The Love Trap by Nicole French
25
“We were all friends in college,” Heather began once she had topped off her glass again. “I was…well, Eric, you know this, but, Jane, perhaps you don’t. I didn’t come from a wealthy family. My parents were from a small town in New Jersey.”
Jane coughed. “You’re from the land of Springsteen, Mrs. Keeler?”
Heather offered a wry, satisfied look. “Yes. But Pompton Lakes is better known for cancer than for rock and roll.”
“The Stallsmiths,” Eric murmured, enjoying Jane’s sudden recognition. Clearly she was remembering their first meeting, when he had introduced himself using that name, not de Vries.
“I attended Princeton on a scholarship,” Heather continued. “Which was where I met Jacob. And John Carson.”
The boys were in the same fraternity, seniors when Heather was a freshman. She had met Carson first at a mixer.
“Johnny was always single-minded, and he was interested in me from the beginning. Because we had similar backgrounds, he said. We were going through the same thing, learning to acclimate to society at an Ivy League school.”
“What do you mean, similar backgrounds?” Jane asked. “I thought he came from wealth. Wasn’t his father a big arms manufacturer?”
Heather turned to her. “That’s a common misconception, one that Johnny fostered himself. His grandfather owned Chariot, yes, but John Carson grew up in Montana the son of a gun shop owner and a housewife. They were hardly a fountain of wealth. Johnny’s grandfather put him through school to become an engineer so he could work for the company. He was quite brilliant, really. Double majored in business and some kind of science. Physics, I think it was.”
“Nuclear?” Eric ventured. Jane snorted into his shoulder.
Heather looked uneasy. “Well, yes, come to think of it. He actually started a Ph.D., near the end, but he dropped out of that program.”
“What happened?” Jane prodded.
“It was just tragic. First, John’s mother died of cancer, just after he graduated, poor thing. Then it was his grandfather, a few months later, and he shocked everyone by leaving Johnny all of Chariot. Then his father died too in a car accident. Johnny went back to Montana, sold the store, and put nearly everything back into Chariot.” Heather shook her head. “Can you even fathom that much loss in one year?”
“I can imagine it,” Eric said dryly.
Jane didn’t move a muscle. She didn’t even seem to breathe.
Heather blinked between them, perhaps realizing how tone-deaf her comments were. “Yes. Well. When John came back, he wanted Jake to invest. That was a major disagreement between them, you see. Johnny didn’t like rules. He didn’t like agreements. He had his own plans and didn’t like people asking questions, pulling things apart. Which, of course, Jake always did.”
“So he’s a cowboy,” Jane said. Her voice was toneless, gray somehow. Eric peered at her curiously, but he wouldn’t meet his eyes.
“He certainly imagined himself as one. But I’m getting ahead of myself. Their troubles, well, it was about more than just business.” Heather sighed. “Before his family essentially disappeared, Johnny took me out a few times. But it didn’t last, because on our third date, I met his roommate. Your father.”
John Carson didn’t stand a chance. From the second they met, Heather and Jacob were inseparable. Heather fell head over heels for the charismatic heir, blissfully unaware of exactly who he was for several months, well after they were far too in love for the white lie to matter.
“Oh, you should have seen him, Eric,” Heather said dreamily, the effects of the wine clearly kicking in. “Captain of the crew team, president of the fraternity. A born leader. Tall, handsome, like the sun followed him everywhere. You look so like him, darling, you really do.”
“Like the sun,” Jane murmured.
Eric turned. “What’s a sun without its moon?” he said.
Jane shivered. Good or bad? He honestly couldn’t tell. Her mood had shifted again as Heather had started telling this story, but Eric was struggling to read it.
There was a drop of wine on her lip. Fuck it, Eric thought as he leaned close. Quickly, he kissed the drop away. Jane started, then inched slightly away.
Fuck, Eric thought. Wrong fucking move.
He turned back to his mother. “So what happened? You jilted Carson for Dad? That seems like ancient history, especially after only a few dates. Not really the stuff of lifelong grudges.”
Heather studied the rim of her wine glass. “One would think. But John…did not take it well.”
As it turned out, what Heather believed was a dalliance was something much more intense for Carson. It got to the point where he would spontaneously appear when she and Jacob were on a date. He stalked her to and from classes when Jacob wasn’t around. Begged her to break it off, and when she didn’t, appealed to Jacob’s loyalties.
“I honestly never knew if it was me, or if it was because of your father. He seemed to want me more after he learned of Jacob’s and my connection. He was always very jealous of Jake, of his family, his resources, his connections. The de Vries name, you know, was very well known on the Princeton campus. They have a hall named for them and several other buildings. Everyone knew who he was.” Heather sighed again, perhaps out of nostalgia. “John simply wanted whatever Jake had. And your father, Eric, he had such a big heart. I think he felt guilty about stealing me away.”
So although Jacob wasn’t willing to end it, his guilt overcame him. He got Carson into the most exclusive fraternity. The best internships. The most exclusive clubs. Things that greased the wheels for the business Carson would eventually build after his father’s death.
“Secret societies?” Jane asked tentatively.
Heather looked up with an alarmed expression. “I don’t know what you’re—”
“She knows, Mom.”
Immediately, Heather’s alarm transformed into pity. “Oh. Well. That’s a shame.” She shook her head. “They don’t take kindly to their secrets getting out, Jane. They tend to react very…preemptively…toward anyone who discovers them.”
Eric could only wonder how exactly his mother knew that. If the society had done something to her. And what it might be. Jane worried her skirt material between her fingers hard enough that her fingertips turned white.
But before Eric could ask, another thought popped into his mind. “In Dad’s journals, there was a bunch of stuff about Caesar salads. Were those references to the society?”
Heather nodded. “Yes. Jake was absolutely terrible at keeping secrets. From me, anyway.” She shook her head with a curious mix of rue and pleasure. “At any rate, he sacrificed a lot to help John into that ridiculous group. Your grandfather was not at all pleased with him.”
“Grandfather?” Eric asked. “What did he have to do with it?”
“Eric.” Heather cocked her head. “Did you really read the journal?”
Eric frowned. “Several times.”
“And you must know that despite its Hellenistic references, the Janus society hasn’t been democratic since its inception. It’s a monarchy. And its leaders have been almost exclusively de Vries.” She cocked her head. “You’ve all been ‘making Caesar salads’ for generations. Isn’t that what Jake wrote?”
Eric’s head exploded. Caesar salads. Caesar. His grandfather had been the Caesar, and the title had been passed to Jacob upon his death.
“But it didn’t work, did it?” Jane’s voice, cut through his whir of thoughts with a renewed hopelessness that made Eric very uncomfortable.
Heather turned to her sympathetically and shook her head. “No, dear, it did not. John could not seem to let go of…me. Us. A few years later, he tried to break up our wedding. In nearly the same manner as he did your own.”
Eric’s eyes flew open. “What?”
Jane, however, remained silent. And apparently unsurprised as she stared at her hands.
Heather took a very long drink of her wine, draining the glass completely. “It wasn’t quite at the altar. It was on the street. He was waiting for me on the steps of the church when I arrived from the hotel. You can ask your aunt Violet. She was a bridesmaid, after all.”
“What did you say?” Jane asked.
“I told him—oh, God, I can’t tell you how mortifying it is, but I swear, I would have said anything just to get off that street and inside the church. Eric, your father was waiting for me, and all I wanted to do was go to him.”
“Mom. What did you say?”
“I had to,” she said. “He wouldn’t leave otherwise. He kept blocking the doors, and he wouldn’t let go of my arm. All I wanted to do was find Jake!”
“Mom!”
“I told him it wasn’t our time,” Heather whispered. “That I had made a promise, and now I had to keep it. For now.”
“For now?” Eric repeated. “For now? What in the hell did that mean? Were you planning to stop later?”
“Of course not! It meant I loved your father. But Johnny—he obviously took it differently.” She shrank toward her empty wine glass. “He said he would wait for me. As long as it took. But I think…oh, lord, darling, I think he decided at one point that he would stop waiting. It was after he and your father had a serious falling out. Over that business in Korea.”
Eric glanced at Jane, whose brow had lifted above the rim of her glasses.
Heather continued. “After Korea, John started coming around the house again, whenever Jacob left. It was worse when he went sailing—you remember how your father would leave on his trips, sometimes for weeks. It got so much worse. John would follow me on the street. On my way to the gym. Outside luncheons. He kept saying things like, it was our time now. It was his turn.”
“Didn’t you tell Dad?”
Heather shrugged. Her hopelessness, her utter weakness, was heartbreaking. “I did. But Jake wasn’t scared of anyone. To his own detriment.” With every memory, she seemed to wither even more. As did, Eric realized, the woman beside him.
No, Eric thought. He couldn’t. It was too much. Could this really all be about a strange vendetta, about stealing a man’s life? But it was all clicking into place.
He had to ask.
“Mom,” he said carefully. “Did Carson have anything to do with Dad’s death?”
Upon Jacob’s death, the heir apparent to the Janus society—Eric—was about eleven. Far too young to be tapped. Which, for the first time in literally two hundred years, freed up the leadership of one of the most powerful secret societies the world had ever known. For John fucking Carson.
“I don’t know,” Heather said quietly. “Oh, Eric, I really don’t. He never said anything. He had an excellent alibi. He was in Hong Kong on business, attending several benefits, seen at nearly all hours of the day. But Celeste…oh, Eric, I do think she suspected some kind of foul play.” Heather stared at her nails. “I think she blamed me for his death. The day before he left, Jake and I had a terrible fight about John. And he…well, Celeste once suggested that if he had not been so angry, he might not have been so careless. And perhaps, he might have stayed home.” Heather shook her head. “But I checked. John Carson didn’t do it.”
Neither Eric nor Jane said nothing. Jane seemed to be having a hard time breathing. Fuck. This was a bad idea. Even Eric wasn’t sure if he could take this revelation on top of everything else. Eric knew they were both thinking the same thing: just because John Carson wasn’t present for a death didn’t mean he wasn’t responsible.
Heather poured another large glass of wine. Eric swallowed.
“But why?” he asked finally. “If by some crazy reason, he did go after Dad, or at least planned to, why would it matter so much to him? The leadership of a stupid secret society? And years later, too.”
“Perhaps. But on top of that, he was very angry. Not just with your father. With me.”
Jane frowned. “What for?”
“Because,” Heather said softly. “Because just before that day, I told him in no uncertain terms that I would never leave Jake. I told Johnny that I would never love him. And that he would never be half the man your father was.” She gripped her glass. “He demanded the following week that your father abdicate his position as Caesar with the society. As a show of friendship, or something like that.”
“Dad couldn’t have done that,” Eric argued. “That position is for life.”
“I know, dear. I know. And by rights, it should have belonged to you one day. But instead, your father died long before you were ever old enough to be a part of it. Had I known you had been tapped, darling, I would have done everything I could to keep you from it.” Heather sighed with clear regret. “But as it were, staying away from you seemed to be the only thing I could do to keep you safe. Once Jake died, John seemed to think I was available to be his again. He didn’t take it kindly when again, I said no.”
“After Dad died, he still came for you?” Eric shook his head. It was beyond obsessive. It was sick.
It was a sickness, he supposed. Considering the hatred and resentment Carson had nursed against his nemesis, was any wonder that the idea of his own offspring procreating with Jacob’s son had sent the man nearly insane?
Heather nodded. “It’s the reason I married Horace so quickly. To keep us both safe. John was becoming unhinged. And, of course, incredibly powerful.”
“Does Horace know?” Eric asked. “That you used him like this?”
“Horace was a dear friend of mine from high school,” Heather replied. “He also happened to be a homosexual at a time where Wall Street wasn’t particularly forgiving of his tastes.”
At that revelation, Eric’s jaw actually fell. “Horace is gay?”
He glanced at Jane, expecting to see her eyes spring open. But she was still staring at her dress, ruminating. Unresponsive. Fuck, they needed to finish this up and get out of here.
Unfortunately, they still needed to hear the rest.
“It was Celeste’s idea. She thought the only way to keep John Carson at arm’s length was to marry someone else. And keep you safe with her. She was right, of course. Horace needed a wife. I needed a barrier.” Heather set her glass on the table and looked straight at her son. “Eric, you must remember how it was. I couldn’t have loved anyone else the way I loved your father. He was…” Her inhale was shaky. “Jake was everything to me.”
Eric’s chest felt like it was caving in. Memories, so many memories of his parents’ tiny moments, all the ways they broke the codes of decorum of the Upper East Side. Secret glances across a cocktail party. Kisses when they thought no one was watching.
Yes, he remembered. He understood exactly what his parents had shared, because he felt it now with the woman sitting beside him, the one looking very much like she needed a life preserver.
Tentatively, he reached into her lap and pried her hand away from her dress, then raised her fingers to o his lips and pressed a long kiss to her knuckles. Jane vibrated, but her hand was limp. Shit. Shit.
But something else was missing from the story.
“Mom,” Eric said, “I understand why he might nurse a vendetta against you. But why me? Why now? Dad’s been gone more than twenty years. You’ve been long married. Why did Carson care so much that he has been actively trying to ruin my life since all this happened? Coming after me and Jane. Penny, even. Did you know he killed her too, Mom? He sent his fucking henchmen, but he killed her too!”
His emotions got away from him at the end. Jane covered her face with her hands, like she couldn’t bear to hear anymore of it. But Heather, for her part, just looked sad as she watched her son fall apart. Sad, but not even one bit surprised.
“Oh, Eric,” she said. “I keep telling you. You are your father’s son. John Carson doesn’t look at you and see a new person. He sees the next version of a man who, in his eyes, stole everything from him that ever mattered. You are the only ghost he can’t exorcise, just like I am that last treasure he can’t possess. For John Carson, the de Vries family has long represented the only obstacles to happiness. Control. Power. Belonging. Stealing from you and Jane—” She shook her head, as if only now she couldn’t believe the lengths this man would come to assert his control and dominance. “It was just an extension of the motivations he has had his entire adult life. He wanted me, Eric. He wanted your father. Our life. Now, I can’t even imagine what he thinks of his own DNA mixing with the flesh of his mortal enemy. The son of the man he blamed for ruining his life marries his only daughter?” She she picked up her wine glass and tossed back the rest of its contents. “It tipped him over the edge.”
