A Trap So Tender

by Jennifer Lewis

  * * *

  She sat up late into the night, writing and rewriting, crumpling the pages and throwing them away. It was a long time since she’d written a letter on paper, and she worried that he wouldn’t be able to read her chicken scratch.

  She knew he wouldn’t forgive her. The Singapore media was still making fun of him, and she’d just read online about Beng’s SK Industries forming an alliance with another local entrepreneur—an older family man with three teenage daughters—for the purpose of aggressive real-estate acquisition. In addition to making him a laughingstock in the gossip columns, she’d ruined James’s plans to partner with Singapore’s Mr. Big.

  She owed him an explanation. There was no way she could handle talking to him on the phone. She was too ashamed of her own duplicity for that. Email seemed too impersonal, and at the same time too immediate and close to a phone call. The prospect of her letter traveling slowly by air like a leisurely bird, and alighting at its destination to face its fate—that seemed doable.

  Dear James,

  Even that part was hard. Did she have the nerve to call him “dear” after the way she’d used him?

  I’m not asking for forgiveness, or even acknowledgment of this letter. I freely admit that I’m too chicken to talk to you directly, which is why I’ve avoided your calls. I didn’t mean for it to work out this way.

  Was that last line really true? When she’d started out she’d fully intended an ending like this.

  When my father first told me he’d lost his business, I discovered what had happened and wanted to help. I didn’t talk to you about my father, for obvious reasons, but we’ve been estranged for most of my life and I desperately wanted—and still want—to form a close relationship with him.

  Would James understand? He’d never had a close relationship with his own father.

  When an acquaintance pointed you out to me at that party, I formed a sudden resolution to get to know you and convince you to sell me the property. My dad had warned me you’d never sell, and as I got to know you, I discovered that he was right. Everything you do is done for a reason, and you rarely if ever backtrack on a course you’ve started. When you offered me the opportunity to come to Scotland, I couldn’t believe my luck.

  No one could accuse her of being sensible. And maybe the worst part was how the Scottish countryside had taken hold of her. The once-loved hills of California now seemed dry and bare, the bright sun too harsh. She missed that cloud-scudded sky and the bright patchwork of green and gray and rich brown, with its splashes of bright heather. It would be hard to come up with pretexts to visit Scotland on a regular basis. Now, in addition to missing James, she’d have to nurse an inconvenient longing for a place she didn’t belong to, and never would.

  Things quickly spiraled out of control. When you asked me to marry you, I knew I couldn’t achieve my goals unless I said yes. I know you must have had your own reasons for wanting to marry someone you’d barely met and in such a hurry. I suspect your reasons were almost as mercenary as mine, but the difference remains: you planned to marry me, and I didn’t intend to marry you. Therefore you were honest in your actions, and I wasn’t. Am I ashamed of how I played along? Absolutely. I could plead that I changed my mind and really did want to marry you by the time of the race, but the fact remains that obtaining my father’s former property back remained my main goal, and I was obviously willing to risk everything in pursuit of it.

  I wish things could have worked out differently. I was hoping that my father could wait quietly for a while until we were married and happy together, and then I could tell you everything and hope that you’d understand, but he couldn’t resist the urge to crow over his “enemy.” I’m well aware that the embarrassment you suffered in the press is entirely my fault and I am truly sorry for that.

  Again, I don’t ask for your forgiveness, I just wanted to respond to your calls in the cowardly way that is all I can apparently handle.

  I love you.

  She didn’t write that. That would add insult to injury and seem phony beyond belief, even if it was true.

  I wish I had found that cup piece because I do want you to have a happy future, and I know that I must seem like a manifestation of the Drummond curse. If there was a way to make things better, I’d offer to try, but my imagination fails me.

  Although that race led to a disastrous fallout between us, I’m afraid I shall always cherish it as one of the best days of my life.

  No mention of the incredible sex. She wouldn’t be forgetting that anytime soon, either. Her whole body ached as she thought about spending the rest of her life without ever feeling James’s arms around her again.

  Would she do it all again? No way. But at least now she knew how intense and wonderful things could be with the right kind of man.

  James wasn’t the right man. If he was, things wouldn’t have crashed and burned the way they did. Each had their own agenda that trumped the personal side of their relationship. His business deal was no doubt more important than any affection they had for each other. She knew that. It made her feel a tiny bit better.

  But not much.

  I hope you find the perfect woman to spend the rest of your life with. Go slower next time and get to know her before you ask her to marry you.

  Her advice seemed a little obnoxious, but she didn’t want him to make the same mistake twice. Women weren’t like a business where you could just rush in and start giving orders and expect everything to go well. And he needed someone strong and independent—like her.

  She sighed. They really were a good match. But not good enough.

  I wish you all the best,

  Fiona

  She sealed the envelope and wrote his Singapore address on it. Then remembered she hadn’t mentioned the ring, so she had to rip it open.

  P.S. I left the engagement ring in the top drawer of the carved dresser in my bedroom.

  My bedroom? What was she thinking? But she didn’t want to rewrite the whole letter now. It had taken about thirty-two drafts to get this far.

  It is a lovely ring and hope they will take it back.

  Again she cringed. He’d have to take it back himself or ask one of the staff to do it—either way would be very embarrassing for him. Yet she hated the idea of that lovely ring sitting around the castle gathering dust. Or worse yet, ending up on someone else’s finger. She’d much rather it went back to the shop and was disassembled to its component parts and maybe turned into a nice brooch.

  She blew out hard, wrote out a new envelope and sealed it up. Her dad had answered her latest call with a gruff announcement that he was busy and would call her soon. That was ten days ago. People often ditched the friend who helped them out of a tough spot, because that person now reminded them of the bad times they wanted to forget.

  All she wanted to do was forget the good times with the man she’d betrayed.

  * * *

  James tugged the papers away from his nose. What did he mean by sniffing a stupid piece of paper? It had been nearly three weeks since he’d seen Fiona and he had no business thinking about her scent. He was trying to get her out of his mind. Besides, it only smelled of paper and ink.

  And her words crept through him with a cold finality. Until now he realized he’d held out a pathetic hope that there was another side to the story. That Fiona didn’t really just set out to trick him into parting with the property, that she had feelings for him, that the situation turned out differently than she expected. But her words made it clear that the scoffing journalists were entirely right. The whole scheme was planned and executed with the deft certainty of a mafia hit.

  How had he been so blind? He shoved a hand through his hair. He’d truly thought Fiona cared about him. Cold and calculating as he usually was, he’d transformed in her company and found himself craving affection and intimacy that he’d never imagined before. He’d finally grown brave enough to open his heart to a woman for the first time since that long-ago tragedy, and he’d given it to
someone who was simply playing a role.

  She was a very good actor.

  Even now that he’d seen the evidence of her deceit written in her own hand, he had a hard time turning off the pathetic well of hope that still bubbled deep inside him. There was that one line he kept coming back to.

  I was hoping my father could wait quietly for a while until we were married and happy together…

  Until they were married and happy together? That sounded as if she’d actually wanted to marry him, at least by the time they rode the race. He was relieved that she hadn’t been behind the media feeding frenzy and had asked her father to keep it a secret. In that one line it sounded as if she had intended to marry him, and was hoping they’d be tied together by tradition by the time he found out that he was part of a larger plan.

  Would he have been as angry if in fact they did marry and he found out she’d tricked him?

  He threw down the letter and paced across the great hall. The whole castle felt freezing cold and lifeless without Fiona. During her visits, she hadn’t just lit a fire in the big grate, but in the entire vast building and its ponderous landscape. For the first time in as long as James could remember, the place had felt alive and fresh and full of possibilities.

  If he was married to Fiona and found out that she’d come into his life only because her father had wanted that factory back…

  He wouldn’t have cared at all.

  The realization shot through him in a jolt of electricity. All he really wanted was Fiona. With her in his life all his grand plans for acquiring and developing real estate had seemed ephemeral—entertaining but not truly important. Even his long-cultivated alliance with Beng had begun to seem like a happy side effect of the romance that swept through his life and transformed it. Once he’d decided to marry Fiona, he’d wanted to make her his wife and start their life together as soon as possible, because he was impatient and liked to get straight to the good part.

  And dammit, he still wanted her.

  He let out a curse, which echoed off the walls. Good thing the staff had gone to their distant quarters for the night. And another good thing that he didn’t intend to drown his sorrows in whiskey like his ancestors—and then go fly a helicopter or ride out into the night.

  No. He had no such reckless outlets for his pain and frustration.

  He picked up a heavy glass paperweight from a table. It was probably brought back from Murano, Italy, by one of his ancestors and worth a fortune, but he didn’t care. Right now he just wanted to hear something make a noise as it smashed into a million pieces.

  He looked up at the carved stone crest above the fireplace, where the family’s surly motto advised its members to Keep Thy Blade Sharp. He’d kept his blade honed to a vicious edge for years, and look at how much good that had done him when he was foolish enough to give his heart to a woman.

  Maybe the curse was real. Maybe he was doomed to die alone and bitter, never to know the comfort of an enduring relationship or the solace of loving someone who loved him back.

  Idiot! He should never have let himself get in so deep. He hurled the paperweight right at the stone carving, where the metal blade shone dully amid the carved stone. The solid glass hit with a thud, breaking loose some stone dust, and crashed back to the floor, where it rolled away, still in one piece. James was getting ready to let loose another string of curses when something else fell to the floor, too.

  He glanced up. The knife blade had fallen from the shield. No doubt that signified some kind of intensifying of the curse and soon doom would rain down from all directions. As if it wasn’t already.

  He glanced around the floor, but it was dark and he couldn’t see what he was looking for right away. Who cares? Angus would find the blade and superglue it back on in the morning. Since he didn’t plan to climb into a whiskey jar, maybe he could go drown himself in stock prices on the Singapore exchange that was trading right now.

  He turned to leave the room, and his foot brushed something on the floor. He frowned and bent down to pick it up.

  “You’re kidding me.” His words echoed off the stone floor as his fingers closed around the curved edge of a tarnished metal disc. Was this it? The cup base? He glanced up at the carved shield on the wall. A chunk of stone was now missing beneath the inscription, and he could make out where the disc had been wedged into the stone carving—which in fact might well be concrete, now that he looked closely—at just the right angle so that only a sliver of it had been visible, as the blade in the family crest.

  The metal felt hot in his hand. At the center of the disk was a raised point, which must fit somehow into the stem of the cup. “I don’t believe it.”

  And now he was talking to himself. The metal was incised with carvings. Rather crude workmanship, and obviously very, very old. Early medieval, possibly, or older. He remembered Katherine Drummond and her tiresome urgent messages on his phone. His life might be a shambles but at least this accursed cup could make someone happy.

  He charged into the library, where her number was stored in the book, and called her. It was still a respectable hour on the East Coast of the United States.

  She picked up immediately. “James, darling, how lovely to hear from you!”

  “Hello, Katherine, I’m sorry it’s taken me so long to get back to you. I—”

  “Oh, you don’t have to tell me. Your mother shared all the exciting details about your engagement to that clever girl with the decal business. I’m so happy for you.”

  James’s heart sank. Obviously his mother hadn’t been so quick to share the exciting details of his public humiliation and the revelation that his engagement was a joke on him. “Actually, it’s a bit complicated, but listen…” He lifted the cup base higher, and the metal gleamed dully in the light of a nearby wall sconce. “I found the third cup piece. It was buried in the stone crest above the fireplace in the hall. It must have been there the whole time.”

  Katherine shrieked. “I knew it! I knew you would find it. Finally, the Drummond men will get to experience some happiness.”

  His chest tightened. If only this old cup had the power to turn back the clock. But how far back would he go—to before he ever met Fiona, so he’d never know the pleasure of her company or the torture of her absence? Or just to before he left her alone at his Scottish estate—so he could see the light of curiosity flash in her eyes again or taste her lips and never know the cruel sting of betrayal. “Actually, Fiona and I aren’t getting married.” His voice came out flat and gruff.

  “What? Your mother told me you’d be wed within the month. I’ve been in agonies wondering if you’d invite us or not. It’s been years since I came to Scotland, and I’ve never seen the great Drummond estate. Did you break it off?”

  “Not exactly. It’s a long story.”

  “Oh, James. You do sound sad. Still, now that you’ve found the cup you can get her back and live happily ever after. It’s as good as a guarantee.”

  “If only life really was that easy.” The tarnished metal had a few dents, and it didn’t look like a guarantee of anything. “Still, it does make sense to reunite the pieces of the cup and fulfill the brothers’ promise to each other.”

  A family reunion was probably the last thing he was in the mood for right now—well, except another gossip piece in the Straits Times—but it had to happen so he might as well get it over with. “Why don’t you talk to Jack and Sinclair and see when you can all come to Scotland. We’ll have a grand ceremony here in the hall and see what kind of magic happens.”

  He was joking about the magic, of course.

  Katherine laughed. “I’m sure lightning bolts will shoot across the skies. I can’t wait! I’ll see if they’re free next week. Would that work for you?”

  “Sure.” Any week would work for him. He didn’t want to show his face in Singapore anytime soon, for obvious reasons, so he was planning to lie low here in Scotland until the fuss died down. Luckily, most people had very short memories, even for scurrilo
us gossip. “The hospitality of Castle Drummond awaits you at your earliest convenience.” He knew she loved that kind of flourish.

  He’d met Katherine several times over the years, usually on one of his mother’s extravagant shopping trips to New York. He and her son, Sinclair, had both been interested in the stock market from an early age, and one time when they all stayed at a hotel down in Palm Beach. They’d spent each morning poring over stock quotes on the Telex machine in the hotel lobby, as if they were the key to all knowledge. On that same trip, or another one just like it, he’d met Jack Drummond when the latter was a rather surly teen, dragged along by his glamorous South American mother, whose command of English was surprisingly bad for someone who’d lived in the United States for more than twenty years. The reunion promised to be a diversion, at least.

  “How charming! I can’t wait. Well, you get on the phone with that lovely girl I heard about and patch things up so I can meet her at the reunion.”

  The pain of loss, edged with the cruelty of humiliation, clawed at his gut. “It’s not that simple.”

  “It never is, but do it anyway. Now that we’ve found the cup you won’t believe the good things that can happen.”

  * * *

  Alone again, in the chill darkness of the empty castle that night, James found himself wishing he could call Fiona. He’d tried for three solid weeks. And the last time he tried, someone called Julio had answered and said he had the wrong number, so she’d apparently changed her phone number to avoid him. His emails bounced back unread, each feeling like a hard slap to his face. He should hate her, but he didn’t even have that satisfaction.

  Because he missed her too much.

  He went to bed feeling as cold and grim as the old stone walls. Even the prospect of all the beautiful women whom he’d never met held no appeal. The idea of jumping back on the dating merry-go-round and making small talk to girls he had nothing in common with only made him long for Fiona’s sharp insight and unexpected affections.