Nina turned from where she was watching a few tourists in a canoe push away from one of the docks in front of the Boathouse on the Central Park Lake. When Calvin had asked her to meet him at the tourist trap, she’d agreed partly because it was a nice day, and partly because he’d simply been so nice to her in the four weeks following their awkward meeting in Jackson Heights.
Well, perhaps nice wasn’t the right word.
Knowing.
Attentive.
Invested.
These were more accurate, and Nina wasn’t sure how she was supposed to feel about them. But Calvin was the only one who seemed to care what happened to her these days. And he was the only one who understood what was going on beneath the surface since that strange, hot May afternoon.
“I’m sorry?” Nina asked as she pushed a bit of lamb around with her fork. Everything was disgusting right now. “Do something about what?”
Calvin took a large bite of his hamburger, and Nina tried to ignore the way grease pooled slightly at the corner of his mouth or when a fleck of ketchup landed on his shirtfront. His clothes were always stained, either from food like this or the uneven bleach he used to get it out.
Nausea roiled in her stomach.
“Well, you’re getting bigger every day,” Calvin said through a mouthful of meat. “You must have gained an inch around the waist in the last two weeks alone.”
Nina glowered at her salad, as much put off by this man who had known her barely a month inspecting her body like a broodmare, as she was by anything about her being considered “big.” She wanted to ask what right he, a thirty-eight-year-old whose belly looked like it was filled with Jell-O, had to comment on her physique.
That said…he was right. Her waist had lost its perfect twenty-three-inch circumference a long time ago, and in the last four weeks, her breasts had popped a full cup size, to the point she couldn’t zip half her delicately fitted silk dresses or anything else without elastic in her closet. All that couture might as well have been window drapings.
“Go on,” Calvin said, shoving Nina’s plate toward her. “I ordered you the lamb because you need some iron. I read about it on the internet.”
She perked a brow. “You were reading up on what pregnant women need to eat?”
He scoffed through his food. “Someone had to. I can’t trust you to take care of yourself, obviously.”
He made comments like that a lot. Nothing overt, but it was clear what he was talking about. The fact that he had found her, crying, shoeless, and contemplating abortion gave away something critical about her character. And, apparently, its defects.
Nina pushed her fork at her lamb again. She shoved a bit of lettuce into her mouth, chewed, and swallowed. “I’m surprised you had time to research,” she said. “Considering how busy you’ve been with your…property development now, isn’t it? In Newark, right?”
He frowned. Calvin didn’t like it when Nina asked about his business. Nina knew that. She was pushing his buttons now, a little tit for tat.
A few questions around her milieu had informed her that Calvin Gardner was currently “between ventures”—upper-class nomenclature for unemployed. Apparently, he had bounced between hedge funds for several years before deciding recently to dip his toe into real estate—hence his presence in Queens, where he was looking at property when they met. The problem was, he didn’t have the connections to procure the investors he needed.
“Grifter,” one person had said.
“Social climber,” said another.
Well. He wouldn’t win any people to his side if they thought he didn’t belong there in the first place.
Not that he told Nina any of this. The few times she’d asked, Calvin had just clicked his tongue, told her not to worry her little royal head about his business, and changed the subject to the baby in a voice much too loud for her comfort.
Now he barely masked a glare at her before taking another enormous bite of his burger. “God, you really are a princess, aren’t you?” he said through a full mouth. “Can’t do a little research on your own. Think everything about everyone has to be handed to you on a silver platter.”
Nina glared at him. Calvin just chuckled. She watched, cringing as he polished off the rest of his sandwich and tossed his napkin on the plate before wiping his hands on his pants.
“You’re lucky you have someone like me who actually cares about you.”
“I have—” Nina started, but he continued.
“I mean, the next thing you’ll say is that you’re planning to go back to school in the fall.”
The look on Nina’s face must have made it clear that was exactly what she had been planning to do. There were no laws about pregnant women staying out of classrooms.
“Nina, you can’t be serious.” Calvin shook his head, dumbfounded. “What kind of life will this kid come into if its mother doesn’t care enough to prepare for it?” He reached across the table and plucked an untouched potato off her plate. “Now, don’t tell me you’re planning to go back after the birth too. Do you care more about froufy paintings than a baby who needs its mother?”
He snorted, like it was preposterous. Nina kept her mouth closed, unwilling to admit that too was her original plan.
“Since you’ve already decided to flee the father,” Calvin continued, “the least you could do is give it a mother who’s actually present. Or do you want to be like your own? Like mother, like daughter, eh?”
Nina opened her mouth, but nothing came out. All her indignation was suddenly replaced by doubt.
He was right. She didn’t even have a place to live with her baby. She hadn’t given it a single thought.
“Hey, princess.”
Calvin’s voice, suddenly soft, pulled her gaze up. Tears welled, and she hated that she couldn’t stop them. She was everything a de Vries wasn’t: empty of self-control.
He reached out with his soiled napkin and dabbed at her eyes. Nina was too upset to bat it away.
“Calm down,” he said. “Listen, princess. I have a plan. It could save you some grief.” He sat back and looked pointedly at Nina’s still-full plate. “Eat. That wasn’t cheap, you know. At least care enough to nourish your kid.”
Nina didn’t bother telling him that she was more than capable of paying the bill. Instead, she cut a small bit of the lamb, did her best to ignore the nausea rising as she lifted it to her mouth, and waited for Calvin to continue.
“We all know you’ll end up in the papers no matter what—this city loves its royalty, and you, pregnant at twenty, were always going to get some attention.”
The way he said it, like Nina was a specimen they were evaluating together, made her gag. Although that might have also been the mint sauce, which the lamb was absolutely doused in. But she couldn’t deny that, again, Calvin was correct. Even now there were potential photographers meandering through the park, hoping for a glimpse of a celebrity or a socialite. They preferred film or music stars, but they would (and had) settled for someone like her. She and Calvin had avoided the papers thus far, but it was only a matter of time. And when she was visibly showing…
Nina drooped. She’d never have any peace, would she?
The olive farm drifted through her mind. The lazy afternoon. The taste of dry red wine on Peppe’s lips.