Nina raised a delicate blonde brow.
“These things take time,” he said. “She’s not exactly herself. It’s good for her to be with family and friends.”
“What about you? Don’t you need that too? I know she’s hurting, Eric, but you had your own trauma. Who’s taking care of you?”
Eric frowned. This line of questioning had been bouncing around his head for too long. He was thoroughly tired of it.
“How’s your family, Mrs. Gardner?” he asked pointedly. “Are you and Calvin getting along again?” While he had been at Rikers, his cousin had spent some time with Jane, furious over the fact that her husband delivered Eric’s whereabouts to John Carson and confirmed the trumped-up charges of securities fraud to the SEC. But as far as he knew, she was back at their townhouse again.
Was it just him, or did Nina cringe? He was an asshole for asking about Calvin, but since Nina had something to say about Jane every time they spoke, it was only fair he get a word in.
“Calvin is staying with his parents right now,” Nina confirmed with her version of an eye roll—the most sedate eye roll ever, but it was there.
“Really?” He had assumed that after Nina’s few days staying with Jane, things had gone back to normal.
But Nina just studied her nails. “I…we are just thinking through some things.”
“Like what things?”
She looked up. “It’s a marriage. They’re never perfect. You’ll know eventually.”
Eric cocked his head. “Are you thinking the big D?”
Nina exhaled daintily through pursed lips. “I… Maybe. But honestly, I don’t think it will go anywhere. Every time I consider it…I think of what she would say.”
Eric didn’t have to ask who Nina meant. The specter of their grandmother hung around them both. Hell, her portrait was literally hanging behind Nina, watching over this very conversation with Chanel-clad superiority.
Still…
“Do you really want to make the rest of your decisions based on a dead woman’s thoughts? Nina, don’t forget, this was a person who thought blackmailing me down the aisle was perfectly acceptable.”
“You weren’t exactly fighting it, if I recall,” Nina said dryly. “And really, Eric. Do you think she would have actually sold off the family’s holdings? Our entire legacy?”
Eric drummed his fingers and kicked his feet up on the desk. “I think dear old Grandmother was as ruthless as they come. But you knew her better than me. I hadn’t spoken to her since I was twenty-two. Not exactly the most perceptive age.”
Nina peered sympathetically through the camera. “I knew her better, but she loved you best. You must know that. And I truly believe she only wanted you to be happy.”
“But how could she have known that Jane was where this was going to go?”
“You can really be incredibly naive sometimes, do you know that?”
Eric scowled. “I am not.”
“Eric, you went to the most prominent law school in the world. Do you honestly think Grandmother had absolutely no way of keeping track of you?” Nina tipped her head. “Believe me, I heard about Jane long before you ever brought her home. Five years, in fact.”
His feet toppled from the desk. “Are you kidding? She was spying on me?”
“She was a wealthy old woman with control issues and an unhealthy attachment to the de Vries name. Of course she was spying on you. She watched all of us.” Nina tapped a pen on her desk. “But I think originally, Grandmother was trying to be patient. She thought you would find your happiness on your own and eventually come back to the fold. When she learned of her diagnosis, well, that put a different spin on things. She wanted to do right by you before she was gone. Just…in her own way.”
Eric folded forward, placing his hands on his head. “What would she think of all this now? This bullshit with John Carson? All these traps?”
Nina twisted her mouth around. “You were in college when I debuted, so you won’t remember this. But Grandmother ensured I had the best escort: Oliver Newcomb.”
Eric frowned. “The pancake mix heir?”
Nina nodded. “That’s right. He’s a disaster now, by the way, total slave to the bottle. But back then, he was the escort. Except he almost didn’t come with me.”
“Why’s that?” Eric asked, curious where this was going.
“Well, Alicia Platt thought she was half in love with him and was destroyed that he wasn’t escorting her. So to dissuade him, she started a few rumors. Quite unoriginal, really. That I had slept with half the school, traded sexual favors with Ollie, even seduced his father. Can you imagine? Me at seventeen with that moldy old man?”
Eric blanched. He didn’t want to imagine his cousin with anyone.
“Anyway,” Nina continued, “when Grandmother found out about it, she was furious. There was only one course of action, according to her. Alicia had to be ruined to the point she wouldn’t even consider showing her face in polite society again. Every rumor on the planet was put out there, every person talking. Page Six, gossip sites, not to mention every benefit on the planet. Alicia had to attend some public school on the West Coast, did you know that? Not a single admissions head on the Eastern Seaboard would take her. And on the night of Cotillion, Oliver showed up on my arm. Because Grandmother said he would.”
“So, what, she ruined this young girl’s future simply because she threatened one night of yours?” Eric frowned.
“No,” Nina said. “She made sure I was never a target by making me ruin Alicia’s reputation. Grandmother never lifted a finger. She just told me how to do it.”
Eric honestly wasn’t sure what to make of that. “I didn’t know you were so vindictive.”
Nina leaned forward so her face filled the screen. “I’m not, really. But I learned a bit about…survival in this world of ours while you were off reading poetry and pretending to be a layman.”
Now Eric rolled his eyes. Attending Harvard and starting his own firm wasn’t exactly laying brick.
“My point is: Grandmother wouldn’t wonder what to do about John Carson, Eric. She’d probably just wonder why you hadn’t already eviscerated him.”
“Sounds a little bloodthirsty.” He was joking, but only because he’d been seriously reining back the urge to kill for weeks now. It was a little odd to think it was a family trait.
Nina, however, didn’t laugh. “Do you have any idea how bloodthirsty our family had to be, making a name in shipping of all things in the seventeenth century? In America? We have generations of blood on our hands, Eric.”
“Why, Nina. I never knew you were such a historian.”
She just snorted. “You’re acting like a novice, not a legacy. Grandmother, I assure you, could be the absolute personification of vengeance when she believed anyone threatened this family. John Carson stayed away until she was gone for a reason.”
Again, Penny’s body flashed through his mind—but he shook it away. He didn’t quite stay away, did he?
And then he saw his father, lying in that damn coffin. Lifeless and gray. And Eric wondered where his grandmother’s vengeance had been then. Or if maybe she had just taken it out on Eric while raising him.
Maybe. Maybe.
“And as for Jane,” Nina said before signing off, pulling Eric out of his gloom. “Somehow, you have to remind her of what she is to you too. That’s what every woman really wants, you know. A reminder that someone cares for her. Sees her. Fights for her. Especially when the rest of the world doesn’t.”
Eric said goodbye to his cousin, closed his laptop, then headed out of the attic down to the kitchen, where Skylar was getting Luis breakfast while Brandon chatted amiably with Jenny over cereal at the farmhouse table.
Eric accepted a cup of coffee from Skylar, took a sip of the weak, lukewarm sludge (which was being polite), and grimaced. “Crosby, where do you keep your French press? I know you have one.”
“You’re such a snob,” Skylar said, setting a plate of eggs in fr
ont of her toddler, who proceeded to smash a handful into his mouth.
Eric shrugged. He couldn’t deny it, especially when it came to his coffee. “If you’re gonna do it, do it right.”
“Let him, Red,” Brandon said. “No offense, baby, but your coffee tastes like dishwater.”
Next to him, Jenny giggled when she caught her mother’s indignant expression.
“It’s not my fault.” Skylar turned to Brandon. “I’m a tea drinker, after all.”
“Then just let me do it, Cros,” Eric said as he poured the “coffee” down the sink. He located the bag of Starbucks on the counter and masked a cringe—he preferred fresher coffee, but he could make something out of this. “You’re putting us up here. I can at least take care of the brew.”
Skylar grumbled, but eventually directed Eric to the equipment he requested.
“Jenny,” she said, examining her daughter’s plate. “How much of those eggs has Daddy eaten?”
“None,” Brandon said just as Jenny replied, “This much,” roughly indicating half her dish.
Brandon held his arms out in mock innocence, but flashed a grin at his wife.
Skylar wasn’t amused. “Brandon, she has to eat.”
“She’s a pea, Red. She doesn’t need this much food.”
“Well, she’s going to stay pea-sized if you keep eating her food for her.”
Brandon looked his daughter up and down, as if he were literally estimating her size.
“Brandon!”
“You know who you sound like right now, don’t you?”
“I do not sound like Bubbe, you big bully!”
“Okay, okay, Red, keep your pants on. Jen, your ma’s right. You need to finish the rest.”
“Daddy!”
“No argument, peanut. Listen to your mother and me. Eat.”
It was clear by his tone that there was no getting around it, and Jenny clearly knew it, since she immediately bent to her food. Brandon turned to Skylar with an arched brow, then flashed his trademark, “million-watt grin,” as Skylar called it. It worked—his wife plainly melted in return. Then she rewarded Brandon with a tame kiss that still managed to heat up the whole kitchen.
“You’re a menace,” she muttered with reddened cheeks.
Brandon murmured something in her ear that Eric couldn’t hear, but made Skylar’s face flush even more.
“Brandon!” she said again, but this time in that way women did when they were pleased and embarrassed at the same time.
Brandon just sat back and took a large, satisfied bite of his own eggs. He looked like a king. Eric turned back to making his coffee, aching for his own kitchen on Seventy-Sixth and Amsterdam.
The family’s exchange was familiar, but at the same time foreign. Eric vaguely remembered similar interactions between his parents—flirtatious admonishment between his mom and dad over breakfast or dinner. His father’s teasing that almost always made his mother say “Jacob!” in the exact tone Skylar had just used. The warm feeling Eric would get in his stomach every time he caught them smiling at each other when they thought he wasn’t looking.
But after his father died, it had been Grandmother and Garrett. There was no banter. No repartee. Just a cutting glare that ensured Eric ate his perfectly poached eggs and half a grapefruit.
Is this what it would have been like with Jane after the little one was born? Once, teasing had been as natural to them as breathing. Would their kid have grinned at the two of them the way Jenny was doing now? Would she have run down the stairs every morning, eager for the show of her parents’ love?
The idea made Eric’s guts twist. He finished pushing down the plunger on the French press, then poured himself a cup before wandering over to the solarium to sit under the snow-covered glass. The chill there fit his mood.
“Jane been down yet?” he wondered.
Skylar shook her head. “No, she’s still asleep, I think.”
He wasn’t surprised.
Skylar joined him in the solarium with her tea. She was dressed for the office in one of her designer suits, and for a moment, Eric was envious. He missed the camaraderie of Copley Associates, but also missed knowing the ins and outs of his own shop, all his employees, and every nook and cranny of the place. DVS wasn’t his. Not yet. Maybe not ever, not in the same way.
But at the same time, he was enjoying the challenges of taking over the big company. It wasn’t what he imagined for himself when he originally came to Boston, but he had to admit, Jane was right. Grandmother was right. For the last five years, he had been treading water as a mere lawyer. This was what he was meant to do.
If only he could get back and do it. But he wasn’t going anywhere without Jane.
“You just need to give her some time,” Skylar said quietly, as if she knew what he was thinking.
Eric looked up, deflated. “It’s been two weeks. Yu-na’s settled with Ji-yeon. How much time does she need?”
“Pea, take your brother to the playroom,” Brandon urged Jenny as she finished her breakfast. “We’ll leave in a few minutes, all right?”
After the little girl did as she was asked, Brandon joined Skylar and Eric. They both turned to Eric expectantly.
Eric took a long drink of his coffee. “I don’t know what to do,” he admitted. “She’s…look, I know she’s been going through some hard stuff, but—”
“I don’t think you really know,” Skylar put in.
“She’s my wife, Crosby. I found her. I sat by her wondering if she was even going to live. I think I understand a little about what happened to her.”
“Do you really?”
“You know, I was kidnapped and tortured myself just a few months ago, if you don’t fucking remember,” Eric retorted. “I’m not exactly naive in all of this.”
“And did you have a child ripped from inside you too?” Skylar’s cheeks reddened all over again. Brandon placed a hand on her wrist.
Eric paused. “That’s a little much, don’t you think? It was an abortion at eight weeks. It didn’t really go like that.”
Skylar stood up from the love seat, walked carefully around the coffee table, and sat on it directly in front of Eric.
“No,” she said. “It didn’t. So let me tell you exactly how it did go.”
“Red—” Brandon started, but Skylar batted his hand away.
“No,” she said again. “I’m sick of people minimizing this, like it wasn’t a legitimate trauma. Eric, you’ve been pretty understanding about her healing, but there are some things you don’t get, even if the doctor explained it to you.”
Eric scowled. “I talked to the doctors, Skylar.”
“So they informed you, then, that someone Jane didn’t know drugged her, inserted four pills inside her vagina, then inserted four more, thereby giving her twice as much as was needed to induce an abortion.”
“Skylar,” Brandon tried again, looking visibly uncomfortable.
Skylar, however, just continued. “So, on top of forcibly expelling an embryo as well as all of her uterine lining in an incredibly painful fashion, even through heavy sedation, these assholes also caused hemorrhaging and infection that nearly killed her. Which made a procedure that isn’t exactly a walk in the park anyway completely life-threatening, on top of fucking nonconsensual. So, no, Eric. No one literally ripped a baby out of her. But to Jane, it was pretty damn close.”
Eric sucked in a sharp breath, willing the pricking at his eyes to fade. It wasn’t like any of this was new information. The doctors in Korea and New York had been pretty frank with him about it, multiple times. But it was different, somehow, to hear it coming from someone who wasn’t just Jane’s best friend, but one of his own too. Skylar had a way of cutting through the bullshit. She didn’t sugarcoat things. She forced people to face them.
He didn’t want to tell his friends just how many times over the past week he’d come close to breaking down himself—in the shower, in his bed—trying to forget the sight of Jane drenched in blood, or the
sleepless night he’d spent wondering if she was going to come through it.
And here was Skylar, dredging it all back up again. It was all he could do not to snap.
“Do you remember?” Skylar asked. Her large green eyes hadn’t wavered. “How it was for me, Eric?”
Behind her, Brandon visibly cringed at the mention of his wife’s own abortion. She and Eric had been roommates just after.
Eric nodded. “I remember you were pretty down for a while, yeah.”
“Then imagine something like that happening without your consent. Jane wanted this baby, Eric. She wanted a family with you. And this man, these strangers, paid by her own father—they stole that from her and nearly killed her in the process.” She shook her head. “I don’t think any of us can really understand what she’s going through right now. I think we just have to be with her while she heals. Inside and out. On her own terms. To be honest, Brandon and I are both just humbled she felt comfortable enough in our home to do that.”
She returned to the love seat and curled into Brandon while he stroked her hair thoughtfully. No doubt managing some painful memories of his own.
Eric bent forward, resting his elbows on his knees. In his mind’s eye, he could still see the ultrasound photo that Jane had texted him just before she was taken.
“Fuck,” he whispered. “Fuck.”
He had never felt so helpless in his entire life, and considering the iron fist who had raised him, that was saying something. Or maybe it was just that he also wanted to do something this time. Something different. But nothing seemed to be working.
“So what else do I do?” he wondered. “The FBI. The CIA. Fuck, even the investigator’s blood, still on our hands. No one seems to be doing anything to help. Least of all me.”
Skylar didn’t say anything, and neither did Brandon. Then, after a few minutes, Brandon got up. Skylar stood with him, allowing him to pull her close and rest his chin on her head. For a long time, Eric had looked down on their constant need for contact. But now, with Jane, he understood it. Being apart from her just felt wrong.
Brandon’s eyes closed tightly. The guy hadn’t said much while Skylar talked, but Eric could see he was wrestling with the memories Skylar’s testament was bringing up. They had their own losses, after all.
The Love Trap (Quicksilver Book 3) Page 20