Trust Me (27 page)

“She eats a lot.”

“No, I mean, how did
you
end up with a pet?”

The distaste on Nina’s face raised a fierce protectiveness in Max. It was too bad, he thought, that some people had such bad
attitudes toward animals. Lola had already been kicked around by one human, and as long as he was on duty, she wouldn’t be
sneered at by any other. He reached down to rub her head. She whined softly, and he said, “Are you a good dog? Yes, you are.”

“Well,” Nina said valiantly. “This is nice. I love dogs. I shared an apartment once with a woman who had a dog. One of those
little furry ones. It was white and really very sweet. It didn’t shed much at all. Or smell. She took it everywhere, in a
Louis Vuitton carrier.”

She picked up her glass, looking as if she wished for something stronger. She was really very beautiful, Max thought, with
the same kind of aesthetic admiration that he would have had for a fine piece of art. Everything about her was meticulously
controlled and groomed, from her expensively highlighted hair to her pale pink nails to her toned body. She was everything
that a rich, successful man should want, and at one time, that perfection had pleased him very much.

He had never been particularly passionate about her, nor she about him. That wasn’t the point. They looked good together at
charity events and business dinners. Other men stared at her and envied him, and that had been enough for him. He liked Nina.
He appreciated her drop-dead elegance and her attitude, and her rich-girl sense of entitlement had always amused him. She
was everything he had always thought that he wanted—not just in a woman, but in a life.

“Max,” Nina said, “don’t you dare tell me that you need to work tonight. There’s something very important that we have to
talk about.”

“What?”

She tapped one polished nail on his chest. “Not now.” Her smooth smile returned. “I have to run—you’re not the only busy one,
you know. So, dinner? I’ll meet you here at seven.” She handed him the empty glass. “
Ciao
, darling.”

* * *

When Carly arrived at the clinic, Michelle was already at her desk. “What’s on my schedule today?” Carly asked after greeting
the receptionist.

“Routine stuff. Exams this morning, then you’ve got surgery all afternoon. Two spays and some dental extractions. The surgery
patients are already checked in, except for the Anderson dog, who gets here at noon. I pulled all the charts and put them
on your desk. Dr. Wexler left this morning for that conference in Florida. Can you believe he locked his office? What does
he think I’m going to do, go through his desk and peek at his dirty magazines, or whatever it is he keeps in there? Like I
care.”

“He does take his privacy seriously,” Carly said.

“Well,” Michelle said smugly, “he’s not as clever as he thinks he is. There are two keys to that lock, and I have one of them
in my drawer. I’ve had it since this place opened, and it’s a good thing, too. The way he was rushing around this morning,
he’s probably locked up something we’ll need, and he won’t be back until next week. You should have seen him. He never used
to be nervous about giving seminars, but he was jittering around like he’d had ten espressos. His eyes were bugging out. I
just stayed out of his way.”

Carly could imagine it, and she was glad not to have been there to witness it. Absently, she shuffled through the stack of
mail sitting on Michelle’s desk.

There were a few personal letters and postcards in the midst of the usual junk advertising, and she picked one up. “Look at
this—Tiffany stationery with an embossed blue pawprint. It can only be…”

“Gigi Beeson!” Michelle crowed. “And Percy the Pug. Who ever heard of a dog with his own stationery?”

Carly slit open the envelope and pulled out the sheet of paper. “Dear Dr. Martin,” she read out loud. “Just a little note
to tell you that I am feeling much better, thanks to your quick work. Mama is glad to have her earring back, and I am much
more careful now when I kiss her. Yours truly, Percy.”

“Awww,” said Michelle. “That’s cute.”

“Here.” Carly handed her the enclosed photo. In it, Gigi was holding Percy up to the camera, at an angle that distorted the
pug’s already squashed features, making his flat nose look enormous. Dog and owner wore matching green sweaters. “Tack this
up on our celebrity wall.”

In her office, Carly glanced through the day’s client folders. They were all stuffed with papers, and they made a precarious
pile. It would be great when they had the office completely computerized, she thought, although at the current rate, that
was most likely to happen sometime long after she had gone. None of the clinic staff were thrilled with Richard’s plan that
they should spend their spare time doing data entry, and work was proceeding slowly.

To give Richard the credit he deserved, he had asked them to do no more than he had done himself. Client histories didn’t
particularly interest him, but money did, and he had been spending evenings and weekends bringing the clinic’s accounting
into the twenty-first century. That much, at least, was finished. He had made a few offers to sit down with Carly and teach
her how to use the new software, but she had gone to the computer store and bought a book instead. She was looking forward
to studying the manual, then shocking Rich with her sudden proficiency.

Through the open door of her office, Carly could hear subdued rock tunes coming from the lab, where Brian and Pam were working.
She smiled. Richard disapproved of music in the office, on the grounds that it was “unprofessional,” but Carly had never minded,
and the staff knew it. The clinic was officially hers for a week, and it was nice to see everyone lightening up a bit.

A
mong the messages on Max’s voice mail that evening was one from Tom Meyer, reporting that the initial background checks on
Carly Martin and Pauline Braun had turned up nothing of note in either case. No credit problems, no criminal records. Carly’s
worst offense, it seemed, was a habit of picking up speeding tickets. Max was not sure how she managed that, considering the
state of her car. Tom reminded him that it would take longer to get more detailed information on Carly’s finances, but he
expected to have it by the end of next week.

Nina was waiting for Max when he walked into the hotel bar, which was a first in his acquaintance with her. She liked to be
fashionably late and had a fondness for making dramatic, breathlessly apologetic entrances, so he had expected to have at
least fifteen minutes to sit and relax before she arrived.

“You’re on time,” he said, and kissed her on the cheek. “This must be important.”

She was wearing a black cocktail dress similar to the one that Carly had startled him with. She was much thinner than Carly,
though, with fashionable angles where Carly had flesh, and the effect was stylish, but not erotic.

“I hope you don’t mind eating here at the hotel,” she said. “It’s more private. I’m not in the mood for one of those loud,
trendy places, and I know that you don’t really like them. This will be more comfortable.”

Privacy? Comfortable? This was a new side of Nina. Max raised his eyebrows but didn’t argue.

Whatever it was that she had on her mind, though, she didn’t disclose it in a hurry. They ordered dinner and made light conversation
through three courses. Max found himself tuning out as she filled him in on the latest news about her friends in the City.

“You’re not listening to me,” Nina said reproachfully.

“I was listening.” He picked up a cube of sugar and stirred it into his coffee.

She raised her eyebrows at him. “So what do you think about Sergio’s vacation?”

“Sounds fine.”

She exhaled impatiently. “I just told you that he was kidnapped by aliens.”

“Really,” he said dryly. “What did they do to him? That, I’d like to hear about.”

Nina looked startled, and he realized that she was unaccustomed to hearing him joke. Hadn’t he had a sense of humor in New
York? Surely he had, but he couldn’t remember laughing much. He had always been working, and when he wasn’t working, he had
been performing the obligatory social duties. None of it had been particularly joyful.

“
Joyful
.” He frowned. Why the hell had he chosen that word? Joy was not something that he had ever associated with his life, or even
sought. Joy was a word for hippies, a peace-and-love word, a concept that had little place in an upwardly mobile lifestyle.

“It’s been hard not having you around, Max,” Nina said suddenly. She reached across the table and took his hand. “But it really
has given me a chance to think about some important things.”

The idea that she had been sitting around pining for him and reevaluating her life in his absence was a little too much for
Max to swallow. He knew her too well. Nina’s idea of introspection involved figuring out which shoes suited her mood on any
given day.

“I see,” he said.

“What I’m trying to say is that I’ve been wrong,” she said. “Do you remember when you wanted me to stop seeing other people?
I should have done it. I wish I had. I just wasn’t ready to settle down then. I know that it hurt you, and I’m sorry.”

Max blinked at her. “That was a long time ago, Nina.”

“I know. And just think where we might be now if I’d done what you asked.”

Max preferred not to. In his opinion, rather than making apologies, she should be taking credit for averting a disaster. He
doubted that her unwillingness to commit to him had anything to do with an understanding of their basic incompatibility—rather,
she had disliked the idea of having her options limited. The cynic in him reminded him that at that time, he had also had
a lot less money.

“It doesn’t matter,” he said, meaning it.

“But it does!” she exclaimed, squeezing his hand and looking warmly into his eyes. “I’m ready for a different kind of relationship
now. When you come back to New York, we’ll get a place together. I was thinking about something on the Upper West Side… maybe
a penthouse.”

“What if I don’t come back to New York?” Max asked.

“What?” She stared at him as if he had just announced that he planned to live in Tibet. “Stay here? You’re not serious.”

To Max’s own surprise, he was. He did not want to go back, he realized. It was not something that he could rationally explain,
but it seemed to him that the New York part of his life—the drama that had begun in Brooklyn thirty-eight years ago—had somehow
ended with the sale of his company. Whatever lay ahead would take place here, in California.

“Why would you want to live here?” Nina demanded. “I mean, it’s pretty, but…”

“I like the beach,” Max said.

“We’ll get a house in the Hamptons.”

“Not that kind of beach,” Max said. It wasn’t rich small-town clapboard and exclusivity that he wanted, it was the mysterious
fog, and the smell of cold salt air, and the towering sand cliffs. It was the endless stretch of coastline, and the endless
sense of freedom.

Nina frowned. “Well, there’s the Caribbean. St. Bart’s… Mustique…”

“Not that kind of beach, either.”

She let out a short breath of frustration. Max could see that she was thinking hard. He waited. Finally, she squared her shoulders
and looked straight at him. “I want to have a baby,” she said.

It was the last thing in the world that Max would have expected to hear from her, but somehow, oddly, it made sense. “I see.”

“Do you?” she asked plaintively. “I think we should get married, Max. I’m tired of my life—it’s too crazy. I want something
new.”

Max didn’t answer. He didn’t know exactly how old Nina was—she had never told him—but he guessed that she was about thirty-five.
Maybe everyone reached a point where the things that they had always taken for granted began to stir like boats in a rising
tide.

“I’m sure you never thought you’d hear me say that,” she said. “I couldn’t have done it before—I was establishing my career.
But now… Max, we could hire lots of help, and it wouldn’t be so bad at all. And there are the cutest things out there for
babies, you wouldn’t believe it. Little Gucci booties… so adorable.”

Max sipped his coffee. She had not relinquished her hold on his other hand, and he felt the edges of her nails digging into
his skin. He wondered how she intended to diaper a baby without jabbing it with those beautiful, perfect nails.

“I know how much this idea of family means to you,” Nina continued. “You’d come back to New York for that, wouldn’t you? For
a family? Our family?”

He shook his head. “No.”

Her lips parted in shock. “What?”

“I’m not going back. I’m sorry.”

“But… but I don’t want to live
here
,” she exclaimed, then stopped. “Oh,” she said slowly. “You’re not asking me to, are you?” She released his hand abruptly.
“Well, this is hardly how I planned it. God, Max, don’t give me that stony look. I’m not going to fight with you in the middle
of a restaurant. Please.
C’est la vie.
Should I assume that we’re finished, then?”