The Hate Vow by Nicole French

Thirteen

At exactly ten o’clock the next morning, following the horrifically awkward five-course dinner that lasted until approximately the end of the next ice age, Eric, Skylar, and I were shown into the salon once again to await Celeste for a purely nonsocial visit: the prenup discussion.

Skylar carried her briefcase and was dressed in full lawyer-garb, right down to the chic black suit and thick tortoiseshell glasses that were similar to the ones I wore that morning. My clothes, however, were decidedly more casual—a comfortable green crepe jumpsuit I had sewn myself and black ballet flats fitting for the balmy June day. With my hair tied up in a topknot with tendrils escaping here and there, I looked and felt like a goddamn spring flower—and a fair bit more comfortable than last night. Note to self: your clothes are still better than any designer crap.

“You look nice, by the way,” Eric told me again as we entered the salon. “I like that…whatever that thing is you’re wearing.”

I turned, making my hoop earrings swing. “Will you stop it?”

“Stop what?”

His frown made an adorable crease between his eyebrows, and he shoved his hands into the pockets of his gray pants. With the navy and white gingham shirt, he looked, as ever, like a damn J. Crew ad. Preppy and sexy at the same time. Of course it would be right when my libido woke up for the first time in almost a year that I’d have to spend my days with the off-limits Don Juan of the Upper East Side.

“Stop being so nice,” I said. “Last night. And you’ve been doing it all fucking morning too. It’s annoying.”

Behind us, Skylar snorted as she started setting out papers on the coffee table. “You know, it’s not too late to back out,” she said drily. “No one has to risk mariticide yet.”

“Shut up, Skylar,” Eric and I spoke in unison.

She just snorted again.

Eric rolled his eyes. “It’s called being thoughtful. I just figured—”

“You figured that I can’t handle myself with your family. But you said yourself that I was the only one cut out to deal with them, right? Now, did I or did I not survive dinner just fine last night?”

It hadn’t been so bad. I felt a little like a zoo animal, and the passive aggressive comments about my hair or ethnicity never seemed to stop, but that was nothing a few drinks couldn’t cut the edge off. And sure, there was the weird sensation that everyone was talking about me behind my back, or the moments when I was pretty sure Caitlyn Calvert wanted to eat Eric instead of the Chilean sea bass in front of her. But it was fine. Small potatoes. Not worth stressing about.

I poked Eric hard in the chest, ignoring the way his skin barely gave. Lord, the boy really was as hard as a rock. What did he do that made him like that? Most lawyers I knew were the general consistency of playdough.

Eric stepped back, hands held up in surrender. “Fine, fine,” he said. “You want me to be a dick, I will.”

“Good,” I said. “It makes it easier to remember just why I’m doing this.”

As we waited, I drifted around the room, which looked a bit different than it had last night. The furniture had been replaced in the center—a settee, a couple of art deco-style davenports, and a Chesterfield-style chaise lounge next to a bay window. Now that the walls weren’t crowded with people, I noticed the art—was that an original Gustav Klimt?—and the smattering of family portraits. Most of them were stiff, the kind you’d hire a professional photographer to take in a studio, except the surroundings were obviously private homes. Of course—a backdrop like this room would be infinitely better than some bland studio. And people as rich as this hired photographers to come to them, not the other way around.

“Adam Novak did that one,” Eric said, coming to stand next to me while Skylar set up.

“Seriously? The Vogue photographer?” I stared at the family picture in which Eric looked about five. It was in the middle of a blooming rose garden, and hardly anyone was smiling. Celeste de Vries sat in the middle of all of them, preening like the Queen of England.

Eric nodded. “I figured you’d know who he was, considering how obsessed you are with fashion.”

I cast him a look, but he continued examining the portrait. Most people, even Skylar, didn’t treat my love of fashion as anything other than a hobby. Most people didn’t even remember.

I peered closer. “How old are you here?”

“Six, maybe seven.”

“Awwww,” I cooed, peering closer.

There were a dozen kids in the photo, all of them girls except Eric. I recognized a few from dinner last night. Eric sat in the front, right at the knee of his grandmother, her frail hands drifting just over his head like a halo. His position was clear. If she was the queen, he was the crown prince. It was becoming clearer to me just what he had walked away from at twenty-two. Not just a family, but an entire empire. He had been groomed for the job since he was born. And then, just when it was supposed to happen, walked away completely.

I also wondered, considering the somewhat chilly reception we had enjoyed last night, how many of his family members truly thought he was doing them a favor by returning.

“Your dad,” I wondered as I drifted a finger over the picture. “What was he like?”

Eric cocked his head as he looked fondly at the portrait. “Well, I didn’t know him that well. I was only ten when he died. It was a sailing accident. He got caught in a storm by our house on Long Island.”

“Ten? Holy smokes,” I murmured. “Eric, I had no idea.” Was that because he hadn’t told me, or because I hadn’t asked?

It was disturbing that I couldn’t answer that question.

He gave me a queer look. “What’s funny about that is that you’ve known me for almost eight years now, Jane.”

“I know,” I agreed.

“There really is a lot we don’t know about each other, isn’t there?”

For a second, I thought he might call it all off. Maybe he’d realize what a truly ridiculous venture we were about to begin. It surprised me how much I disliked the possibility.

“Yes,” I agreed slowly. “But I’d like to know now.” I turned, hopeful. “I’d like to know better my betrothed, sir.” I said it in a mocking tone, but it wasn’t a lie.

Eric sighed. “I didn’t see him much, but when I did, we had fun. He used to take me sailing around Long Island during the summers. And if I was still awake when he came home, he’d usually be up for a game of Uno.”

The man in the picture looked a lot like Eric now—handsome, preppy, fair, and blond. His smile was practically blinding, magnetic in a JFK, Camelot manner only certain wealthy families from the Northeast emanate. Beside him, the entire family seemed to glow in the sunlight of a summer day.

“What do you think he would have thought of all of this?” I wondered aloud. “Knowing his son isn’t marrying for love?”

“Oh, he probably would have found it ironic,” Eric said as he gazed at another photo—this one a portrait of just his father.

“Ironic? Why?”

I received a sharp look. “Well, it’s not like it was never said, right?”

* * *

A knock sounded on the door. I groaned. Who in the hell was banging on Suejean’s door at 9 a.m.? My cousin was working a forty-eight-hour shift at the hospital, and she never had company.

The lump of person next to me snorted, then chuffed like a wildebeest in a nature video.

“Hey, what’s up?”

“I just need to check something…Grrrrreg?” I guessed.

He didn’t answer. I assumed the name was correct. I also didn’t particularly care.

The knock turned to a pound. “Jane! Jane, I know you’re in there!”

At the sound of a voice which, after the week before, I was sure I was never going to hear again, I shot out of bed like a cockroach scuttling under the fridge. Holy shit. What was he doing here?

“Where you going?” snuffled Maybe Greg, whose hand had emerged from the blankets like some kind of primeval monster rising from the deep. I watched it traverse the sheets toward me.

“Ah, mailman,” I said as I edged away. “He gets feisty if we don’t pick up our letters personally.”

“Jane!” The pounding grew louder.

“The mailman knows your name?”

“It’s a very personalized service,” I said. “Be right back.” I tied on the thin pink robe I’d had since high school and darted out of the room to the door, patting at my hair, which currently stuck out at all angles. Not exactly the picture of effortless sexual charisma I would prefer this “mailman” to see.

I opened the door to find Eric pacing my cousin’s hallway, looking a far sight from his normally impeccable self. His short blond hair was standing up on one side, like he’d slept on it funny, and his navy pants and white button-down were a wrinkled mess.

He turned when I opened the door. “So, you are here.” His eyes narrowed. “I was starting to think you’d found another place to sleep last night.”

“What are you doing here?” I asked, closing the door a bit behind me. Stay in the room, Maybe Greg. Keep your monster in its cave.

His gray, sleepless eyes closed for a moment, then reopened looking like bright, iron stars. “You,” he said as he approached me. “You’re not allowed to end things like that.”

I crossed my arms, shooting for defiance, but couldn’t quite manage it. “Eric—”

“No.” He stopped pacing. “It’s bullshit, what you pulled. I’m not some one-night stand with an asshole you picked up in a bar.”

I cringed. He didn’t know how right he was.

“You and I, we’re special,” he rattled on. “And the second I own up to that, you cut and run. Well, I’m calling you on your bullshit, Jane. What gives?”

This time, my defiance didn’t have to be feigned. “What gives? God. This is just like you. You expect me to drop everything to come to your beck and call. Did you forget that you also asked me to stay in Boston? After we had both taken the bar exam in two separate states?”

Eric groaned. “Jesus Christ. Is that what this is about? I’ll move to Chicago if that’s what you want.”

“No, it’s not what I want! And that’s the entire fucking point. I would never ask you to give up your career, but you, just like every other man on the planet, think it’s completely acceptable to ask that of a woman. Love doesn’t mean asking each other to give up anything, Eric. That is the fucking point!”

I was practically shouting by this point, and I was sure that Suejean’s neighbors were going to poke their heads out any second to ask me to kindly shut the hell up. What was it with him? We were either fighting or fucking, wrestling constantly for power neither of us seemed to know what to do with. I couldn’t stop, but I knew it wasn’t healthy. None of this was healthy.

Instead of yelling back, Eric remained quiet, though no less intense. I realized then that for the first time, he really was more interested in talking than maintaining his careful facade of comportment. He looked a mess. And he looked me right in the eye.

“Fine,” he said at last. “If you’re finally willing to accept that what we are is more than just a way to blow off steam while studying for the bar, then maybe we’re actually getting somewhere. That I can work with.”

Did I think that? What did “more” mean? I stood by my previous words. Even if this was…something more…what right did that give us to hamper each other’s careers? That wasn’t the kind of relationship I wanted, even if I had one to begin with.

But before I could answer, the door behind me opened.

“Jen? Jenna? Um…hon? D’you have a towel or somethin’ I can use?”

Eric and I both turned to find the creature from the lost lagoonthe lump from the bed last night’s sexual partner scratching his head like a Shel Silverstein illustration, wearing nothing but his size too-small white boxer briefs that were just tight enough around the waist to give the guy a muffin top. Hot.

I pressed my lips together. I didn’t even want to see the look of horrified disdain I knew was plastered all over Eric’s face.

“Linen closet is in the hallway across from the bathroom. Kthanksbye.” I shoved Maybe Greg back into the apartment, slammed the door shut, then whirled around to face Eric, who was indeed staring at me with unmitigated disgust.

“Nice, Jane,” he said quietly. “Really nice.”

I watched for a moment as he turned and slumped his way back down the hallway. And then, something about the sight of Eric walking away like that broke me. I sprang into action.

“Eric, wait. Hey, will you just hold on a second!” Struggling to keep my robe in place, I jogged after him, giving Mrs. Stewart, Suejean’s neighbor, a weak smile as I passed. “Dude, stop!”

I grabbed the cuff of his shirt, yanking him back just before he turned down the stairwell. When he turned, his brow was furrowed and his eyes were squeezed tightly shut.

“WHAT!” he exploded, boomeranging back at me like he’d been released from a slingshot. “What do you want from me?”

“A second to listen!” I shouted back. “Jesus Christ, Eric, this is not my fault. You don’t get to be mad like this because I’m doing what normal grown-ups do—what you do on a nightly basis, I might add—and exercising my right to be a healthy sexual human fucking being!”

He just shook his head and rubbed his neck. “This is bullshit.”

“Oh, is it?” I demanded, poking him in the chest. “Be honest. You’re telling me you of all people have been celibate for the last week? We broke up!”

“And whose decision was that?” he snapped. “I asked you to come meet my family, and you hopped on a plane faster than Usain Bolt.”

“Well, who asked you to do that?” I demanded. “We were having a good time! We knew the score. We knew this whole thing had an expiration date. And then you had to go fuck it up by doing something like a big family invite!”

“And do you know why?” he shot back. “Do you have any fucking idea why I wanted you to do that? It’s because I love you, Jane. I fucking love you! Do you get that? Do you even understand what it means to say that to someone?”

I stumbled forward, suddenly feeling like I’d been punched in the gut. Eric caught me, hands curved around my shoulders as he held me up. All anger drained from his face, and what was left was a mix of fear, hope, and something else.

Was that love? Was that what it looked like?

“I love you, pretty girl,” he whispered. “I came here to tell you that. And to ask…to ask if you…do you love me, Jane?”

My mouth trembled, unable to open fully or shut at all. Shock, some inner voice echoed within me. You’re in shock.

“But—but I live here. You live in Boston. And—” I stumbled over the excuses we’d recycled all summer. The real reasons I’d jumped on that plane and broken it off. All the reasons this was never, ever going to work.

“Fuck all of that,” Eric said softly, but his hands remained as strong as his gaze. The tenderness he’d only allowed to peek through occasionally this summer was completely unmasked. No filter. And it was blinding. “That shit doesn’t matter in the end. It’s simple, Jane. I love you. Do you love me too?”

“I…” I couldn’t get my mouth to work, frozen as I was in his thrall. But as soon as my lips regained feeling, the word fell out instinctually: “Yes.”

His eyes brightened. “Yes?”

I nodded, slowly at first, then more definitively. “Yes.”

Eric sighed, long and steady. Then he pulled me close and stamped a harsh, torrid kiss on my lips that lasted only a few seconds but would tingle for hours.

“Good,” he said as he released me. “Now, I have a plane to catch.”

My jaw dropped as I stumbled back into the wall. My robe was now hanging half open, and I wrapped it up again. “Are you kidding? You’re just going to drop that bomb on me and go? What kind of shit is that?”

The smile reappeared, the one I hated and loved at the same time—cocky, knowing, and utterly panty-melting. “I have to work, Jane. And so do you, right? Love doesn’t mean asking each other to give up our lives, right?”

Oh, right. Work. That thing we were supposed to be doing round the clock as newly minted lawyers. My entire reason for breaking up with him to begin with. Fucking hell.

Every reason I knew this was doomed from the start raced back into my head.

“Hey.” He took my hand again and pulled me close, weaving his fingers with mine. “You’re coming this weekend.”

It wasn’t a request. So I simply nodded.

He nodded back. “I’ll send you a ticket on my way to the airport. In the meantime…” He gazed back toward my cousin’s apartment. “Get that motherfucking swamp monster out of your bed. And in case we’re not clear, from now on, no one else is allowed in it from now on. Your bed belongs to me. Just me. Understood, pretty girl?”

Like a puppet, I nodded again. How did he always manage to do this? Make me speechless while he commandeered my life? It was almost like I tried to say no to the man just to make him do it more.

“Until Friday night, then,” he said with another quick, harsh kiss. “And, Jane?”

I swallowed. “Wh-what?”

“You better be ready to say sorry.”

And then, he was gone, leaving me in the hallway to ponder exactly what he had in store for my redemption.

* * *

I playeda finger over my lips, like that last kiss was still stamped here. I had flown back to Boston as planned, and Eric had spent the entire weekend forcing me to “make up” for my mistakes. Making up that had included tying my hands and feet together at one point. Another time had involved handcuffs and a flogger. Lord, the boy had some moves.

But it hadn’t lasted long.

That kiss might have tingled, but the red panties burned.

I frowned. Fuck him. Fuck whoever wore those polyblend monstrosities I found when I returned. And fuck the word love. Whenever Eric’s natural charm and prowess distracted me, I needed to remember him for what he really was—a predator—and forget the tenderness I saw that day.

Still, I couldn’t help looking for traces of it now. Eric didn’t look away, but there was only his normal, stoic expression that was one-part nonchalance, one-part cockiness. No tenderness. No kindness. Not an ounce.

“Ironic,” I murmured. “Yes, I see that now.”

Eric sighed and turned back to the pictures. “Anyway, he was a good guy, I think. No matter what the papers said.”

“The papers?”

He gave me a look. “Well, you don’t head up a company like DVS without receiving some scrutiny. We’re probably going to end up on Page Six, you know. And Grandmother will make sure the wedding takes up half the Times style section.”

I balked. “Are you serious? I thought she was joking about my hair.”

He nodded, looking annoyed. “Oh, I’m dead serious. Nina’s a tabloid regular, and so are my second and third cousins. New Yorkers love ‘socialites.’ It’s dumb, but the truth.”

I made a mental note to do a little research into de Vries family news coverage. I wasn’t sure how I felt about that, having my life plastered all over the papers. I remembered all too well Brandon and Skylar’s brief foray with the press when Brandon had flirted with being mayor of Boston. Even now they were sometimes targets of the Boston tabloids, just by virtue of their wealth and Brandon’s former notoriety. Skylar hated everything about it, and they’d sued multiple outlets for libel. It hadn’t helped much.

“Why are you asking about all of this?” Eric wondered. “You never cared…before.”

I shrugged my guilt away. I hadn’t, had I? “Well…I am about to sign my life away to this family. I should probably know what I’m getting into.”

He looked at me for an extended minute, to the point where I started to squirm. Sounds echoed from down the hallway, but he continued to watch me even as we returned to the couch.

“For the record,” he said quietly, “I’d never ask you to sign your life away to anyone. Least of all me.”

He offered a small smile, one that made me feel strangely warm in the pit of my belly. My mouth dropped as I searched for words to respond.

His grandmother entered the room with a creak of wheels as Garrett wheeled her in alongside her ever-present tank of oxygen, followed by a middle-aged man in an unremarkable gray suit. I assumed he was the family lawyer. Eric and I both took seats on the sofa next to Skylar while Celeste situated herself across the coffee table from us. Eric took my hand companionably in his lap. When I looked up in surprise, he just smiled, but the clear, earnest look in his eyes carried obvious meaning: just play along.

“All right, pretty girl,” Eric murmured, and quickly mouthed “Sorry” when he caught my look of faux-admonishment. “Force of habit,” he said. “Ready to get married?”

“Well,” Celeste de Vries interrupted before I could answer. She wasn’t quite the picture of elegance she had been last night. Her wig was gone, replaced by a light pink Chanel scarf that matched her beautiful suit separates. She took a siphon of oxygen but kept her stiff gaze on me. “We shall see about that.”