Page 125 of The Honest Affair

“So, what do you think, Zola,” Skylar asked. “Are you ready to convert and become a Bostonian?”

I snorted. “Easy there, tiger. We’ve been here for literally a day.”

“I don’t think Matthew will ever be able to root for the Red Sox, Brandon,” Nina said with a smirk. “He’s a Yankees fan, so far as I can tell.”

“Well, ask him again after I take him to Fenway next weekend,” Brandon replied.

“You can’t beat Yankee Stadium,” I countered. “I’m sorry, but it’s not possible.”

The second Sterling had heard I’d lost my job, I’d gotten a call from Skylar insisting I come work for her. It had taken me a few months to come around on the idea (and yes, the promise of a very nice paycheck had helped). But what was I if not a to-the-bone New Yorker? What was my purpose if not to root out the poison in the city of my birth?

But that wasn’t an option, at least not for a while. And I knew Nina wanted nothing more than to finish her degree in art history at Wellesley. So, I applied for a reciprocity waiver of the Massachusetts bar, finally allowed, and within a few months, I was officially licensed to practice in two states. I even allowed Nina to pay off the mortgage on the Red Hook house so Sofia and Frankie could have the place to themselves. It was a fresh start for us as a new family, beyond the shadow of the city. And one I had to admit would do us a lot of good.

This mid-sized craftsman that was approximately one quarter the size of her penthouse. Which didn’t have a staff quarters or eight bedrooms or seven bathrooms or even a small percentage of the amenities Nina had grown up with.

“It feels like a home,” Nina said again when I asked her why she wanted to live there instead of any number of mansions she could have purchased with the sale of the penthouse.

And I, of course, loved her all the more for it.

Before Brandon and I could continue our ongoing argument about which baseball institution was better, the sound of the doorbell filtered through the house.

“I’ll get it.” I left my drink on the table and jogged back through the house to answer the door.

“Hi!” Jane squealed, and tackled me with a hug as soon as I opened the screen door.

“Hey.” I hugged her back, but then set her aside carefully. “Calm down there, sweetheart. You can’t shake the bun too much while it’s baking, you know?”

About a month ago, Eric and Jane had announced their pregnancy. Now my friend was both expecting and about to start her own program at FIT. Eric just continually looked over the damn moon every time he looked at her.

“This is a surprise,” I said as I shook his hand.

“I felt bad we couldn’t help with the move,” he said. “But we brought a pretty good housewarming gift.” He gestured to the man in the brown suit. “Where’s Nina?”

* * *

A few minutes later,we were all crowded on the back porch again while Thomas Clark, the estate attorney and executor of Celeste de Vries’s estate, introduced himself and proceeded to take out a large document from his briefcase and set it on top of the tablecloth. Jane looked like she wanted to explode from glee. Eric just kept shaking his head like he couldn’t believe it.

“She did it to you too,” he said. “Just you wait.”

“Did what?” Nina asked.

“You’ll see, coz. You’ll see.”

“First,” he said, “I have to apologize. This was a very unorthodox way of handling her trust, but Mrs. de Vries was quite insistent when she asked me to draw up her affairs.”

Nina frowned. “I don’t know what you mean.”

“There was another part of the will,” Eric supplied, almost as if he couldn’t help himself. “You’re getting more. So much more than you thought, Nina.”

“Wait, what?” Nina stuttered. “I don’t understand. Mr. Clark, you told me that if my ex-husband and I split up, I would get nothing. My marriage was very important to my grandmother. She hated scandal of any kind.”

“I said that if you separated from Mr. Gardner, your inheritance was to be frozen,” countered the lawyer. “And that there was nothing about your divorce in the document I gave you. I said nothing about this one, because it was to be kept secret until your divorce was finalized.”

He pushed the document in front of us, and we both leaned over to read along as he intoned from a second copy.

In the eventthat my granddaughter, Nina Gardner nee de Vries, divorces her husband before my original trust is probated, I wish to amend my original bequest to include the following:

To Nina de Vries, my beloved granddaughter: exactly fifty percent of my personal stake in De Vries Shipping Industries, which at the time of this writing accounts for approximately twenty-four point five percent of the controlling shares of De Vries Industries, under the following stipulations:

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