More Than Words

His touch made her shiver. “I think if you wanted to romance me, burgers and beer and a physics lesson and an escape to the Hudson River Greenway—”

“Isn’t enough,” Rafael finished, seeming disappointed. “I know you’re used to more than that.”

“No,” Nina said. “If you were trying to romance me, this would be just the way to do it.”

Rafael put his hand on top of hers and interlaced their fingers. Nina knew she should take her hand away, should say something about Tim, but she didn’t want to. His hand was so warm. She imagined it caressing her cheek. Don’t, she told herself. But her self-control was weakening.

“You know,” Rafael said, “my whole life I’ve felt like a chameleon. I can be whoever people want me to be. Talk about my family in Ireland, or my family in Cuba. Pepper my conversations with Spanish, switch into it completely, or pretend those words aren’t in my mind at all. I can be the kid who grew up in Queens sharing a bedroom with my sister and brother, or the one who got taken out to the fanciest restaurants in New York City when I was a summer associate at Sullivan and Cromwell.”

Nina tried to concentrate on what he was saying, but her attention was split between his words and the feel of his hand on hers.

“My sister . . . she said she’s always felt wrong. Too Cuban to be Irish, and too Irish to be Cuban. Never the right amount of anything. But me . . . I feel like I can present the right front, the right face, say the right thing, and people see what they want to see in me. I’ve been thinking about what we were talking about in the office, before the burgers. I want to use the speech about my cousin Kevin. I don’t want to be a chameleon anymore. I want to be myself, my whole self, not just who people expect me to be. It might cost me some votes, but I hope the authenticity will gain me some others.”

Nina thought about that. People expected she would act a certain way, too. Mac always thought so. They expected her to be their idea of what it meant to be a Gregory, what it meant to grow up in a world of excess. And as well as she knew Tim, for as long as she’d known Tim, he expected that, too.

“You know,” Nina said. “I’m a Lukas, too.”

“A what?” Rafael asked, his hand still around hers.

“A Lukas,” she said. “My mother’s maiden name. She grew up in Colorado, and her family was from Greece originally, generations ago. That’s really all I know. Not even the island they’re from.”

“You’re Greek!” Rafael said.

“Can I claim it, if I know nothing about it?” Nina asked. She’d been wondering about that for the last week.

“It’s part of your DNA,” Rafael said. “It’s part of your blood. But it takes work to make it part of who you are, I think.”

Nina nodded. “It also takes work not to hide who you are,” she said. “I’m glad you’re going to use the speech about Kevin.”

Rafael looked at her. Their hands were still touching and now their eyes locked. “I feel like I can be myself around you,” he told her. “All of me. I never feel that way. Not even with my ex-wife.”

“I feel like I can be myself around you, too,” Nina said. She was whispering. The pieces of her that felt new, the questions she had—Rafael didn’t seem like he had expectations of who she would be. More like he wanted to learn who she was, deep inside.

“Is that a new earring?” he said, reaching out to touch the pierced cartilage on her left ear.

“Yeah,” she said, her stomach flipping at his touch. “I’d always wanted one. My dad told me not to, but I did it. A few days ago.”

“Well, it looks good,” Rafael said, seeming to weigh exploring what she’d said about her father, then deciding not to.

Everything had gotten so quiet, it seemed like the city had paused, waiting for them to make a confession, to open their hearts to each other after so long.

“I realized that being alone with you might be dangerous that time we rode in the car together to the Norwood Club,” Nina said, knowing she shouldn’t say it, but doing so anyway. “And then I was sure of it when we talked the night my dad died.” Her voice caught in her throat. Tears threatened to spill and she didn’t fight them, because she wasn’t afraid to feel vulnerable any longer. He’d told her his truth; she could tell him hers.

Rafael wrapped his arm around her, and Nina leaned into him, wiping her tears on his coat. “Dangerous how?” he asked.

She felt his strength through the wool. “Dangerous because you make me feel out of control.”

“Is that a good thing?” His voice vibrated against her back.

“I think it might be,” she said. Once she uttered those words, a million thoughts went rushing through her mind. What about Tim? was the first one. The one that rang like church bells in her head. And then: Where do we go from here?

Rafael tightened his arm around her and pulled her close. Nina leaned her head against his shoulder.

“Can we do this again?” Rafael asked, running his fingers along her arm.

“Sit on a bench?” Nina asked. She felt the weight of Tim’s engagement ring around her neck, pressing against her heart under her blouse.

Rafael laughed. “Well, sure,” he said. “But I meant go out. Preferably somewhere with no photographers.”

When Nina didn’t answer, he continued, “Did you . . . did you feel that rush when we were in the same room? The adrenaline and cortisol that races through your body when you’re with someone you have a crush on?”

“Is that what it is? Adrenaline and cortisol?”

Rafael nodded; Nina could feel his chin move against her head. “Yup,” he said. “It means my biology likes your biology.”

Nina closed her eyes as she admitted, softly, “Yes, I felt it.”

Rafael turned his head sideways and kissed her temple.

Her pulse was racing. She wanted to feel his mouth against hers. She wanted to give in, to catch his lip between her teeth, to feel his naked skin beneath her fingers.

He hugged her closer to him, and her engagement ring pressed into them both.

Nina took a deep breath. She had to stop this. “Rafael,” she whispered. “We can’t . . . I can’t . . .”

Rafael pulled away from her, six inches of air now between them where there used to be heat.

“What’s wrong?” he asked.

“I’m still with Tim,” she said. “I’m sorry. It doesn’t change how I feel when I’m with you, but . . .”

“You can’t,” he finished, pulling farther away. It was like someone had dialed up the air conditioning, thrown a switch on the freezer. “I’d hoped . . . I’d hoped that your response when I said I was romancing you, when you put your head on my shoulder . . . I’d hoped it meant you were free to—”

She cut Rafael off, not wanting to feel the guilt, to have to examine her actions.

“I’m sorry,” she said again. “I should’ve been clear. I didn’t mean to . . . I should’ve . . .” She trailed off, not sure where to go. And then she looked at him, focused in on his dark brown eyes with their flecks of gold. “It’s true,” she said. “Everything I told you. It’s all true. I just . . . everything feels so tangled right now.”

He looked at her for a silent moment and then sighed.

“I’m still helping you with your speech tomorrow night, right?” she asked quietly. “And we’re still doing the fund-raiser on Tuesday?”

Rafael took a deep breath and let it out. “Right,” he said.

And then Nina’s phone vibrated. She looked down. As if he had read her mind, it was Tim calling. There were texts, too. Ten or twelve of them that she hadn’t seen. Call me, they all said. Call me now.

“I’m sorry,” Nina said to Rafael. She was worried that something bad had happened to TJ or to Caro—or to Tim himself. “I need to pick this up.”

“Are you okay?” Nina said when she answered the phone.

“What in the hell is going on?” Tim replied. “Twitter just told me that you’re cheating on me. With your ex-boss, in fact. Please tell me Twitter is wrong.”

Nina looked over at Rafael.

Was she going to lie to Tim? Or finally be honest about her feelings for someone else?

“It’s wrong,” she said. “I’ll be right over.”

In her heart, all she could think was: Joseph Gregory’s Daughter Follows in Her Father’s Footsteps.

53

All through the taxi ride to Tim’s apartment, Nina kept trying to figure out what to say to him, how to say it. She’d told Rafael that a picture of them was posted on Twitter, and she was really sorry, but she had to go. They’d talk tomorrow, she’d said. She’d told him that in spite of the crazy photographer and the way it ended, this was the best night she’d had in a long while. And then she’d hailed a cab and asked the driver to take the quickest route to East 10th Street.

I wasn’t cheating, she would say. Which was true. They didn’t kiss. They’d kept their clothes on.

It was just a business dinner. Which was also true. It was. They’d been in the office and went to get a burger. It wasn’t a big deal. As a working woman, as the head of the Gregory Corporation, she’d have business dinners all the time. Tim would understand that. He’d have to understand that.