The Love Trap by Nicole French

 

Prelude

1996

Eric turned the book upside down, then back over. He had been looking at the thing for days, and he couldn’t understand why his father was so obsessed with it. As far as he could tell, it was just a book. An old, moth-eaten, chewed-up hunk of pages that smelled like mothballs and stale coffee. You couldn’t even read the thing—it was all in Latin.

And yet, just the other week, when his mother had threatened to toss it out, his father had gotten angry. And Jacob de Vries never got angry. Irritated, sure. Melancholy at times, maybe. But mostly, Eric’s father was affable and easygoing, the kind of man who could make anyone smile. He was never angry.

Except about this book.

“He’s a bully, Jake. He’s dangerous.”

Eric shrank into the love seat at the sound of his parents jogging down the stairs of the townhouse. His mother entered the living room first in a huff, followed by his dad carrying his monogrammed Vuitton overnight bag.

“Johnny just wants what he can’t have, hen. He always has. And he’ll get over it, just like he always does.”

Heather turned around in front of the big bay window that looked out onto East Sixty-Seventh Street. “You say that like he didn’t try to—”

“John’s bark has always been worse than his bite, sunshine.”

Eric remained stone-still, listening to one of his parents’ rare arguments unfold. He had learned long ago that silence was sometimes a better tactic than speaking up, especially in this family. It was like one of Grandmother’s favorite quotes: “Speak softly and carry a big stick.” Teddy Roosevelt said that. Eric hadn’t found a big enough stick yet (he wouldn’t have been allowed one in the apartment anyway), but he had definitely learned the benefits of quiet.

“That’s because you’ve never given him anything to chew on!” Heather swept around, making her paisley skirt twirl.

“And I’m not going to start now,” Jacob cut back.

Then Eric’s father paused, and as he looked at Heather, his face transformed. Gone was the haloed, carefree man Eric generally knew. Jacob was the golden heir of the de Vries family. Its fatted calf, he liked to joke. His purpose in life was to be its symbol of youth until his mother, Celeste, passed her fortune to him, and he generally took that to mean he should offer comic relief whenever possible. But when he looked at his wife, Jacob de Vries’s boyish charm evaporated. He resembled a Viking more than an indulgent heir.

“Is that what you want?” he asked almost dangerously. “Is it the fight you want to see? Maybe you want him to win after all. Is that it?”

If his father had looked at him that way, Eric would have escaped immediately up the stairs. Yet Heather seemed almost drawn to her husband. She remained perfectly still as he stalked toward her. Their faces nearly touched. She lifted her chin and met her husband’s glare straight-on.

“I never did,” she said. “And I never will.”

Jacob took his wife’s chin between two fingers and tipped her face left, then right, like he was examining a piece of fruit, checking for bruises.

“Good,” he said finally. “Because that would be a damn waste, and you know it.”

Was it Eric, or did his mother glow at the brooding words?

“Jake, please,” she whispered, her jaw tight between Jacob’s fingers. “Don’t go. Please. Just stay home.”

For a moment, Eric dared to hope that his father would obey. Neither of them liked it when he went on these trips—sailing excursions without clear destinations. Some lasted days. Others weeks. “His one rebellion,” Eric’s grandmother called them. But Dad was an excellent sailor, Eric reminded himself. He always came home to his family.

And so, instead of answering his wife’s pleas, Jacob kissed her. Eric observed with a sort of morbid curiosity the way his mother’s bone structure seemed to dissolve in his father’s arms. Jacob held her up with a broad hand around her waist, the other at her neck. He kissed Heather for a long time, until they were both out of breath, and the sun cast slightly longer shadows through the drawing room.

When he released her, Jacob was smiling again, one of his eyebrows raised like a villain’s.

Heather giggled. Eric made a face. She sounded like the girls at school—the ones who always seemed to have endless questions and comments for him these days. Like Nina’s friend, Caitlyn, the one Aunt Violet had let stay the summer with them. She always liked to pretend she and Eric were married. He didn’t understand why all the girls seemed to want Prince Charming to save them. Why couldn’t they learn to save themselves? What was wrong with that?

So, when his parents started to kiss again, Eric wasn’t curious at all anymore. Just grossed out.

“Ahem.”

At the sound of their son, his parents sprang apart, both of their faces flushed.

Jacob coughed. “Eric. Kid. You, ah, been there long?”

Eric shrugged. “Just reading.”

Heather’s face turned even pinker as she adjusted her blouse and reset her pearl necklace.

“When I get home, you had better be waiting for me, sunshine,” Jacob said to her with a wink. “In that piece I bought last week, if you know what’s good for you.”

“Dad!” Eric had had enough. “Do I need to leave the room?”

Jacob chuckled, pinched Heather’s waist, then danced away from her swat as he crossed the room to Eric. His normal corona—the one that seemed to draw everyone to him—was back in place. Eric relaxed. This was the dad he knew.

“Sorry about that, kid,” Jacob said as he squatted next to Eric’s chair. “You’ll understand one day.”

Eric shrugged. “Mom likes it when you kiss her. I can deal with it. To a point.”

His father laughed, a broad, booming clap that filled the room. “You watch, kid. One day, you’re going to find a girl you can’t stop kissing either.”

Eric made another face. “I don’t think so.”

Jacob’s laugh boomed again. “It gets worse, too. Soon you’ll do anything to make her smile. Make a complete fool of yourself just for an extra glance.” He looked at Heather, who was patting her hair in the mirror above the console. “Right, hen?”

Heather’s smiled, but it wasn’t bright and warm. It was almost sad. “Only if he’s very lucky.”

They looked at each other for a long time, and once again, it was like they had forgotten Eric was in the room despite the fact that he was no more than a foot from his father.

He cleared his throat again.

Jacob jerked, and Heather turned back to the mirror.

“What’s that you’re reading?” Jacob asked, pointing to the book.

Eric held up the ancient volume. “It’s yours. I saw it in the living room.”

“The Aeneid? Really?” Jacob looked surprised. “I would have thought that a bit above your paygrade, kid. It’s all in Latin.”

“Mrs. Hendrix made us learn some last year,” Eric said. “But I don’t really understand it.”

“Well, twenty grand is a lot for school, but I wasn’t expecting fluency in a dead language before at least fourteen.” Jacob took the book and thumbed through it with familiarity. “You have to be careful with this, you know.”

“I don’t know why you like it so much if it’s this hard to read,” Eric remarked.

His father shrugged good-naturedly—a family trait. “It’s a classic.”

“Just because it’s a classic doesn’t mean it’s good.”

“Some parts of it are good. Others are just important.”

“What’s it about?”

Jacob flipped through the pages again, zooming past yellow- and pink-highlighted passages with yards of scribble in the margins—also in Latin. “It’s about a Trojan traveler. Aeneas. He starts a journey after the sacking of Troy.”

“Troy? Like my friend at school?”

“Troy as in Helen of,” Jacob replied with another wink at Heather, who was watching them through the mirror. “A woman almost as pretty as your mom. For whom a giant battle was waged.”

“Oh, please,” Heather said, though she was clearly unbothered by the comparison.

“Troy was a city?” Eric asked.

“Yes,” Jacob agreed. “And in the story, after the Greeks take it over, Aeneas escapes with his merry men, wanders for a while, and eventually ends up in Italy, where he fights Turnus and becomes an ancestor of the founders of Rome. It’s an origin story of sorts.”

“Is that why Grandmother calls Mom ‘Helen’ sometimes?” Eric asked. He flipped through the pages of The Aeneid until he came to a part where he had seen the familiar name: Helena. “Who fought over her, then?”

“No one,” Heather put in too quickly.

“And it doesn’t matter anyway,” Jacob added. “Grandma just likes to stir up trouble.”

Eric narrowed his eyes. “She doesn’t like being called Grandma, Dad.”

But his father’s eyes just twinkled with mischief. “Which is exactly why I do, kid. Someone has to give old Grams a run for her piles of money, don’t you think? If everyone does exactly what she wants, she’ll start thinking she’s better than us.”

Eric snorted. Grandmother already thought that.

Jacob ruffled Eric’s hair, then returned to Heather. Eric watched him wrap his hands around her waist, and yet again, it was like they were alone. Jacob set his chin on his wife’s shoulder, and together they gazed into the mirror.

“My Helen of Troy,” Jacob said, so low Eric almost couldn’t hear him. “I’d fight a million wars for you.”

For a moment, Eric wished he had a camera. His parents looked at each other’s reflections with such naked adoration. He wondered if every marriage was like theirs. Aunt Violet and Uncle Christian seemed to hate each other most of the time. Come to think of it, he didn’t know anyone in his family who actually seemed to enjoy their spouse’s company.

“Come here, hen.”

Jacob turned Heather around and gave her one last kiss that made the console bump against the wall behind them. This time, Eric didn’t clear his throat. He didn’t make a sound. A warm feeling glowed in his belly, and he didn’t want it to stop.

When Jacob finished, Heather’s cheeks were bright red again, her patted hair out of place once more. But her eyes shone like the stars in the sky, the ones Eric could only see on Long Island when they went to the summer house, far from the city. Jacob murmured something in her ear that made her gasp.

“Jake!” She batted his shoulder, but that only earned her one last kiss before she was released.

Jacob grabbed his bag off the floor. “That book. It’s important, Eric.”

“I’ll take care of it, Dad.”

Father and son traded meaningful looks. Then, Jacob nodded. “I’m off, then. Take care of your mother too, will you?”

Eric nodded back. “I will, Dad. I promise.”

* * *

Present

Eric woke to his father’s voice echoing through the jail cell.

Aeneas.

Helena.

Heather’s eyes.

“Take care of your mother.”

Was that really the last thing his father had ever said to him? It was nearly twenty-three years since Jacob had left that day and never come back. Twenty-three years since his mother had smiled like that. Twenty-three years since he had a real, full family.

A guard’s baton clanged on the cell door. “De Vries. Visitor.”

Eric frowned. He wasn’t expecting Jane today. His hearing was imminent, so he had told her on Monday not to bother. He didn’t like the idea of her or their child-to-be in this disgusting place. The conditions at Rikers were notorious for mistreating visitors nearly as poorly as inmates. Eric himself had little to worry about. Bribery was easy enough, and being one of New York’s most prominent citizens helped too. But Jane was a different story. All he wanted to do was keep her safe.

Not, of course, that she would ever listen to him.

Eric followed the guard through the same routine he’d been following for close to two weeks now. Search, wait. Change, wait. Hustle across the compound to the big converted gym they used as a communal visitors’ area for his particular cell block.

But instead of Jane, or even Nina (who had visited once over the last miserable twelve days), he found his mother sitting at the far end of the room, hands clasped primly over her deep brown Birkin bag, the rest of her covered with a conservative knit thing Jane had once called a poncho.

“Little known fact,” Jane said one evening while she paged through a back issue of Vogue. “Every time a designer renders a culturally appropriated artifact in beige, a star at the far end of the universe dies a terrible, colorless death. Case in point: this poncho.”

God, he missed her. It didn’t matter that like clockwork, she had been here every other day during visiting hours to see him. It wasn’t enough. Not even close.

He had gone to sleep every night in that godforsaken cell, broken springs poking his back while he plotted all the ways to find John Carson and wring his fucking neck. It was only imagining Jane—her soft skin, her wry smile, her dancing eyes—that kept his fury at bay. He needed her like he needed water. Air. It was a dangerous thing, this kind of love—an obsession. He was beginning to understand how it drove the poets crazy. How it started wars.

“Mom.” Eric accepted an aerated kiss on the cheek from Heather, who seemed almost scared to touch him.

“Eric.” She sat back in her chair, looking like she deeply regretted wearing such light-colored clothes.

Eric sat too and pushed a hand through his hair. It was still wet—today he’d been allowed to shower before coming out. He took every opportunity for hygiene he could in this place.

“So, this is a surprise,” he said.

“They said…they said I could bring you some reading material.” She held up a book and set it on the table. A guard, no doubt paid off handsomely, gave her the privilege of bringing something inside without submitting it for inspection. “I don’t know what you did to anger John Carson, but, Eric, I must urge you—leave it alone.”

Eric eyed the small black volume, then his mother. “You have to know it’s too late for that.”

Heather sighed. “Are you absolutely sure?”

“This is Jane, Mom. My wife. No one on this planet has a claim to her other than me. But maybe you wouldn’t understand.”

“You don’t think I—” She cut herself off with a sigh. “I did love your father, you know.”

“Is that why you remarried less than a year after he died?”

Heather’s primrose mouth dropped. “I—” She shook her head. “Honestly, Eric, I wouldn’t expect you to grasp the intricacies of that situation. All I can say is that I did love Jacob. I loved him very much.”

Eric folded his mouth tightly. If jumping straight into another marriage was love, then Heather only confirmed all his suspicions about his tundra of a family. None of them ever comprehended what love was at all.

All the more reason he needed Jane.

“You’re so like him,” Heather murmured.

Eric glanced up sharply. “Who, Carson?”

“No, your father.”

Eric shifted uncomfortably under the sudden intensity of his mother’s gaze. He wasn’t used to this kind of directness from her.

“For a time, I mused how you were even mine, for how much the two of you resembled one another.” She swallowed visibly. “It wasn’t easy, you know. You were a constant reminder of him after he was gone.”

Eric wasn’t sure how to respond to that. Was it an apology for all the years of neglect and distance? When his father was alive, at least he could remember times they had spent as a family. His childhood had still been regimented, as any de Vries’s childhood would be. Facilitated mostly by hired help. But he did remember that his parents had been happy. And in those moments, he had been happy.

Until a sailing accident ruined everything.

After that, he hardly remembered Heather’s presence. She had remarried, and Eric had ended up living in Grandmother’s fusty old penthouse until he could escape to Dartmouth. At least at Grandmother’s he didn’t sit alone in his room listening to his mother cry or entertain strangers. At least there someone cared enough to talk to him, even if it was to criticize and dictate.

And Heather hadn’t fought the decision. She hadn’t fought it one bit.

“Okay,” Eric said, unwilling to fight her now. “And anyway, it’s fine. I’m not alone in this. Jane and the Sterlings are working with the legal team. I’ll be out of here in no time.”

“But—oh, dear, you really don’t know, do you?” Heather asked. “Eric, Jane’s gone.”

Suddenly his skin felt pricked by a thousand needles. “Come again?”

He had just seen her two days ago, sitting in the middle of this very room in a pair of black leather pants, a bright magenta sweater, and her favorite combat boots like she owned the joint.

“I have to wear them while I can,” she’d said about the pants. “My tits are already the size of Honeycrisp apples, dude, so you know my ass is next. This baby is barely bigger than a peanut, and it’s already eating us out of house and home.”

It had been all he could do not to leap over the cheap plastic table and kiss her. Fuck the rules. Fuck the jail. He and Jane weren’t supposed to be separated. It was unnatural.

“I’m so sorry. But that’s what I’m here to tell you. That, and to give you the book.”

“What the fuck do you mean she’s gone?” His voice was sharp enough to catch the attention of the guard patrolling the scattered visitors.

Heather sighed. “She—oh, darling, Nina should have come instead. It was all very sudden…” She drifted off, clearly ashamed. “Jane departed for Seoul early this morning.”

“She’s in Seoul?” Eric’s heart turned to ice. “Jesus fucking Christ, Mom. She went to South Korea?”

There was only one reason Jane would have left for Korea just a few days before his court date. She, or the investigator she’d hired, had found something about the whereabouts of Yu-na, Jane’s mother, who had recently gone missing, likely abducted by John Carson. Something bad. Something that would have taken Jane, pregnant and vulnerable, to another fucking hemisphere while Eric was wasting away.

But instead of exploding the way he wanted, Eric swallowed back his emotions. Heather looked more than a little scared of him, and the guard behind her was ready to pounce.

“I assume she left contact information,” Eric said at last.

“Of course. And Nina gave her the plane to use. She took your security team too. All of them. She said you wouldn’t forgive her otherwise.”

The fact that Jane had left with four of the largest men in New York only made him feel marginally better. Fuck. Fuck. She couldn’t have just waited a few more days? Despite the fact that Carson had managed to keep Eric locked up for almost two weeks, the legal team seemed to think it would be no problem to have the suit tossed now that they had finagled a change in judges. After all, there was no evidence to stand on. The whole thing was a farce.

Eric sucked in another breath, then picked up the book again and flipped through the pages. “Is this—this is Dad’s journal, isn’t it?”

It was a black Moleskine, the same kind Eric had used since he was eleven or so. One more way he had unconsciously paid homage to his father over the years. It started in 1983 and continued through 1996, stopping a week or so before Jacob’s death.

Eric opened one of the early sections.

May 14, 1983

All hail the conquering graduates! Or should I say just Heather? Back to Princeton for her ceremony. So many old memories.

Portas was open this week as well, and the vote is in. Johnny was disappointed, but could he really have been that surprised? The DV have been making Caesar salads since the early 1800s, longer than his family has even been here. Pop made a great one; Grandad too. Shouldn’t I have a go at it?

The party was fun. Mom made the trip too. Everyone getting along famously, even Johnny. Heather has really charmed her way in, angel girl.

I plan to take her rowing tomorrow on Carnegie Lake. I’ll propose with mom’s ring. After all, it’s where we first met.

Eric looked up. “Why haven’t I seen this before? You gave me all the others.”

“I—it will tell you a story better than I can,” Heather said. “Perhaps you’ll understand why I think you should let this go with John Carson. I know you love her, Eric, but she’s gone now. Maybe it’s better that you let her be.”

“She went to get her mother, Mom. She didn’t leave me. She’s—” He started to say Jane was pregnant, but stopped. Jane told Skylar, but they had otherwise decided to keep it to themselves for the time being. To keepeveryone safe.

Heather looked like she wanted to say something else, but before she could, Eric pushed back from his chair. He needed to figure some shit out, and hopefully get a call to his attorney. Above all, he needed to get the fuck out of here and find his wife.

“Eric?”

He turned around. Heather was standing now, hands clasped in front of the beige wool.

“I’m sorry,” she said. “Really, I am.”

Eric blinked. Sorry for what? For her absence? Her lack of mothering? For what John Carson was doing to his life, or for the fact that she wanted him to let him do it?

“It’s fine,” he said, not knowing what, exactly, was fine.

And then he turned, gripping the journal with white-knuckled fingers as he left the crowded room.