Page 56 of The Honest Affair

“Dance?”

Nina’s mouth opened slightly in surprise as she looked at my now-extended hand. “I…really?”

Doubt was written clearly across her face, warring with the desire that was undoubtedly written across mine.

“It’s just a dance, doll. No harm, no foul.”

“So you say. But you’re shirtless, and I’m in my underwear.”

Her thin blonde brow arched. There’s my girl, I thought to myself. I couldn’t help it. I loved bringing this side out of her.

She shook her head in that same way Nonna did whenever I was teasing her about serving day-old amaretti. Scamp, she’d call me. And she was right.

Nina knew it too.

But instead of shooing me away, she called my bluff and took my hand. And there was that electric spark, the one that never failed to skip through our fingers when we touched. We had tried and failed to ignore it so many times. But I was done.

Nina approached with the grace of a trained debutante, looking for all the world like she wasn’t in her nightgown and bare feet, but a gown and tiara. And I guided her to the center of the room like it wasn’t just a simple room, but a ballroom of a royal court. Like maybe I could be her prince. A worthy consort to this undeniable queen.

“You’d better be careful,” she said. “I’ve been taking lessons since I was three. Do you even know how to dance properly?”

In response, I pulled her tight so she was flush against me and I could catch her waist with my other hand.

“Oh!” Nina gasped.

“No more questions, beautiful,” I ordered. “Just let me lead.”

A waltz picked up on the radio, and I started to whirl her around the room as best I could.

To her credit, Nina was actually a really good dancer. She probably had been taking lessons since she was three, since she could clearly keep up with me and then some. Nonna’s simple instruction to Frank Sinatra standards was no match for Nina’s teachers. Still, by the end, we were both shouting with laughter and delight, out of breath and clinging to each other once the music ended.

“Oh!” Nina cried as I dipped her again. “Oh, that was fun. Matthew, I’m shocked—you can actually waltz!”

I grinned down at her. “And foxtrot and jitterbug and swing dance, if you’re up for it.”

“Oh, I love to foxtrot!” she said, holding up her arms for another round like Sofia begging for a piggyback ride. “Eric was always terrible at it, but it was my favorite step. He was my practice partner, you know.”

I chuckled. “No, I didn’t know that. But I’m definitely going to give him some shit for it.”

I was about to take her on another gallop around the room, but the music shifted, and a different, much slower tune filled the air. Pavarotti’s rendering of Turandot, it sounded like. Its most famous aria, “Nessun Dorma.”

Just like that, I was transported back to the Met. Sitting with Nina in that warm, red box at Lincoln Center. Whispering lyrics of passion into her ear while I brought her another kind between her legs.

“Do you remember this?” I asked as I pulled her close once more. I pressed my nose to her neck, inhaling her sweet scent. “Do you remember that night?”

“Of—of course,” she stuttered, even as her arms encircled my neck, and one hand automatically began playing with my hair. “I could never forget that night. The good…and the bad.”

I swallowed. Of course. I remembered the best parts of that night and had done my best to block out the worst. The way she’d discovered my previous fling with one Caitlyn Calvert Shaw. The way she’d run into Central Park only to throw herself to her knees and forced me to take the pleasure she thought I wanted from her body. Used her like she thought I had used others.

And I did it. Fuck me, I did it. Because at that point, I would have taken her any way I could get her. Angry, happy, sad, delighted. Nina was Nina to me, back then. Whatever form she took.

But now…now I could see what that selfishness had brought me. She had never fully trusted me. And just when she was finally thinking about it…I’d thrown it all away.

“But do you know what it’s really about?” I asked her as we began to sway gently back and forth to Pavarotti’s vibrato. “The song, I mean.”

“I remember the lyrics you whispered,” she said. “‘None shall sleep.’ After he claims the right to marry her, she begs for a way to get out. So they come to a new agreement, correct? If she can discover his name before sunrise, he’ll die. And so…none shall sleep while she searches for the means to her freedom.” Nina pressed her nose into my neck, as if the idea of freedom was too much for her. “A bit bloodthirsty, isn’t she?”

I held her all the more tightly, enjoying the way the curve of her slim waist fit perfectly to my palm. “I think most people would kill to be free. They’d do just about anything.”

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