Vries women was to look pretty and act properly.
“So, of course, when your husband mentioned your habit, we came straight over,” Celeste concluded.
Nina nearly choked on her bite of salad. “Calvin reported me to you for feeding my own daughter?”
Violet snorted in a most unladylike way, but quickly covered it before she caught too much of her mother’s ire. “Goodness, no. He came because he wanted more of Mother’s money. Another ten million dollars at least, he said.”
Nina’s mouth opened and closed several times. “He wanted what?”
Caitlyn studied her plate, rearranging her vegetables in row after row. Violet snickered behind her wineglass.
Celeste, however, merely arched a silver brow. “You didn’t know?”
“Didn’t know what?” Nina asked. “About today’s request? Or that they amounted to that much?”
“About the multiple monetary requests your husband has made over the past year.” Celeste tipped her head. “After the gift you made from your own trust, I assumed you were aware of the others. Now that he has exhausted the allowances the board gave him from your fund, he has come to me.”
Nina shook her head vigorously as she took a long drink of water. “No, I—no, Grandmother, I assure you I did not know.”
“What is this business he’s doing, Nina?” Violet wondered. “It was very strange the way he appeared. He was sweating all over Garrett when he came into the parlor to talk to Mother, but when he saw me there, he didn’t want to say.” She tossed back a bit more of her wine and giggled lightly to herself. “It took us ages to get anything out of him.”
Celeste rolled her eyes while Caitlyn hid a smile behind her napkin.
“His business, Nina,” Celeste said. “What is it?”
Nina sighed. Most of the time her mother’s semi-permanent state of minor intoxication was only slightly annoying. Right now, though, Nina wanted to shove her back into the elevator.
“I—it’s a real estate venture, I believe,” she said, stumbling slightly.
“Yes, I know that. But I failed to see how anything in the business proposal he submitted last year explains a need for the kind of additional funding he wants. Do you know what it is?”
“It’s—I—” Nina’s cheeks reddened. She really knew very little about what Calvin was doing with their money beyond his claims of “flipping properties,” largely because she simply didn’t care. “He needed something to do, Grandmother. How is this any different from Mother’s charities, or even my father’s ventures?”
Violet coughed into her drink. “Your father?” she asked. “Are you really comparing your husband of less than a year to a man I’ve been married to for more than twenty-five?”
“Well, at least Calvin is here,” Nina snapped, hardly believing that she was defending him. Still, her parents’ so-called marriage was a joke, and everyone knew it.
He’ll be gone in a month! she wanted to shout. You don’t need to worry about this anymore! But of course, no one in this room knew of the arrangement. No one ever could know.
“Nina Evelyn Astor de Vries Gardner,” pronounced Celeste, emphasizing the final name as if to remind Nina that she was not technically part of the de Vries family any longer. “Do you mean to tell me that this family has funneled nearly ten million dollars to your husband, and you have no clue what