More Than Words(79)

Nina leaned back against the pillow and, with her arms still around Rafael, she fell asleep.





75



The next day, after an early-morning ride home from the Hamptons, dropping Rafael off first so he could make his breakfast meeting, Nina was back at her apartment, getting ready to head to the Gregory Corporation offices.

She had to start preparing for the board meeting where TJ was going to announce his retirement and she was going to talk about some changes she wanted made at the hotel. Because she wasn’t going to sell. She realized on the ride back that morning that she’d never be able to sell her family’s company. After her night with Rafael, she’d come to terms with who her father was; she loved him in spite of his flaws. And that realization made it easier to make the decisions she wanted to make, to run the company the way she wanted to. She’d talked to Rafael that morning about her ideas: rooftop gardens to supply the restaurants, a partnership with local homeless shelters to donate the extra shampoo and soap and lotion, and a philanthropic foundation that she’d run personally that would funnel money to charities working to support young entrepreneurs as her own silent apology for what her father had done. Vorpal Sword, she’d call it. It didn’t have to be named after her. And it would remind her that she could slay the Manxome foes—and any other foes who came her way. That she was of her father, but she wasn’t her father. And she didn’t have to work in politics to help change the world. That was what Nina had decided in the car. And the decision had felt good.

So she’d made another one, as Rafael drove along the Grand Central Parkway. She’d picked up her phone and Googled Daphne Lukas. Her aunt had passed away three years before from a heart attack.

Instead of sorrow, Nina had felt anger.

Life was so goddamned unfair sometimes. Someone else was gone from her world forever. But at the end of the obituary, Nina saw a line: Daphne Lukas Harrison is survived by her daughter, Clio Harrison of Denver, Colorado. It was her cousin. The one she’d never met.

Nina Googled her and found an e-mail address at the Mountain School, a science magnet high school where her cousin taught biology.

“Are you going to e-mail her?” Rafael had asked.

“I need to think about it,” she’d answered, leaning into him.

He kissed the top of her head, his eyes still on the road. “I know I don’t get a vote,” he said. “But I think you should. Not today, necessarily. But one day, when you feel ready.”

Nina had kissed his cheek after that. Maybe she would. One day. When she felt ready.



* * *



? ? ?

When Caro came by Nina’s office later in the day to say that she and TJ had decided they were going to live apart for a while and asked if she could stay in the apartment on Central Park West until she found one of her own, Nina made one more decision. She texted Tim, told him that if he wanted to talk about his parents, if he needed a friend, she was still there for him. He didn’t respond, but Nina didn’t blame him.





76



The Friday evening before the election, Nina was in Rafael’s apartment on Central Park North for the first time. They knew they shouldn’t, but there was too much to do this weekend to sneak upstate or out to the Hamptons, and Rafael said he couldn’t bear being away from her for another night. So she came in with folders filled with paper in her arms as a cover, and even then, went in through the building’s back entrance. Luckily, there’d been no photographers waiting there. They mostly camped out in the front, when they staked out his place.

Rafael’s apartment was in a new building on 110th Street, and the wall facing the park was made completely of windows, tinted for privacy. It was amazing to Nina how many beautiful views there were in New York City.

“Want a drink?” Rafael asked her as she walked into the living room. There was a bottle of red wine already in his hand. “I sure as hell could use one.”

“How come?” she asked, dropping her bag and the folders next to a guitar leaning against the wall and taking off her coat.

He uncorked the bottle. “My poll numbers are down.”

“What?” Nina turned to him after hanging up her coat. “Do you have the breakdowns?”

He handed her the bottle of wine and then pulled a folder out of his briefcase. “Here,” he said. “I’m down in the older male demographic. Older white men, if you want to drill down. Mac says it’s the tax thing I talked about in the last debate. It’ll pay for universal pre-k, but you know—taxes are a touchy issue.”

Nina looked at the numbers. “Older white men?” she repeated.

Rafael nodded and poured two glasses of wine, handing Nina the first and taking a sip from the second.

“Did you and Mac talk about using the Irish side of your identity to combat this?” She and Rafael had discussed it a bit since it had first come up, even though Jane and Mac were clearly against it. They decided it wasn’t worth messing with a good thing, since he’d been far enough ahead in the polls that a win was likely. But it wasn’t anymore.

“We actually did,” Rafael said. “He’s worried I’ll lose other demographics if I incorporate that side of my identity.”

“What do you think?” Nina asked, sipping her own wine.