16. Nicholas
Nicholas
Nicholas picked up his bag and left the suite.
The door shut behind him with a solid click that echoed down the empty hallway. He stood there for a moment, bag in hand, the sound fading into nothing.
He should have felt on top of the world.
Last night had been extraordinary. Usually, a night like that would carry him for a week, leaving him loose-shouldered and energized, ready for whatever the next boardroom needed.
He was still buzzing from her: the weight of her against him, the sound of his name in her voice, the way she looked at him in the morning light, as if he was something worth waking up for.
Instead, he felt empty.
He got on I-75 South. The Florida sun beat down on the hood of the Maserati. He turned the music up, trying to fill the space with something loud and sharp, something that left no room for thought.
The emptiness stayed anyway.
Just the usual letdown after a good weekend, he told himself. That's all this is.
He didn't believe it for a second.
As the miles opened up ahead of him and the flat green sprawl of Alligator Alley stretched out on both sides, he stopped pretending and let the real question surface.
What exactly was it about her that scared him?
He turned it over carefully, the way he turned over a deal that looked right but felt wrong until he identified exactly which variable was the problem.
Was it that he didn't want what came with her?
He'd spent years building a life that looked just like Michael's used to: clean, unencumbered, with the freedom to move through the world without answering to anyone.
No anchors. No complications. Women who understood the rules and never asked for more than he was willing to give. He liked that life. He was good at it.
But when he imagined walking away from Olivia and back into that life, the image felt hollow in a way it never had before.
So it wasn't that.
Then was it the marriage? He'd been with married women before.
Valentina was the most recent example: convenient and uncomplicated, just a single night that faded before morning without leaving any trace of feeling.
The ring on someone else's finger had never made him hesitate. He wasn't built for that kind of guilt.
But Olivia was different, and he knew exactly why, and that was the part that actually scared him.
She wasn't staying in that marriage. She had already left it in every way that mattered. That meant whatever happened between them wasn't just a brief, contained thing. It was the start of something with real weight, real consequences, and a future that would require him to be present for it.
And the third possibility, the one he had avoided facing, was the worst of all.
What if he let himself feel the full extent of it, dropped every defense he'd spent years constructing, and she went back to him anyway?
Not because she loved Mark. He didn't believe that for a moment.
But because leaving was hard and the world outside a marriage was uncertain, sometimes people chose the familiar pain over the unfamiliar freedom.
He'd seen it happen. He understood the math of it, even if he couldn't respect the outcome.
If he held back, he protected himself.
If he didn't, if he let this become what it was already turning into, and she stayed with her husband anyway...
He gripped the wheel and left that sentence unfinished.
The Miami skyline appeared on the horizon, and he turned the music up louder and told himself he'd figure it out later.
He wouldn't. But it was a useful lie for the last twenty miles.
Sunday dinner at the Marino house was the one constant in Nicholas's life that required nothing from him except his presence.
The smell hit him as soon as he stepped through the door: simmering sauce, good wine, and the special warmth of a house that had been lived in loudly for decades.
His parents were there. His uncles. His sister Sophia leaned into her boyfriend Frank on the couch, both of them relaxed in the comfort of people who had chosen each other.
Nicholas sat at the table and noticed, not for the first time but more pointedly than usual, that he was the only one there without a partner.
It had never bothered him before. He had always seen it as a point of pride: the freedom, the lightness, the way it kept all his options open.
Today, it felt like a missing piece he hadn't noticed until now.
The food was good. The conversation moved around the table as it always did—loud, overlapping, and full of the shorthand that comes from people who have known each other their whole lives. Nicholas ate, nodded at the right times, and kept his expression relaxed.
His thoughts were in Tampa.
After dinner, the men moved to the living room.
A baseball game was playing on the television, but no one was really watching.
The conversation drifted to work, wine was poured, and Nicholas sat with his glass, staring at the screen but seeing only her: the way she tilted her head when she listened, the curve of her neck, the sound she made when she laughed at something unexpected.
"Hey." Michael's voice. "What's up with you, Nicholas? You're too quiet."
Nicholas didn't look away from the screen. "No, nothing. I didn't get a lot of sleep this weekend."
Anthony and Vincent didn't miss a beat. They grinned at each other with the particular sharkishness of men who knew exactly what that meant.
"And who was the lucky girl?" Anthony said. "Or was it girls?"
The room laughed. Nicholas managed a smile and let the joke pass. His mind was somewhere else, wondering if she had made it home safely, what she had walked back into, and whether Mark had been waiting.
The thought of it tightened something in his chest that he didn't have a clear name for.
An hour later, he was in the kitchen, pouring a second glass of red, when Michael came in and held out his empty glass without ceremony.
"Sounds like a good idea."
Nicholas poured. Michael nodded toward the back door.
"Come take a walk with me."
The back porch was thick with humidity, cicadas buzzing in the trees, and the evening settling around the old house with the comfort of a place that had seen a hundred years of family life. They sat. Nicholas stared into his wine.
"So what's this girl's name that has you so wrapped up?"
Nicholas tensed slightly. "Why do you think she has me so wrapped up?"
Michael's expression was both patient and knowing.
"Nicholas. I've known you since you were born.
I watched you grow up. You work with me, and before that you worked for me, and before that you used to follow me around this house asking questions I didn't have answers to yet.
" He paused. "I can see it in your face.
In the way you've been sitting in that room for the last hour, looking at a television set you haven't watched for a single second. "
Nicholas let out a slow breath and looked away toward the tree line. "Please don't say anything to my mother. I'm not ready for a lecture."
Michael laughed, genuine and warm. "Don't sell your mother short. She was the one who helped me figure out how I felt about Verónica. That being said, whatever you tell me stays between us. You know that." He settled back in his chair. "Tell me what's going on."
Nicholas took a long pull of wine and made himself say it.
"Her name is Olivia." He paused. "I honestly don't know what's happening.
Part of me wants to forget her, but I can't. Uncle, I've only been with her twice.
I've been with more women than I could count, and I have never felt this kind of chemistry, this kind of connection and desire, all at once.
I've always tried to make the women I was with happy.
I never wanted to be selfish about it. But with her, it's something else entirely.
All I want is to make her happy. Give her what she needs.
I've never cared that much before—not like this. "
He turned the glass in his hand.
"I'm sitting here talking to you, and she's probably at home with her husband right now.
I know she's not happy there. She tells me how I make her feel, things she's never felt before, things she says she always wanted.
And I believe her." He stopped. "But then I ask myself, do I really need this mess?
If she were single, maybe it would be straightforward.
But she's not. And that changes everything. "
Michael listened without interrupting, his eyes steady and serious, giving Nicholas the full weight of his attention.
When Nicholas finished, Michael was quiet for a moment before he spoke.
"I hear every word you said. And I understand it.
Believe me, I understand it better than most." He leaned forward slightly.
"Yes, her being married complicates things.
That's true. But you know how much I love Verónica.
And you know how hard I fought against that feeling.
Your mother helped me see what I was really doing, which was running from something real because real things are harder to control than temporary ones. "
He held Nicholas's eyes.
"What I know now is this: if I had been able to see where I'd end up, where Verónica and I ended up, I would never have walked away from her, married or not.
What I'm saying is, if you truly believe she is unhappy and doesn't want to be in that marriage, don't let it stop you.
But if she's undecided, if she's not sure whether she wants to fight for it or leave, then you have to step back.
You can't want her freedom more than she does. "
He stood.
"From what you're describing, I wouldn't give up on her. But think it through. Focus on work as best you can. The answer has a way of finding you when you stop trying to force it."
Nicholas watched his uncle walk back inside.