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