More Than Words

She wondered whether he’d bought Narcissus years ago to remind himself to keep his vanity in check.

Clearly it hadn’t worked.

67

When Gene dropped her off in the country that night, Nina took in a lungful of chilly air. After the day she’d had, being out of the city felt good. She needed time to process, to breathe, to decide what to say to Rafael. She knew she had to tell him about her father’s crime—she wouldn’t be like her dad, keeping secrets from people she cared about. But she was afraid of what that would mean. Maybe he would turn around and leave. Maybe this thing between them would be over before it really began. But even knowing a difficult conversation was ahead, the idea of seeing him again, being close to him, thrilled her.

Nina walked into the house and flicked on the light. There were some olives in the refrigerator. The remains of the bottle of wine she and Tim had started. She couldn’t help but think about how she’d agreed to marry him the last time she was here. How she’d found her mother’s letter. She’d been a different person than she was now.

As she walked up the stairs with her overnight bag, Nina decided that it was time for her to take over the master bedroom. Partly because the house was hers now, and partly because she didn’t want to have to think about how she and Tim had had sex in her bedroom. Didn’t want to think about Tim at all, if she could help it. She already felt terrible about what happened between them. Ashamed. And guilty. But it also felt right.

Had Tim said anything to his parents yet? Had TJ said anything to Caro? She wondered if either of them would call her. Or if they’d go from family to employees to nothing at all.

Nina started unpacking her bag into the dresser and closet in her parents’ old room, moving her mom’s clothing to one side and taking over the other herself. There weren’t many of her father’s things there. As she put away her socks, she heard the doorbell ring.

When she got downstairs, Rafael was smiling at her through the window.

Nina opened the door and he stepped inside.

“Nice house,” he said, looking around. He put a duffel bag down on the floor. For the first time since she’d met him, Rafael looked unsure of himself. Nervous, almost.

“Thanks,” Nina said, nervous herself, leaning in to give him a quick kiss on the lips.

He embraced her, then pulled back and looked at her for a beat, tipping her chin up with his fingers. “What’s wrong?”

She leaned against him, pulling strength from his arms, which were now wrapped around her. “Remember how I told you I found out some things about my dad? Some surprises?” she said, her head nestled against his shoulder blade.

“Mm-hm,” he said, “like this house.”

“Right.” Nina breathed the musk and spice of Rafael’s cologne. “Well, I found out one more secret today. At the office.”

She felt his body tense, as if he were physically steeling himself for the news.

“What is it?” he asked.

Nina pulled away. Sat down on one of the kitchen chairs. “I don’t think it’ll come out. But if it does . . .” She was staring at the torn cuticle on her thumb. She couldn’t face him. “My father embezzled money from the Gregory Corporation. And TJ—the CEO who had a hand in it, Tim’s dad, actually—is retiring. I told him he had to.”

Rafael took a deep breath. Nina looked away from her cuticle. “Whoa,” he said, shaking his head, sitting down beside her. “What was your father thinking?”

“Pride,” she said. “He was saving his pride.”

“That’s crazy,” Rafael said, still shaking his head.

Nina bit her lip. “He started to pay it back, kind of, but that doesn’t change anything.” She took in a breath, knew she had to face this. “If it ever gets out,” she said, “I could be a liability. Mac would say you shouldn’t date me. Ever.” Every muscle in Nina’s body was coiled tight, waiting for his response.

He didn’t hesitate. Rafael leaned in and kissed her. “My political ambitions don’t trump my happiness,” he said. “I was happy being a lawyer. I could be happy doing a number of different things. But I’d never be happy knowing I was the kind of man who abandoned a woman because of something her father did. What your father did doesn’t change how I feel about you.”

Nina slid closer to him and pressed her lips to his neck. “I think you might be the best person I have ever met,” she said.

“If I am, it’s because you bring out the best in me,” he said into her hair.

Then Nina took his hand and led him up the stairs.

68

When they stepped inside the master bedroom, the bed so obviously the centerpiece of the space, Rafael said, “You know, we don’t have to sleep together tonight.”

Nina tilted her head up and kissed him again. This time, the kiss was soft, a thank-you and an invitation all at once. “We can do whatever feels right,” she said. “We don’t have to worry about how things will look up here—there’s no one but us.” Nina was floored by this man. This man who could accept all of her, who could forgive the baggage that she brought. Would reinvent his dreams for her.

“How freeing,” Rafael said, stepping farther into the room.

“I know,” she answered, running her fingers along the top of the dresser. “I understand now why my mom liked it here so much. It’s like a secret hideaway.”

“This was your house when you were a kid,” Rafael said, picking up the photograph of Nina as a newborn asleep on her mother’s chest.

“Sort of,” Nina told him. “It was my mom’s—my dad bought it for her. We stopped coming after she died.”

Rafael came up behind Nina and ran his hand down her arms, his fingers fluttering against her skin.

She rested her head against his chest and closed her eyes.

“Se te están pegando las pestañas,” he said, tucking her short hair behind her ears. It was just long enough to stay put.

Nina smiled. She hadn’t heard anyone use that phrase in years. Literally, your eyelashes are sticking together. Her mom used to say that when Nina was young, trying to stay awake past her bedtime, fighting sleep even though she was about to pass out. Hearing it, she realized how tired she was. “I’m exhausted,” she said, stifling a yawn.

“I’m pretty beat, too,” he answered, resting his chin on the top of her head. “It’s late. Maybe we should turn in for the night.”

Nina let the feeling of closeness, of intimacy, melt through her. She imagined what it would feel like to be wrapped in his arms, under the covers. Then she stepped away from him and turned her head. “Would you mind unzipping me?” she asked.

Nina felt his warm fingers graze her neck as he grabbed hold of the zipper pull.

She wasn’t sure if she should take her dress off in front of him, but then Rafael walked across the room, hung his suit jacket on the back of the rocking chair, and started unbuttoning his shirt. She could see the azabache dangling from the back of his collar. In response, Nina slid her arms out of her dress and let it fall to the floor, slipping off her heels as she stepped out of the pool of patterned satin. She was wearing nothing but a nude bra and white lace underwear.

“So that’s what you look like,” Rafael said, taking off his pants.

When he was free of them, standing in front of Nina in a pair of gray boxer briefs, she echoed his words. “So that’s what you look like.”

Nina could feel a heat thrumming deep inside her, a heightened awareness of Rafael sharing her space, breathing her air. After what she’d told him, after what he’d said . . .

“Bedtime?” she asked, climbing under the covers in only her underwear.

“Bedtime,” Rafael answered, climbing in next to her.

Nina turned out the light, so grateful to be with him, so glad that her day was ending like this. The room was inky black—there was no ambient light to filter through the windows. It took a while for Nina to be able to see the outline of Rafael’s profile next to her. Soon his long eyelashes came into focus, his sharp nose. She reached out, tracing his body from his shoulder down to his hip.

Rafael responded by running his fingers down her torso, too.

Nina rolled herself sideways, so she was facing Rafael.

“This feels like a big deal,” she said, confessions coming easier in the darkness.

“I was just thinking the same thing,” he told her. “I feel like I’m about to lose my virginity all over again.”

Nina laughed. “Who was she?”

“Brenda Caruso,” he said. “The summer after my senior year of high school. We both worked scooping ice cream at Coney Island the year the Brooklyn Cyclones started playing at MCU Park. We had sex under the boardwalk, like that song by the Drifters.”

A wave of jealousy washed through Nina. “Can we do that?” she asked.

“Well,” he said, “maybe not at Coney Island, but I’m sure we can find a quiet boardwalk somewhere. What about you? What was your first time like?”

“I’m boring,” she said. “It was my college boyfriend, Max. We met during freshman year and had sex in his dorm room while his roommate was away for the weekend. It was the first time for both of us. He pretended he wasn’t nervous, but we admitted to each other later how afraid we both were that it would be awful, that we would be awful, that we’d disappoint each other.”