Page 115 of Begin Again
With her hands in mine, I pull her to stand before me. Tucking a strand of hair behind her ear, I kiss her. “Nina, I don’t want you to walk away from this if it’s not what you want. This company, the work being done here…it’s all you. You’ve taken what your dad started and grown it into something greater. I can’t…No, I won’t ask you to walk away from it.”
“But you and Elena—”
“Will always be here.” I wrap my hand around the side of her neck and my thumb grazes her cheek. “We’re not going anywhere. What I said before…it wasn’t fair. I’m sorry. You have always made us a priority. Always. I shouldn’t have ever suggested otherwise.” She melts into my embrace when I kissher again, hands gripping the front of my polo. “I only want you to step down if that’s whatyouwant. If that’s what will make you happy.”
Tears brim in her green eyes, and she rolls her lips between her teeth, looking away. I know she doesn’t want to walk away, not yet. Maybe in a few years, but she’s not ready.
“Nina, the board is—Oh!” The door flies open when her assistant, Sydney, walks in. “I’m sorry, I didn’t see you come in, Nick. Still gonna have to get used to seeing you again.”
I chuckle. “Good to see you too, Syd.”
Nina wipes under her eyes and takes a step back. “I’m on my way, Syd.Due minuti.”
Sydney nods, agreeing to the two-minute request, and closes the door behind her.
When Nina looks back at me, she smiles. Before she can say anything, I close the gap between us. She gasps when I deepen the kiss, her fingers raking over my shoulders. A satisfied hum fills the air when we part.
“I have to go,” she whispers, wiping the corner of her lips.
I wipe my lips, pulling away to find some of her red lipstick on my hand.
“Red looks good on you,Fossette.” She giggles.
“Go to your meeting,” I say, ushering her out of the room with a smack on her ass.
When Nina reaches the door, she looks back and holds her hand to me. I take it, walking her down the hallway to the conference room. Standing outside the door, I see the way her shoulders begin to tense.
“Hey,” I say, turning her to face me. “Relax, you have nothing to worry about. Whatever you decide, I’m right here. My life is wherever you are. Whether that’s here in New York or Haven or Winchester.”
Her shoulders loosen and she smiles when I repeat the same words I said seven years ago when I found her in Central Park and asked her to marry me. I meant them then, just as I mean them now. No matter where life takes her, next to her is where I want to be. As long as I’m by her side, that’s enough for me.
“Ti amo, Fossette.”
“Ti amo,Dee,”I whisper, kissing her again.
“Oh, before I forget.” Nina pauses mid-step. “There’s something I need your help with. I left it in that conference room,” she says, pointing to the door two down from the one she’s about to walk into. “Can you work on putting it back together for me?”
“What is it?”
“You’ll see,” she says with a soft smile, kissing my cheek. Nina takes a deep breath before walking through the door Sydney holds open. Before it closes, I hear her begin, “Good afternoon, everyone. There are a few things I’d like to discuss before we get to the quarterly numbers...”
Twisting the knob of the conference room door, I’m shocked to see thethingI’m supposed to help my wife put back together. “What are you doing here?”
My little brother looks up from his folded hands where he sits at the other end of the table. He looks disheveled like he hasn’t been sleeping much. His normally clean-shaven face bears a few days’ worth of scruff.
I grip the back of the chair at the head of the table and stare down at him, still waiting for some answer to my question. “Well?”
Alex looks back down at his folded hands. “Nina called.”
Why am I not surprised? Of course, she would try and fix this. Still, I ask, “Why would she call you?”
“Because she wants us to fix this.”
The air between us is thick, awkward, and weird. It’s never been this way between my brother and me, ever. We’ve been by each other’s side for over three decades, but there has never been this much tension. Not even the one time I punched him because he wasrightabout the reason Nina was upset with me—you know, the whole Brina and Nina’s ex-boyfriend thing—but I didn’t want to hear it. Not even then was there this suffocating awkwardness.
“There’s only one way to fix this, Alex, and until you apolo—”
“I apologized.”
