but you can’t be...”
“She took it very hard,” Kingsley said, knowing Nora well enough to say that in good faith.
“I’ll call her tomorrow,” Grace said. “Maybe she should come stay with us a few days. She loves being around Fionn. And she and Zachary fight so much, she’ll forget all her sorrows, I promise.”
Kingsley wanted to laugh. Only Grace Easton would call the woman who had slept—more than once—with her husband, offer her condolences on the loss of her mother and then invite her to stay in her home with Grace, her husband and their infant son who was fathered by Nora’s lover.
Did Grace have any idea what an extraordinarily odd woman she was?
Then again, what room did Kingsley have to talk?
“Apart from that, we’re all well. He’s well,” Kingsley said, saving Grace the embarrassment of asking about him.
“Good,” Grace said with a smile. “I never know... He’s the easiest man in the world to talk to...and the most difficult man to read. Rather amazes me that Nora’s been with him over twenty years and is as sane as she is. Zachary was my professor when we fell in love, and I thought I’d go insane trying to keep that secret from my friends, my family, the school. To be with a priest for twenty years...”
“No one is more amazed than I that they’ve lasted. The sanity part is up for debate, but you can’t question the love. Not anymore. And he hasn’t made it easy for her, and she... Well, I don’t have to tell you anything about Nora, do I?”
Grace grinned broadly.
“No,” she said. “No, you don’t.” She took a drink of the Syrah, and her eyes widened in delight.
“Your son is quite the vintner. This is marvelous.”
“I told you so,” Kingsley said, taking a sip of his own wine. The Syrah was good, an excellent vintage, strong and potent. As much as Kingsley loved the taste, he found it hard to drink sometimes. The knot of pride in his throat made it difficult to swallow.
“Zachary was very impressed with Nico when they met. He’s what? Twenty-five and he owns and runs his own vineyard?”
“I think about how I was at twenty-five, what I was doing with my life, and I can’t believe he came from me.”
“I can believe it,” Grace said, giving him a luminescent smile.
“I won’t keep you up all night showing you pictures of my children,” Kingsley said. He had pictures of both Nico and Céleste with him, and he was seconds away from pulling them out. “I’m only here for a few hours before I catch my next flight. But I did come for a reason.”
“Should I be concerned?” Grace asked.
“Non, pas du tout,” Kingsley said with a wave of his hand. “Forgive me. French wine brings out my French.”
“I speak some,” she said. “You haven’t lost me yet.”
“Bon,” he said and paused for another drink. “I have something to tell you. A story. And I can’t tell you why I’m telling you the story until after the story.”
“I see...” she said, although Kingsley knew she didn’t. “May I ask what the story concerns?”
Kingsley reached into the inner breast pocket of his jacket. From it he pulled a crisp white envelope thick with documents sealed with wax. The wax was imprinted with what appeared to be a number eight inside a circle. Kingsley placed it on the table between his glass of wine and Grace’s.
“The story is about that,” Kingsley said, nodding toward the envelope. “And I can tell you the long version which is the true version or I can tell you a shorter, sweeter version. I’m happy to tell you either. But you decide.”
“The long version, of course,” she said. “Tell me everything I should know even if you don’t think I want to hear it.”
“Everything...dangerous word.” Kingsley sat back in the chair, and Grace leaned forward. She looked at him with a child’s eagerness. “But if you insist. The more you know about us, the better it will be if...”
He didn’t finish the sentence, didn’t have to, because he saw the understanding in Grace’s eyes. She knew the end of the sentence he hadn’t spoken, and her nod saved him the pain of saying the words that no one yet had dared to utter aloud.
If Fionn takes after his father...
“The story starts twenty years ago,” Kingsley said, conjuring the memories he had tried to bury. But he’d buried them alive and alive they remained. “And it takes place in Manhattan. And although you don’t know yet why I’m telling you this, Grace, I promise you, you won’t regret hearing me out.”
“I don’t regret anything,” she said.
Kingsley straightened the photograph of her infant son. No, none of them regretted anything. Not even Kingsley.
“It was raining,” Kingsley began. “And it was March. I had everything then—money, power and all the women and men in my bed anyone could possibly want. And to say I was in a bad mood would be the understatement of the century. I was twenty-eight years old and didn’t expect to see thirty. In fact, I hoped I wouldn’t see thirty.”
“What happened?”
Kingsley took a breath, took a drink and took a moment to pull his words to together. A pity Nora wasn’t here. Storytelling was her gift, not his. But only he could tell this story and thus he began.
“Søren happened.”
Somewhere in Manhattan, 1993 March
“WHAT’S YOUR POISON?” the bartender asked, and Kingsley answered, “Blonds.”
The bartender, Duke, half laughed, half scoffed as he pointed to the stage.
“Two bleach-blonde bottles of poison right there.”
Kingsley eyed the two girls—Holly and Ivy—who now hung naked from their knees, which they’d wrapped around twin poles. Men sat belly up to the stage watching in silence, making eye contact with no one but the dancers. Dollar bills fluttered between their waving fingers.
“Not what I’m in the mood for tonight.” Kingsley looked away from the stage.
“What?” Duke asked. “How can you not be in the mood for that? Are they too hot? Too sexy?”
Kingsley reached behind the bar and grabbed a bottle of bourbon.
“Too female.”
“Don’t look at me,” Duke said, raising both his hands.
“I promise, I’m not.” And he wasn’t. Someone else had caught his eye. But where had he gone?
