“Oh, for goodness’ sake.” She pushed several pieces of pasta around on her plate until finally sitting back with a huff. “Just what do you think I’m hiding?”
“I don’t know. You look like you. He looks like him. Something doesn’t add up.”
“You clearly haven’t spent much time in my part of town,” she said dryly.
“It’s the norm for a jailbait socialite to run off with a guy who looks like a shoe?”
“My husband is middle-aged,” Nina snapped. “It happens. Does that mean I should love him any less?”
“Maybe not if I thought you loved him at all.”
“Stop it.”
“Come on, Nina. Women like you don’t just marry men like him,” I rattled on. “You were the heiress, not the other way around, so it’s not like you needed the money. If anything, old Calvin’s the gold digger in this situation.”
Nina pushed her chair back with a screech that startled a few other people eating around us. The restaurant dimmed slightly as she stood.
“I think I’ve had enough,” she said. “Matthew, it was definitely not a pleasure. And if you want to do any more digging into my personal history, you won’t have my help. Good night.”
Before I could answer, she turned on her three-inch heel and walked away.
“Nina,” I called as she strode out of the restaurant. “Goddammit, Nina, wait!”
“Is everything all right, sir?” The hostess appeared.
I watched Nina yank her coat from the rack at the front of the restaurant. “Shit. I mean, no, thank you. We’re going to have to cut this short.” I flipped a couple of bills onto the table. “That should cover the meal and the tip. Tell Noel I said hello.”
“But, sir, your second course.”
“Box everything up. I’ll come back for it.” I dodged around the tables and servers, grabbed my own coat and hat off the front rack, and chased Nina onto Tenth Avenue.
Chapter Ten
“Hey!” I called as I caught up with her. “I’m getting a little tired of chasing you onto the street, Mrs. Gardner!”
Nina whirled around with a face full of fire. “Well, I’m getting a little tired of you throwing insults at me like Molotov cocktails, Mr. Zola!”
I held my hands up in surrender. “Whoa, whoa, whoa. I’m sorry, all right? I’m just trying to help your family.”
“No, you’re not!” Now that Nina had gotten started, she wasn’t stopping. “You didn’t ask me a single question about the two people you’re claiming to help. Any discussion of Eric came as an afterthought, and John Carson didn’t come up once. You took advantage of the fact that I care about my cousin a great deal to lure me to this dinner and force me to—”
“Force you to what?” I prodded. “Eat fresh pasta and drink some decent wine?”
“Divulge my life story to a perfect stranger!”
I took a step back like I’d been slapped in the face.
“Stranger?” I asked. “I’m a perfect stranger? Is that what you usually say to a man who’s been eight inches deep?”
Her hand flew out and met my cheek with a crack hard enough to throw my jaw to one side.
“You,” Nina seethed, “are no gentleman.”
I worried my jaw, my hand touching the mark she’d no doubt left there. “Baby,” I growled, “you got that right.”
And then, before I could stop myself, I snaked a hand around her waist and kissed her.
It wasn’t a nice kiss. Not even close. More like something to take the fuckin’ edge off. Like we were junkies feening for our next hit, and once it was offered all we would do was jab the needle in deep.
Soon both of us were clawing at each other right there on the street. Mouths feasting, tongues warring, hands grabbing, pawing, smacking at each other. I hadn’t realized how much I needed it until that moment.
I was tired of talking. It was all just bullshit. I didn’t want to act like a nice guy when I wasn’t. I didn’t want her to pretend she was innocent when she wasn’t.
We were both angry. Maybe more at ourselves than at each other, if we were being honest. But for the first time all week, maybe in months, that anger had somewhere to go, and the hell if it didn’t feel fuckin’ great.
“Mmmph!”
Nina’s fingers gripped at my shirt collar hard enough to choke. That, of course, only turned me on more.
“Stop.” Her breath was a hiss, shaking her entire body.
“You stop,” I growled again. “And let me kiss you, goddamn it.”
But before my mouth could find hers again, she shoved me away. Her own chest heaved with the action, though the hand on my collar couldn’t quite let go. I stared at her lips—swollen, puckered, still dewy from the kiss.
I stretched out my jaw. “Nina…”
“I…I…” She was staring at my mouth too, like she was starving and I was the buffet.
Yeah, baby. I know the feeling.
I leaned in. The hand at my collar tugged me closer. But right when I was about to hit money all over again, she started to sputter.
“What—what—we—no!”
Suddenly, with both hands on my chest now, she pushed hard enough to make me fall back on my heels, then ducked out from under my outstretched arms. Her chest still rose with the effort of each inhale, but she had wrapped her arms across her body like she was barring me from entry to her person.
“D-don’t chase me. Please, Matthew. Don’t.”
I considered ignoring her. Christ, lust was ringing in my ears like an entire fuckin’ bell tower. A chorus, not a solo, and deafening at that. But it was the look on her face that stopped me in the end. There was desire, sure—she couldn’t get rid of it that easily. But the heat was written over with fear. Chilling. Cold.
Nina’s eyes were ice-glazed moons in the night air, blinking steadily, like she hoped she might only be stuck in a dream. Like she was willing herself awake, over and over again.
Like I was a nightmare.
I held out my hands. “Hey, hey. It’s okay. Nina, it’s okay.” I spoke slowly, like I was approaching a spooked animal. “Baby, I won’t do anything, all right?”
“D-don’t call me that.” She stuck out her chin. “I’m not your baby. I’m not anyone’s baby.”
The bitterness at the end of that sentence punched me in the gut.
“Oh, really?” I asked. “What about that husband of yours?”
“Do not bring Calvin into this. Not after that. We are happily married, and you just kissed me!”
“You really think I believe that? No one kisses another man this way when they’re happy with the one they’ve got!”
“Fine!” she spluttered. “What do you want me to say? That we can’t stand each other? That we fight like cats and dogs? Would you like me to tell you that he beats me too and ties me to bed posts for fun? That he locks me in a dungeon like a princess just waiting for rescue?”
My skin prickled. “Is it true?” Just the possibility turned me feral.
She scoffed like it was an insane notion. “Are you crazy?”