Page 100 of The Honest Affair

What. The. Hell?

Kate leaned across Frankie and touched Nina’s hand to get her attention. “I love your fascinator, by the way. Very Jackie-O.”

I exhaled with a bit of relief. Okay, so not everyone was going to be a giant bitch today.

Nina smiled gratefully. “Thank you.”

“Doesn’t make it all right for you to be here, though. Not after everything you’ve done to my brother.”

“Yo!” I snapped as Nina’s face practically fell to the floor.

“Matthew, perhaps I should go,” she said.

Without even thinking this time, I grabbed her hand. “What? No. I asked you here. I didn’t know the vultures would descend the second we showed up. In a church for God’s sake.”

“Why? Wasn’t she married in one?”

It was Lea who said it, of course. Right now she was staring at Nina’s and my joined hands like we were about to torch the entire church.

“Aw, give her a break, Lea,” Joni broke in from Nonna’s other side. “I read in the Post that her husband is a real jerk and won’t let her go. Like I said last night, it’s not all her fault.”

So, that was it. The harpies hadn’t said a word to me about Nina over the last year or more since most of them had seen her last, but that didn’t mean they weren’t gossiping about us behind my back, especially since someone obviously told them she was coming today. And since everyone (especially Frankie) knew Nina was still married, they also apparently knew the shitty press version of the events. Fan-fuckin’-tastic.

I turned to question Frankie, who was messing with her bracelet, which looked perfectly fine. When she finally looked up, it was with a casual shrug, as if to say, “What did you expect?”

And with that, guilt punched me in the gut.

I should have known better than to do it like this. I should have prepared them first. I should have prepared her. I was just so damn starstruck, blown over by the fact that Nina de Vries had actually agreed to be my wife one day, and that she was finally ready to make it real. I’d stupidly believed my sisters and grandmother would be equally happy once they knew.

But somehow I had forgotten that at any sign of a threat, my family went from puppies to a pack of Dobermans, all snapping at the slight hint of a threat to the family sanctuary. When Joni and Marie started dating, Lea had been known to interview their boyfriends, and had actually asked one of Marie’s for a resume. Hell, I’d casually threatened more than once to pass some of my sisters’ boyfriends’ names on to my contact with the NYPD—and that was tame compared to some of the shakedowns I’d delivered as a mouthy teenager with an anger problem.

Once again, the pack mentality was out in full, right here in the middle of the church. It had just been a while—a really long while—since I’d been with anyone on the receiving end of it.

“I’m sorry,” Nina spoke up. “I don’t understand. Did I do something—”

“Yes, you did something wrong,” Lea snapped, apparently not caring at all that other parishioners were watching us curiously, or that her voice was echoing around the marble columns. “You took my brother for a ride. You wrapped him around that little lacy finger of yours and made him fall in love with you. And then you ruined his life. He lost his job because of you, did you know that?”

I turned around to glare at Frankie. This time she lifted her chin right back at me. Yeah, she wasn’t happy about any of this either. That little brat organized this entire coup.

“So, he lost his whole career, everything he cared about, not to mention you wrecked him for other women who could actually make him happy,” Marie counted out methodically on her fingers.

“And every time he thinks he’s rid of you, somehow you come waltzing back to stick your claws into him all over again,” finished Joni.

“I think that about covers it, don’t you?” Kate asked sweetly.

“I—I—” Nina looked at me helplessly. “Matthew, I—”

“It’s not just that,” Frankie said. “He’s been moping around this city for almost a year at this point, pining for a woman he can’t have.”

“No offense, Nina. You’re fabulous and everything, but you shouldn’t be here,” Joni said.

“Ever,” Kate added.

In the middle of all of them, Nonna crossed her arms, presiding over them like a hen over her chicks while they pecked the hell out of a corncob. What did that make me? Used fuckin’ corn?

I snatched my hat and jacket off the pew. “That’s how you feel? Fine, then. We’re going. We don’t need this.”

I started towing Nina toward the aisle, ignoring the resistance on her end.

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