Page 49 of The Honest Affair

Beside me, Nina stifled a yawn. I glanced at my watch. It was closing in on five—laughably early for dinner by Italian standards, but pretty damn late for Nina, who looked like she was about to fall over from jet lag.

“If the kitchen’s open, we’ll take dinner in thirty minutes,” I replied with a glance at the menu drawn on a chalkboard by the bar. “Two of the daily specials, every course. And a bottle of your best white wine.”

The landlady’s brow rose with that curious look people get when they smell money. “The best?”

I nodded. “The very best.”

* * *

Two hours later,Nina and I were lounging on the rooftop deck, bellies full of pasta and wine just as the sun was finishing its sojourn below the horizon. Nina’s long legs were splayed out in front of her while she stared up at the sky, looking for stars. I hated to tell her that we probably wouldn’t see any more here than we would in New York. But I supposed she could always hope.

“Ten years,” she groaned sleepily. “It has been more than tenyears since I had a meal that good.” She stretched both arms overhead, then forced herself to sit back up. “Thank you for finding this place. It really is so much better than overpriced room service.”

“Anything for you, doll,” I said just as lazily as I swirled the last of the white Montepulciano around in my glass.

I’d gotten over my jet lag yesterday, but right now, under the haze of wine and food, I was feeling it a little more. I wanted to collapse into a bed. Preferably with Nina. But since there was no way she would let me, I was content to not stargaze a little longer.

I tossed back the rest of the wine, allowed it to sit on my tongue for a moment. Then, without thinking, I pulled a pack of cigarettes and a lighter out of my jacket pocket and flipped one into my mouth.

“What is that?”

I froze at the sudden sharpness in Nina’s voice. “What’s what?”

“That.” She pointed a slender finger at my mouth.

I took the cigarette out and looked at it as if I hadn’t realized it was there. “Oh. This.”

Nina was sitting up straight now. “When did you start smoking? I’ve never seen you do that before.”

For a second, I wanted to retort that there were a lot of things she’d never seen me do. Things she’d never let me do because we were too busy sniping at each other or trying to keep me a dirty secret. Things like kiss her or hold her hand in public. Things like sleep with her more than one night in a row or keep her from running the fuck away when I pissed her off.

But instead, I looked down at the cigarette. “I…I guess I hadn’t for a long time when we met. Not since I was on tour.”

“You smoked in Iraq?”

And just like that, the rest of the evening’s levity disappeared, replaced by the black cloud of anyone mentioning that hellhole.

I put the cigarette back between my lips and lit it, then took a deep pull and exhaled away from the table.

“You’d be surprised what men do to cope with being over there,” I said. “A smoke here and there was the lesser of a lot of evils, believe me.”

Nina watched me a bit longer, her full mouth twisted in displeasure. I didn’t like it. I didn’t like the pity—and mild disgust—in her eyes either.

“So, why now?” she asked after I was halfway through.

I took another deep inhale, watching the end of the cigarette turn to ash, the paper burn away. “Honestly. It just seemed necessary. After you—after you turned yourself in.”

Her forehead crinkled with confusion. “Why would that make you do it?”

“Probably because not being able to save someone I love is a giant fucking trigger,” I said, a hell of a lot more calmly than I felt whenever I thought of Nina sleeping in a prison cell. “I loved my men too, Nina. And losing them…well, I won’t say it wasn’t as bad as when I had to watch that footage of you being taken to jail. But you were a close second. Especially thinking that maybe I could have prevented it.”

She stayed quiet while I finished my cigarette. I used it to light the end of a second, then put the butt out in the ashtray at the center of the table. Great, now I was chain smoking.

“Give me that,” Nina said.

Before I could stop her, she had plucked the cigarette out of my mouth and put it to her own. Her cheeks hollowed as she sucked on the end, then exhaled through pursed lips. I stared, hypnotized. Watching Nina de Vries smoke was like watching a swan do back flips.

“Okay, okay,” I said. “Give it back. You shouldn’t be doing that.”

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