I’m a convicted felon.
She’s rich girl from a nice family.
I’ve got nothing but a broken home.
But if I’m an addict, she’s my drug. I can’t stay away, even though I know I’ll ruin her in the end.
She might be the girl of my dreams, but I was always a bad idea.
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The Hate Vow
An Excerpt
Tick. Tock. Tick.
The gong of the antique clock rippled through the air at exactly 10 a.m., Eastern Standard Time. Eric knew this because it was synced to his watch, and his grandmother, Celeste de Vries, always had the correct time. She was nothing if not punctual. And she demanded the same from everyone else.
Normally he wouldn’t have minded the familiar old clock. It might have even been a comfort, considering he hadn’t heard it for so long. But today he was hungover like a piece of wet laundry, a headache splitting his temples in two. Now, that wasn’t particularly odd for his average Sunday morning. Usually he’d be wrapped up in a pair of shapely legs—sometimes two pairs if he’d played his cards right the night before.
But emergency tea with the de Vries clan matriarch? At ten in the morning? In New York, four hours from his apartment in Boston? Not Eric’s modus operandi. Not by a long shot.
It didn’t help that he hadn’t seen his family in close to ten years, and the last time wasn’t pretty. “Call me when someone’s dying.” Famous last words to Celeste de Vries, the formidable head of the de Vries family. Right before he stormed out of this very penthouse to make a life of his own, separate from this tangled web of power and manipulation.
Well. She did.
“Madame will see you now, Master Eric.”
Eric looked up to find Garrett, Grandmother’s butler, waiting for him in the hall. It was amazing. The man really hadn’t changed in a decade, despite being as ancient as ever. Eric was thirty-two, with the filled-out chest, occasional gray hair, and three fine lines over his forehead to show for his time away. But Garrett was just as much of a well-maintained antique as the Ming vase sitting in the foyer or the salmon-colored wainscoting of the penthouse’s halls. He was an anachronism, something frozen in time. A butler in New York City in the twenty-first century. But that was Grandmother. Tradition or death.
“Thanks, Garrett.” Eric followed the butler to the parlor at the southeast corner of the apartment.
Yes. His grandmother had a parlor nestled in a maze of hallways crisscrossing the complete top floor of a building she owned on Eighty-Seventh Street and Park Avenue. In New York City, one of the most crowded places on the planet, his ninety-pound grandmother occupied more space than the mayor.
Nothing in that room had changed either. Not the priceless antiques, the Chesterfield furniture, not even the family portrait that was painted twenty-five years ago at her famous rose garden in the Hamptons. There was Eric’s father, mother, and him as a child; next to his aunt, uncle, and their daughter, Nina; plus a whole host of extended family, all presided over by Grandmother, sitting in the middle of them like a brood hen.
Their smiles were the opposite of genuine. The kinds of smiles where people stare imperiously at the camera without showing their veneered teeth. Blue and gray eyes vacant in the summer sunlight. Despite the life blooming all around them, everyone was dead inside.
A flood of memories washed over Eric. Him at five, in knee socks and a sweater vest, trying not to fidget while Grandmother lectured all the ways he was expected to fulfill his destiny as the heir to the family fortune. Nina, his younger cousin, listening curiously while she tugged at her braids and clutched a stuffed panda.
Eric at eleven, arguing over playing fucking polo in Westchester instead of baseball in Central Park like he wanted. Like his father, deceased just a few months prior, had promised. Nina had cried and been shuttled to her etiquette lessons.
Eighteen, howling his decision to attend Dartmouth instead of Princeton like the rest of the de Vries clan. Nina, watching with wide eyes while she focused on her homework. She would attend Smith, of course, like her mother, Violet.
And the last time. Twenty-two, fresh out of school with a degree in English instead of finance. Eric was expected to take the reins of the family business, but instead he gave it the finger and went to Harvard Law instead. He had enough money in the trust from Father’s death to pay for it himself. Okay, so it wasn’t much of a rebellion, trading one white-collar career for another. But he did it himself, and did it without being held under the cranky, wrinkled thumb of the resident tyrant of the Upper East Side.
Celeste Annika Van Dusen de Vries.
“Grandson.”
Her voice also sounded exactly the same: sharp, but rough around the edges, like a serrated knife. But when Eric turned toward the leather armchair under the original Van Gogh, he found the one thing that had changed completely: Grandmother herself.
She was never a big woman, but now she stooped like a vulture, withered like a half-sheared, weather-beaten branch. She wore a scarf around her head—Hermès, no doubt—though wisps of white hair slipped under its edges. She still wore matching Chanel coordinates, but the tweed pantsuit hung off a frail body that seemed mostly skin and bones. When she breathed, something rattled in her lungs from across the room, like a brewing storm.
“Sit down, Eric,” she ordered, gesturing toward the couch with a thin fingernail still polished a tasteful, girlish pink.
“Grandmother.” He greeted her with a stiff nod, but obeyed. Old habits die hard. “It’s…a pleasure to see you again.”
It was not. But Eric’s manners were too well-entrenched to say anything else. He might not have forgiven her for what she did, but he was too well-bred to be rude. Fuck.
Grandmother balanced her hands on the oxygen tank in front of her, then appraised her grandson openly. Eric willed himself not to look away or fidget with his clothes. You’re a man, Eric. Remember that. Because he was not the scrawny twenty-two-year-old she last saw. Since telling his family where they could stick it, he had gone to the best law school in the world, worked his ass off at a top-twenty firm, and then started his own shop with one of his best friends. Eric was proud of what he had accomplished without his family’s money or connections. He didn’t need this frail woman’s approval anymore. He didn’t need any of them and hadn’t for a long time.
“You’ve grown up.” Grandmother waved at Garrett to bring in the tea. “You’ve done well with your little law firm, I understand. Although I see it hasn’t taught you to stop dressing like a pauper.”
Eric crossed one foot over his knee, ignoring her jibe at his T-shirt and jeans. He generally preferred more tailored looks, to tell the truth. A whole rack of designer suits hung in his closet at home. Armani. Boss. Tom Ford. Burberry. He liked a nicely cut lapel, a well-chosen pocket square. He had a tailor in Boston on speed dial. The worn denim and concert T-shirt were for her—He knew they would piss her off.
“I have done well,” he agreed. There was no point in being modest. Since he, Skylar Crosby, and Kieran Beckford started Copley Associates two years ago, the firm had gone from three attorneys to ten, and they were looking to hire two more. They’d already developed a reputation for being ruthless and savvy in a city chock-full of lawyers.
Grandmother nodded. “Yes, yes. Although I’m sure it’s helped to have the Sterling and de Vries names behind it, hasn’t it? Nothing like new money to get things started. Isn’t it Sterling’s wife, that little no-name from Brooklyn who nearly ruined Ellen Chambers’s family, who’s your partner? Pity. His first wife came from such good family.”
Her eyes gleamed in that way they always did when she talked about other members of her “station.” Always conniving, always judging. She wasn’t stupid. She likely knew all the details of Eric’s business arrangement with Skylar and her husband, Brandon Sterling, a former investment magnate and now-inventor. Brandon divested from his companies six years ago to
play in his lab, but the guy still had one of the biggest stock portfolios on the eastern seaboard, and his new company’s legal needs initially kept Copley afloat. In Grandmother’s estimation, Sterling was a fish worth watching.
Or, Eric wondered vaguely, was Brandon a whale? Would that make his grandmother Captain Ahab?
Instead of answering, Eric remained quiet. He knew that game, and he wasn’t there to play it. It would be easier, though, if he actually knew why he was there at all.
Garrett wheeled in the tea tray and fixed them cups while they eyed each other over the porcelain. By the time he parked it on one side of the room, even Grandmother was ready to be done with the silence.
“Leave us, Garrett.” It was not until the old man was gone that she turned again to Eric, taking a deep breath through her oxygen mask before speaking. “I’m sure you’re wondering why I requested your presence.”
“‘Request’ is a bit generous, but sure. I’m curious.”
He had received a phone call two days ago from her personal assistant, who simply said Eric was expected for tea. To deal with an emergency. That was it. He could have ignored it, just like he ignored all of the embossed invitations for Christmas dinner or sporadic phone calls to join the family at the Hamptons. They had an arrangement. She could pretend Eric hadn’t told his entire family to stay the fuck out of his life or he’d air their dirty laundry to the press. And he could pretend they didn’t say anything to him at all.
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.”
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.
The Perfect Woman (Rose Gold Book 2) Page 39
