The Love Trap by Nicole French

23

She didn’t delay. Within thirty minutes she got right up, showered for the first time in days, and came downstairs for coffee.

That was a good sign.

“Is this respectable enough?” she asked as she entered the kitchen.

Eric turned from the French press to find her toying with the rings on her fingers—two sets of glinting silver bands, plus their wedding rings, including the sharp black diamond he had given her.

She had replaced her boring black frames with one of her favorite vintage pairs, bright red and cat-eyed. With the tight black jeans, a black hoodie, and her favorite combat boots, she looked much like her student days, only missing her old cropped hair.

Another good sign.

But then his gaze had traveled up her body and landed on her face, bereft of its usual makeup, including her characteristic slash of red lips.

Bad sign. Very bad sign.

“Oh, no,” Eric said, abandoning the coffee. “You fucking heard me.”

Her mouth dropped into a perfect, plump “O,” making his pants uncomfortably tight. Shit. It had been a while, hadn’t it? Nearly two months since New Year’s.

She backed away. “You wouldn’t.”

“I don’t ever go back on my word.”

And before she could jump out of reach—Jesus, she was out of practice—he snagged her hand and proceeded to drag her back upstairs, where he pinned her to the en suite bathroom’s counter and started drawing the lipstick around her full, kissable mouth.

“Eric!” she crowed, causing him to smear the color across her chin too.

He couldn’t help laughing, though he kept her wrists behind her back. “I told you, pretty girl. I warned you what would happen.”

And then it happened. She struggled. Twisted. Grinded against him. Was it really his fault that the last almost two full months of abstinence decided to take their toll right fucking then and there? Was it his fault that he happened to be poised right between her legs so there was no fucking way she could miss it?

Her mouth dropped again. That perfect shape. And the hell if he didn’t want to shove her to her knees right then and there, unzip his pants, and feed her his dick until they both forget where they were, even if just for a few brief minutes.

He almost did it too. Until, of course, she scooted back.

“I, um, I got it,” she said, plucking the lipstick from his hand. She swallowed heavily, clearly fighting not to stare at the prominent erection testing his zipper.

Another bad sign.

Eric cleared his throat. She was uncomfortable? Well, he was her fucking husband. She knew exactly what she was getting down there.

But he still turned away. Mostly because he was scared of what he would do if she left her mouth open like that for one more second.

“I’ll be downstairs,” he said and left before she could answer.

But when she came back down, the lipstick was on. She wouldn’t meet his eye, but he could have sworn there was a different spring in her step.

Definitely a good sign.

* * *

Jane took exactlyfive bites of her breakfast at Zaftig’s, a restaurant teeming with Brookline families., complete with small children. Lots of babies. Not, Eric realized, the best place to go.

Then she barely spoke on the rest of the drive to the nearby heliport, followed him mutely onto the helicopter, and stared out the window all the way to New York. She hadn’t even asked where they were going when they landed.

More bad signs. Fuck, fuck, fuck.

Eric had pretended to work on his phone most of the time. It was hard to hide his relief when she finally said, “Queens?” just as Tony turned onto the Queensboro Bridge.

“Are we going rock climbing again?” she joked.

To be honest, Eric had fantasized more than once about tying Jane into one of the harnesses. The idea of suspending her lithe body like that in midair had a lot of…possibilities.

Instead he watched as she reapplied her lipstick—perhaps in memory of the last time they had been there?—then blinked and shook his head. “No. No, not today. Unless you’re interested in a little rope play…”

But she just turned away and watched the river pass beyond the bridge. “Role play. No.”

The Manhattan skyscrapers and the riverside buildings of Queens gradually gave way to the more stolid brick apartments and townhouses of Astoria. Jane clearly had no idea where they were. In the not-even-a-year since she had moved to New York, she hadn’t really ventured farther than Manhattan, Eric realized, except to visit him at Rikers. God, he had so much more of this city to show her. Things he had forgotten himself.

There would be time for that. They had a lifetime together, right?

Starting now. Eric swallowed. He really hoped this first step would help, because it certainly wouldn’t be easy.

“All right,” he said as Tony pulled the car to the curb of East Thirty-First Avenue. It was a classic winter day, with wind sweeping harshly off the East River where it curled around the Con Ed plant in the distance, tempered only by the bluebird sky and the bright sun that lit up the squat buildings of Astoria and Ditmars. This was one of the parts of New York that were quiet. Real people lived here, not just rich Wall Street brokers, students, and trust-funded legacies.

The familiar restaurant in the bottom of the walkup met him like an old friend. The Epic Diner’s name had always been so incongruous with its humble exterior—the rumbling red brick, the weathered glass door, the blinking neon sign. But for a short period, this had been a natural stop whenever Eric had come home.

“Where are we?” Jane asked as she exited the car to the cracked sidewalk and looked around. “Still Queens?”

Eric pulled at his shirt collar. “Astoria. This is the Epic.”

“You took me all the way to Queens to get more mediocre eggs?” Jane peered suspiciously through the smudged glass. “They aren’t very busy. We passed a bunch of other places on the way here that looked a lot more crowded.”

“The Kostas benefit more from the breakfast rush and the lunch crowd from Con Ed,” Eric said automatically, almost defensively. He clapped his mouth shut, but Jane obviously hadn’t missed a beat.

“The Kostas?”

Eric nodded, resisting the urge to pull at his collar again. It wasn’t even buttoned, but it felt like it was strangling him. “Penny’s family.”

Jane’s eyes widened as she adjusted her glasses and turned back to the restaurant with renewed curiosity. Perhaps she was recalling when Eric had revealed the circumstances surrounding his former fiancée’s death. When she had encouraged him to make peace with Penny’s parents. But if she was thinking of that, she didn’t say it.

“Will you come in with me?” he asked finally when it was clear she wasn’t going to respond.

Jane’s eyes sharpened, sharper than he had seen them in weeks. “I’m here,” she said, and followed him inside.

Nothing had changed. The faded sprigged wallpaper. The cracked vinyl booths. The stained Formica counter, behind which still stood Lazaros Kostas, joking and taking orders on a small pad poised over a growing belly. Behind him, overseeing the cooks and checking the orders clipped to the ticket carousel, was his wife, Antonia. Suddenly, Eric felt like he was seventeen again, skipping polo practice to sit in Penny’s section and order too many chocolate milkshakes just to see his girlfriend smile. But other than where her photo hung behind the register amidst the collection of signed head shots of celebrities and local politicians, Penny wasn’t here.

Penny wasn’t here. But Jane was.

And to his surprise, she took his hand. “Are you all right?” she asked.

Empathy. Definitely a good sign.

Eric nodded. “Yeah. It’s just a little surreal.”

Jane squeezed his hand in solidarity, then released it as the hostess walked toward them.

“Two?” she asked in that brusque tone characteristic of the New York restaurant industry.

Eric nodded. “At the counter, please.”

The hostess gestured that they should sit where they wanted. Jane followed Eric to the counter, where Mr. Kostas had his back turned as he jabbered with his wife in Greek.

“Lazaros,” she snipped, then in English: “You have customers.”

Lazaros barked something back at her, then turned around. “Hello, what can I—oh!”

It had been almost eleven years since Penny’s funeral. Eleven years since Eric had stood behind the rows of Greek relatives wailing their disbelief at his girlfriend’s untimely death and whispered behind his back. Eleven years since Eric had informed the Kostas that their only daughter had killed herself in his bathtub and that it was probably his family’s fault.

Except it wasn’t. Not completely. And the Kostas deserved to know everything.

“Mr. Kostas. It’s, ah, been a long time.”

Lazaros pressed a thick hand to his chest, then raised it and beckoned behind him. “Toni,” he called breathlessly, too low to be heard in the kitchen above the clatter of pans and hissing oil. “Antonia!” he shouted over his shoulder, loud enough that nearly everyone in the diner jumped.

A loud clatter of pans crashed somewhere in the back.

Lazaros turned back to Eric with an uneasy smile. “Take a booth in the corner. We will be right there.”

* * *

A few minutes later,the Kostases brought over fresh coffee and a platter of dolmades. Penny’s favorites, Eric thought with a twinge. Mrs. Kostas set mugs on the table in a matter-of-fact way. Lazaros took his seat across from Eric and Jane, then waited for his wife to join him. When at last they were all seated, had each nibbled at one of the stuffed grape leaves and poured the coffee no one would drink, the Kostases faced Eric expectantly.

Eric took a deep breath. “Mr. and Mrs. Kostas. It’s been a long time.”

“Since the funeral,” Lazaros agreed. “And thank you for paying for that, by the way. We never had a chance to say it. You left so quickly.”

Eric’s tongue felt thick in his throat. He remembered the clouds that had never rained, but threatened it just the same. He had left as soon as it was over. Left New York. Left his family. Everything.

“You didn’t even come to the makaria,” Lazaros was saying. “We held it right here in the restaurant. Toni made very nice salmon. Everyone came.” He pushed his wire-framed aviator glasses up his thick nose. “The whole family. But not you.”

It was all Eric could do not to hang his head. “I…”

“Zaro, give the boy a break,” Antonia put in with a smack on the man’s wrist.

“He’s not a boy anymore,” Lazaros grumbled. “And it’s been more than ten years. It’s about time he answered.” He turned back to Eric. “What would Penny think?”

Eric opened and closed his mouth a few times before he finally managed to answer. “She’d…” He rubbed his face. “Well, Mr. Kostas, she’d be ashamed of me. She’d wonder where the hell I’d been and why I hadn’t checked on her parents sooner.”

Lazaros examined Eric for what felt like several minutes, his time-worn face unmoving until, all of a sudden, he burst out laughing and smacked the tabletop. Beside Eric, Jane jumped, but Antonia smiled warmly. Eric relaxed.

“Good for you,” Lazaros said. “Better late than never, right? Isn’t that what they say, Toni?”

His wife nodded with satisfaction. Eric smiled. This was the warm family he remembered.

“So,” he pressed. “How are you?”

“Oh, it’s been fine, fine,” Lazaros said, still chuckling. “It was hard for a few years there, of course. We miss her so much, but we will see her one day again, God willing.”

Beside him, Antonia crossed herself right to left, Orthodox-style. Just like Penny used to.

“Toni’s niece came to help with the restaurant a few years ago,” Lazaros continued. “That’s Steffy over there, from Philadelphia.” He gestured towards the hostess, who was wiping down another booth. “She’s single, in case you’re—”

Jane suddenly cleared her throat, disturbing the entire table. Eric muffled a laugh in his napkin.

“I’ve been a bit rude, Mr. Kostas,” he said. “This is Jane, my wife. Jane, this is Lazaros and Antonia Kostas. Penny’s parents.”

For a moment, there was a different shine in Jane’s eyes when he said the word “wife.” “It’s lovely to meet you,” she said kindly, shaking each of the Kostases’ hands.

“We saw you in the papers,” Lazaros replied. “But we weren’t sure you were still married, I’m sure you understand.” He held up his hands, as if to say, “can you blame me?”

Jane chuckled. “I understand. I’m not sure what I was thinking, but I still agreed to marry him.”

“You were thinking…” Eric drifted off, trying to find the words to defend himself, but taking too much joy in Jane’s sudden playfulness. Would it remain after they left this place? God, he’d be the butt of any joke if she would keep looking at him like that.

“Eric.”

Everyone shifted at the sound of Antonia Kostas’s direct tone. Eric blinked. Lazaros might have forgiven him for his absence, but Penny’s mother was a different beast.

“Why are you here?”

Unlike her husband’s, Antonia Kostas’s thick Greek accent that wasn’t smoothed over by serving the front of the restaurant for forty years. Her dark eyes focused on Eric. It was obvious that she still carried considerable grief over her daughter’s death and the role she believed he had in it.

“I came to say…” Eric rubbed a hand over his face again. “Look, Mr. and Mrs. Kostas, I came because I never did apologize. But I also have new information about Penny’s death that I believe you have the right to know.”

The Kostases glanced at each other, then turned back to Eric and waited.

Eric took a deep breath. Under the table, Jane squeezed his knee lightly.

“She…well, there’s a man. A man who hates me and my family. Who seems bent on destroying any good thing that happens to me, for reasons I don’t fully comprehend yet.”

He took another deep breath, then continued, retelling all of the story as best he could. His father’s friendship with Carson. Their business dealings, gone south at some point. His relationship with Jane’s mother. And, eventually, his recruitment of Eric to the Janus society.

“I must beg of you,” he said quietly, “not to mention the society to anyone. For your own safety.”

“Did…did Penelope know about any of this?” Lazaros asked, understandably flabbergasted.

Eric swallowed. “I don’t think so. But she was a smart girl, Mr. Kostas, and we were together when I was recruited. It’s entirely possible that she figured it out, and I just never knew.”

God, he could see her now. The vision of her, the stained bathroom tiles, the cold chill of the room, even on the late spring day. The metallic scent of her blood. The glaze over her open eyes.

He had to tell them.

“Mr. Kostas, Penny didn’t kill herself. She was murdered. By a member of the Janus society, probably sent by John Carson. It was only a few days after I was fully initiated and maybe a month after my family cut me off for deciding to marry her. I thought at the time it was my family’s ostracization that caused her to do it—the note, which now I see was clearly forged, indicated as much. But Jane and I both heard her killer confess. It was part of a larger scheme to bring me to heel. And for this man, John Carson, to punish me in my father’s stead.”

For a long time, both of the Kostases sat silently, digesting the revelations. They murmured to each other in Greek. Under the table, Jane reached for Eric’s hand.

“That was very brave,” she whispered.

Eric darted a look her way. “Thanks, pretty girl.”

Jane’s cheeks flushed.

“I don’t understand.” Lazaros pulled their attention back. “What does this man have against you? Why would he…do that…to my daughter?”

“Because the only thing John Carson cares about is power and control,” Eric said. “Mr. Kostas, perhaps you remember. When I decided to marry Penny, my family cut me off. I accepted that because I loved your daughter, and I knew we could make a good life without my family’s fortune. But I believe now that those terms were unacceptable to John Carson, who needed those resources for his own plans. The fact that it only continued torturing me in my father’s place was a bonus.”

Lazaros just shook his head, now tearing at one of the napkins on the booth. Antonia’s face didn’t move at all.

“I don’t understand,” Lazaros said, over and over again. “I don’t understand.”

“Mr. Kostas.”

Jane’s voice surprised everyone, low and unassuming. She placed a hand on Lazaros’s wrist, which everyone stared at before she withdrew it.

“You might have known this about Eric, Mr. Kostas,” Jane said quietly. “But he’s one of the most independent people in the world. When he makes a decision, it’s his decision.”

Next to her husband, Antonia nodded. Respect entered the older woman’s dark eyes. “Yes,” she murmured. “I remember.”

“Unfortunately,” Jane continued. “He also was born into a world where, because of his family’s expectations, many of those decisions were taken away from him. When he tried to shirk their guidance, people weren’t happy about it. Especially my father.”

“Your father?” Lazaros seemed even more confused.

“John Carson is Jane’s biological father,” Eric said quietly. “We didn’t know—she never knew—until we were engaged. Until he announced it himself and forbade our marriage, purely out of spite. A decision that we also did not accept. And for which we were also punished.”

The Kostases just stared, clearly shocked. Beside him, Jane shuddered.

“Look,” Eric continued, more hurried now. “I still can’t claim Penny’s death wasn’t my fault. The truth is that had Penny never known me, she wouldn’t have been on John Carson’s radar. She would probably still be alive.”

Eric’s chest felt heavier than ever, but he forced himself to meet Lazaros and Antonia’s grief-stricken gazes head-on.

“Yes,” Lazaros agreed after a minute. “She would be.”

“But she didn’t kill herself,” Eric said. “That’s what I wanted you to know.”

“Well, of course she didn’t kill herself,” Antonia said abruptly. “Penelope was my daughter. I know she would never do something like that.”

“Ah, yes,” Eric said. “That’s right, Mrs. Kostas.”

Antonia turned to her husband. “I knew it. Didn’t I tell you, Zaro? Penelope would never have done that. I told you!”

Lazaros was shaking his head in disbelief. “You are sure?”

Eric nodded. “I’m sure.”

“And this man? This…” Antonia turned to Jane. “Your father? He is a killer and he is just running free?” She turned back to Eric. “You would marry a murderer’s daughter?”

The lump in Eric’s throat disappeared, burned away by sudden anger. “Now wait a second, Mrs. Kostas, Jane is not—”

“I get it.” Jane’s voice cut across the noise with the precision of a knife. “But, Mrs. Kostas, I understand your grief. I truly do. I understand it because I’ve experienced it for myself, by the hand of the same man.”

Mrs. Kostas said nothing. Jane chewed on her lip, staring at the edge of the beaten Formica.

“Jane,” Eric said, “you don’t have to…”

But Jane shook her head with sudden vehemence, and instead of shrinking into herself yet again, she leaned across the table and took Mrs. Kostas’s hand.

“Five weeks ago, I was pregnant. My mother and I were both kidnapped, and by the time Eric found us, I wasn’t pregnant anymore. John Carson made sure of it.” She sucked in a deep breath. Her body vibrated with contained rage. “I misspoke before, Mrs. Kostas. John Carson is responsible for my existence because of one night with my mother, thirty years ago. But he is no father to me.” She released Antonia’s hand and tucked her own back into her lap like a maimed animal. “Just a monster, plain and simple.”

A lone tear trailed down Jane’s cheek. The hand still in Eric’s gripped so hard, he’d see marks from her nails later.

But he wasn’t letting go now.

“Oh, my,” Antonia breathed. “Oh, my, I’m so…”

“You don’t need to feel bad for me,” Jane said. “I can’t imagine it compares to losing a fully grown daughter.”

“A loss is a loss. Just because my husband and I lost our daughter doesn’t mean we can’t feel your pain as well. We are so sorry.” Antonia turned her brown eyes on Eric. “For the both of you.”

Jane looked up. That flash. That spark. That fight. He hated that it had taken something like this to bring it out again, it was still there. And he had never been so relieved to see anything in his life.

“John Carson will meet justice for what he’s done,” Jane said. “Eric and I—we have resources too. No one is going to let that man go for what he has done to so many people. We can promise you that.”

* * *

In the end,after a big lunch and a lot of shared stories about Penny, they had bid the Kostases farewell with promises to visit the restaurant soon (“more than once a decade!” Antonia had demanded). There was something different in the air when they stepped outside. Hope, maybe? Eric certainly felt that way as Jane let him hold her hand again while they waited with their other two detail for Tony to pull up the car.

Eric turned to Jane. “Thank you for doing that with me.”

“You’re welcome.” She stared in the direction of the river, as if she could sense its transitory gleam through the haze of concrete buildings. “But I think we need to make another stop while we’re on this redemption tour.”

Eric frowned. “What’s that?”

“I know what you’re doing.”

Eric bit back a smile. There it was. That attitude. “What’s that, Lefferts?”

But she wasn’t joking. “You need to talk to your mom. You need to tell her what you know. There’s more there, I’m sure of it. Maybe she can help us keep our promise to Penny’s parents.”

His smile fell away. “I had another plan, you know. Go back to Boston. Maybe relive a few of our earlier moments. I was going to make you fall in love with me again, Lefferts.”

To his surprise, Jane turned to him suddenly, grabbed the lapels on his jacket, and pulled him close enough that when she whispered, he could hear her clearly:

“Don’t you know? It was your heart I fell in love with, you idiot. And I’ve never seen you open it more than you did today.”

He cupped her face. He couldn’t help it. Another tear slipped from under her glasses, and his thumb wiped it away.

“This hurts,” she admitted. “But I think it’s okay. It’s better than feeling nothing all the time. I don’t want to feel numb anymore. It’s better than having all these emotions shoved away because feeling them is just too fucking much.”

Eric wiped away another tear. “I’ll feel them with you, Jane. I wanted her too, you know.”

At the mention of the child, a few more tears free-fell. But she didn’t break down completely, Eric noted, though maybe she needed to.

Let go, he begged mentally. Let it all go.

When she didn’t, he sighed. The car pulled up, and after he brushed the last of her tears away, Eric placed a kiss on top of Jane’s head.

“All right,” he said. “You win. To my mother’s we go.”

After they got back in the car, Eric watched with concealed triumph as Jane pulled a small cosmetics bag from her bag and removed a pencil, a tube of lipstick, and a compact.

“I’m going to need to change before we go over there,” she said as she dabbed the mascara smeared under her eyes. “Your mother won’t have a heart-to-heart with me looking like a Cure groupie.”

The car pulled into traffic, and she held up the mirror, carefully drawing a path of bright red around the rim of her full lips, then filling it in with the pencil, followed by the brighter, shinier hue of the lipstick. When she was finished, she smacked her lips with satisfaction. Eric was transfixed.

Jane turned, finally noticing his stare with something resembling satisfaction. “Don’t say anything,” she murmured as she tucked the makeup back into her purse. “Just let it be.”

So he did. But it was definitely a good sign.