The Other Man (Rose Gold Book 1)

by Nicole French

  But this was different. The assistant’s voice, curt and cold, had simmered with desperation.

  Grandmother took a leisurely sip with shaky hands. “You might be stubborn like your father, but you were never an idiot. Clearly I’m not in good health.”

  Eric pressed his lips together. “Of course. I’m sorry to—”

  “Let’s not play coy, Eric,” she interrupted. “You loathe this family—you made that perfectly clear when we saw you last, and have continued in the years hence.”

  Eric gritted his teeth but didn’t argue. When your family works together to split up you and your fiancée because they don’t think she’s good enough for them, you get pretty pissed off. And when their actions cause her to kill herself, well, that’s pretty fucking unforgivable.

  So, yeah. He had a bit of a grudge.

  “What do you want, Grandmother?” he asked, setting his untouched tea on a gilded tray balanced on the sky-blue ottoman. “Julie said it was an emergency.”

  “Isn’t it, though?” She gestured at the oxygen tank and her dilapidated body. “I’m dying, Eric, since apparently your senses are failing you. The doctors, fools, all of them, say I have six months, at best. Cancer, apparently. It’s so…pedestrian, isn’t it?”

  “I’m sorry to hear that. Did you ask me here for some kind of absolution? You want forgiveness for what you did to Penny? Because I’ll tell you right now, it’s not coming.”

  Eric swallowed hard, but ultimately, was unmoved. He knew it was cold, but he had truly lost all love for this woman a very long time ago. It was she, after all, who led the crusade that caused Penny to slit her wrists that terrible morning in May.

  Grandmother just scoffed, waving her paper-thin hand. “No, no,” she said. “I expect that’s a lost cause, particularly since I don’t regret it. Not her death, of course, but that wasn’t really our fault. We couldn’t have known she was so…delicate.”

  Eric’s face flamed. He was determined to keep his cool when he arrived, but he should have known better. Grandmother took sadistic pleasure in getting under people’s skin.

  So instead he rose. “I think that’s enough.” Without a backwards glance, he started out of the room, not giving two shits whether or not his sneakers left tracks on her precious floors.

  “Eric, stop right there!” Her voice rang out, though it was quickly swallowed by the thick Aubusson carpets. And damn it, there was something in it that made Eric obey once again. A terror. A weakness he’d never heard before. Not coming from her.

  Slowly, he turned around but remained in the doorway.

  “I’ll be gone in six months,” Grandmother said. “And just who do you think is going to get all of this?”

  She meant the opulence around them. The de Vries fortune was older than Manhattan, having started with a New Amsterdam shipping company that became one of the biggest conglomerates in the world. The name was on containers and boats worldwide, although no de Vries had done more than sit on the board of directors for nearly a hundred years. But money made money, and the de Vries family had more than just about anyone.

  Not that Eric wanted a goddamn cent.

  He crossed his arms and glared. “I’m not going to help you play inheritance games with your kids, Grandmother. You want Mother and Aunt Violet to jump through hoops, you talk to them about it. Or talk to Nina, your other grandchild. The one who actually speaks to you.”

  “That would be all fine and good if I intended them to have it, but I don’t.” Grandmother paused to take a long siphon of oxygen, then offered a smile that could only be described as sickly sweet. “It’s for you, Eric. All of it.”

  Eric’s heart stopped. Completely. He was dead for at least two full seconds.

  “What?” he finally croaked. “But that’s…you have one other child. Who is alive, I might add.”

  “Violet is not a de Vries,” Grandmother said. “And therefore, neither is Nina. Now, before you say anything, they’ve always known that’s how it would go. Girls can’t continue the family name, Eric. Astors and Gardners can’t own a company called De Vries Shipping. But you can, my boy. You’re the last one.”

  It was true: Eric was, in fact, the last in a long line of de Vries men. His father was the only son of Jonathan de Vries, Grandmother’s husband. They were both gone—Grandfather to lung cancer well before he was born, and Father to a freak sailing accident when Eric was just a child. It wouldn’t have mattered if his mother married again or had other children. None of them would have been de Vries. They wouldn’t have had pure blood. Eric was the one and only man in the family who still bore the name.

  “I don’t want it,” he said finally. “I don’t need this family’s money or the company. I meant it when I said I was done with all of you.”

  Again, Grandmother just snorted. “You have no idea what you’re saying. That’s a seventeen-billion-dollar corporation you’re tossing away like old crudité. You’d attend board meetings as chairman—a controlling shareholder, that’s all—and let the money do its work.” She snapped her papery fingers. “Simple.”

  Eric’s jaw opened and closed like one of those nutcrackers that always adorned the massive Christmas tree Grandmother set up every year in the ballroom. He knew his family’s net worth was estimated to be high by Forbes, but never as high as that. Seventeen billion dollars?

  “Why me?” he asked thickly. “Just because of a stupid name? Have one of the cousins change theirs if it means that much to you. Nina went to business school, for Christ’s sake, and she’s just as much a de Vries as I am, even if her last name is Gardner now. And she always did bend over backwards to please you. This family is everything to you. Why would you hand seventeen billion dollars over to someone who turned his back on it?”

  But Grandmother just quirked an eyebrow and shrugged—an oddly casual movement for her. “Tradition was important to your grandfather. And your father too. So was strength of character, and you appear to be the only one in this family who has it besides me. I’ve watched you over the years. You’re a force in corporate law now, which would be a boon for the company. Your father would be proud.”

  It was the only guilt trip that ever worked on Eric—the invocation of his dead father. He knew the pictures on the mantle by heart. The clean-cut man who always showed his teeth when he smiled. Who did things like sail across the Atlantic and learn to fly prop planes. Who swept Eric’s mother off her feet with random trips to Paris or obscenely expensive jewelry. The man had swagger. He was everything that, as a boy, Eric wanted to be. Everything that, as a man, he was not.

  Well, except for the swagger, maybe.

  “Of course, I’m not just going to hand it to you.” Grandmother shook Eric out of his memories.

  And there it was: the caveat. There was always one.

  Eric clenched his jaw. “Let’s have it.”

  She took another gulp of oxygen, intentionally drawing out the conversation. “I want to know the de Vries name will go on,” she said. “It’s what they both would have wanted; therefore, it’s also my dying wish.”

  Eric’s mouth dropped again. “Are you for real? Is this a joke out of some Thomas Hardy novel? Dying wish?”

  Grandmother grinned again. It was alarming. She’d lost some teeth, and others were badly decayed, likely from the chemo. A woman like her wouldn’t go without a decent set of veneers or dentures with any company whatsoever. She must have really been in pain.

  “I assure you it’s very real,” she said. “Marry, Eric. Within six months. And stay married for at least five years, long enough to produce an heir, if you can. Should you succeed, the company is yours. And if you truly don’t want it after five years, you may abdicate your position to your aunt Violet or your cousin Nina.” She sucked in another round of oxygen, like the thrill of the announcement was too much for her. “Say no, and I’ll sell everything, leaving the family penniless but for their current trusts. And as you know, those have never been as generous as they would like.”
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  His first instinct was to tell her she was off her goddamn rocker. Even with one foot in the grave, she was still up to her old tricks, playing with people like marionettes. And if it were just him she was trying to manipulate, Eric probably would have said so. But his family didn’t deserve to have their entire future ripped from them. Nina, to whom he’d barely spoken in ten years—What would her life be like? And as much as he couldn’t stand his mother or aunt, weak and self-absorbed as they were, they didn’t deserve it either. None of them deserved to be pawns in this Machiavellian game Madame de Vries was playing.

  “Marry,” she repeated. “And as the good Lord said, ‘be fruitful and multiply.’”

  The words rang through Eric’s head like the gong of the grandfather clock, chiming on and on. Any instinct he ever had for marriage died with Penny, seeped out of her veins and down the bathtub drain along with her life.

  Eric just wasn’t the marrying type. He was more the never-let-them-into-his-apartment type. The screw-them-and-leave-before-it-gets-light type. And even if he weren’t, there was no one who would be willing to go along with this crazy scheme. No one he could stand long enough to try.

  Except…one. One woman whose wit and audacity could possibly make this arrangement bearable. She was one woman in the world Eric could ever see himself marrying, even if it was just for show.

  Jane Lee Lefferts.

  A woman who completely and utterly hated his guts.

  Continue reading in The Hate Vow.

  Legally Yours

  An Excerpt

  It wasn’t until I was about halfway through the park that I heard a voice echoing behind me.

  “Wait! Miss! Fuck, I don’t know your name, but will you just stop!”

  I turned around to find Sterling bounding doggedly through the snow. He stumbled, nearly fell on a crack in the sidewalk, but rebounded with the reflexes of a trained athlete and caught up with me in a few more steps. A few more errant locks fell across his forehead, and I was faced with a smile that made my legs feel as if they were immersed in a hot tub, not the frigid New England air blowing up my skirt.

  “Do you always go wandering through the Commons after midnight?” he asked as he regained his breath. “It’s not exactly safe. Especially for someone like you.”

  I didn’t have to ask what he meant by that, considering my size and gender. Instead, I flushed, suddenly embarrassed by my idiocy. I wasn’t some hayseed from the hills. In my desperation to escape that house and the very disturbing effect that, well, this man seemed to have on me, I had done what every city dweller knows not to do: wander a public park at night.

  “You left without saying goodbye,” Sterling said with a sardonic lift of an eyebrow. “I’m sorry, I didn’t catch your name. Or what you were doing in my house.”

  “God,” I said, finally finding my voice, but able to look everywhere but directly at him. Like the sun, he exuded energy so bright I couldn’t see clearly. So instead, I rambled.

  “I’m so sorry about that. I’m a friend of Ana’s, your housekeeper. She just let me in for a minute but had to go, uh, deal with something in her room. I didn’t have any cell reception down there, so I came upstairs to find a signal. She had no idea, really, so please don’t blame her. I didn’t mean to intrude in your, space, truly, and, um...”

  I didn’t stop babbling until Sterling placed his hands on my shoulders and bent down so his chiseled features were level with mine.

  “It’s okay,” he said slowly, and I found myself rolling my eyes at his playful tone before I could stop myself.

  “Sorry,” I repeated, but the babbling stage was over.

  “Your name?” he prompted again, releasing my shoulders and standing back up straight.

  It was then I realized again just how very tall he was. A frame that must have been close to six-four filled out a charcoal gray suit in a way that made me wonder just how much time he spent wearing a suit and how much time he spent at the gym.

  “Yum,” I whispered before I could stop to think.

  “Your name is Yum?”

  “Oh, no,” I said, flushing an even deeper red. “Christ. Sorry. It’s Skylar.”

  “Skylar Crosby?” he asked quickly.

  I frowned at him. I wasn’t cold like Bostonians, but as a New Yorker, I had a deep suspicious streak. A stranger knowing my name definitely qualified as suspect.

  “Yes…” I said, taking a few steps backward. “How did you know that?”

  “I make it a point to know all of my employees’ names,” Sterling said with a brief, white smile. “Even the interns. Skylar’s a memorable one.”

  Even though it was snowing outside, that was when I truly froze. The dots connected, and I suddenly realized who this was: Brandon Sterling, the elusive name partner at the firm he also founded. He was a legend in the office, but hadn’t been seen once by any interns. That in and of itself wasn’t unusual—we were disposable labor, so most of the partners were unlikely to take much interest. But even most of the junior associates who oversaw our work had never met him personally. He was a phantom.

  “Oh, Jesus,” I breathed. “Jesus Christ.”

  “No, just me, I’m afraid,” Sterling replied with another bright smile. “Although it’s a nice comparison.”

  “I’m so sorry, sir,” I spluttered. “Oh my God, oh god, I was intruding on your home, and I really shouldn’t have. A friend of a friend invited me to wait for a car inside because of the weather, but it was completely inappropriate. I only went upstairs to find cell reception, I swear, and then you walked in…”

  Shut up, shut up, he already knows this, shut up! My inner dialogue went crazy trying to censor the blather again pouring out of my mouth. When I looked back at Sterling, I was mortified to see him trying unsuccessfully not to laugh.

  “Ms. Crosby,” he interrupted gently with yet another knee-weakening smile. “Really. Don’t worry about it.”

  “I’m just…very sorry for intruding,” I said lamely. “And for babbling. It’s something I do when I’m…”

  “When you’re what?”

  “Um, nervous,” I admitted.

  “You’ll have to fix that if you want to be a litigator,” he joked, causing me to turn bright red all over again. Fuck, could things get any worse? Although I wasn’t sure I wanted the job at Sterling Grove, it would have given me a springboard to any other I wanted. I could kiss that opportunity goodbye.

  “It’s all right,” Sterling said yet again, patting me gently on the arm.

  In the cold, his touch seared through the heavy wool of my jacket. He shivered, and for the first time, I realized he had chased me into the snow in just his suit and very expensive-looking leather shoes, which were already getting watermarks from the snow around the tips. I looked down at my feet. My Manolos were also as good as ruined.

  “I’m going to head back inside,” he said, tossing back toward his house. “Care to join me?”

  “Oh no, sir, I’m really fine,” I said. “The T is just down this path, and it goes right back to Cambridge.”

  Sterling glanced at his watch, which also looked very shiny and very expensive, but not flashy like that fool’s from the bar. Subtle. Tasteful.

  “It’s almost one,” he said. “You probably already missed the last train, if you don’t get robbed in the park on your way there. Come on. My driver’s out of town, but I can call you a car while you wait.” When I hesitated, he reached out and squeezed my hand before letting it go, an intimate gesture that seemed to surprise him a bit too. “What kind of boss would I be if I made my interns stay until after midnight and didn’t give them a ride home?”

  “Um…” For some reason, I couldn’t quite tell him that his office wasn’t the reason I was out so late.

  “Let’s go,” he said again in a tone that brooked no argument and started to make his way back through the snow.

  Someone (most likely Ana) had wised up to Sterling’s arrival. A large fire was alive in the fireplace whe
n we reentered the house through the double-door entrance. There was no sign of his three companions. The house appeared to be empty but for him and me.

  Sterling slipped off his shoes and carried them over to the fireplace. He set them down on the hearth while I loitered awkwardly in the foyer.

  “Have a seat,” he said, nodding at one of the overstuffed couches I had been eyeing earlier. “I’ll be back in a minute.”

  He disappeared upstairs while I sat down. When he returned, he carried a newspaper and a small box covered in scratches and paint splotches. He had removed his jacket, vest, and tie, and was decidedly more informal, with his white shirt unbuttoned at the throat and rolled up to his elbows. Though it was practically identical to the outfits of just about every other man I’d seen that night, there was something about the way the tendons in his forearms tested the limits of his rolled-up sleeves that made my mouth water, as if his casual regalia were trying to tame an animalism that was literally splitting seams to escape. Padding silently across the thick carpet, he reminded me of lion tracking its prey.

  “May I?” he asked, kneeling in front of me and taking the heel of my shoe in his hand.

  Wordlessly, I watched as he slid my pumps off each foot, then carefully set my stockinged feet back onto the sheepskin. When he looked up, our eyes caught as they had when I had first seen him. The moment quickly passed. He cleared his throat and stood up.

  “Manolos,” he said, holding up one of my prized pumps. “The lady has expensive taste.”

  “The lady has only one pair,” I responded sadly. “So I hope you’re not going to throw them in the fire.”