“Wally, did you have a chance to tell Sophie our idea for OperationSpill the Tea-Party?” Her eyes were twinkling, a mischievous grin on her face.
“Not yet. I’ll fill her in now,” Walt replied with a small smile on his face. Seeing everyone I loved, working together to help us and each other, made me feel whole in a way I never knew was missing.
This is what it means to feel safe and supported. This is what it means to be truly accepted and loved without restraint or expectation. This was what it means to be a family.
Chapter 30
Helen
Walking into the country club for the annual ladies’ luncheon disguised as a charity event should have been old hat. Gatherings like those were key to maintaining your spot in the social elite, where you kept up on all the gossip and tucked away any information you could use down the line.
It was where people went to see and be seen. Not going would have been like admitting defeat. I had been attending parties like that my entire life, then graduated to hosting once I married into the Townsend family.
Whispers of police interrogations, potential jail time, and wayward spouses followed me around, but I ignored them. It had been well over a week since the event and the incident… between Maxwell and Sophie.
Maxwell wasn’t in jail. No charges had been pressed, and Walt had yet to call a meeting with the board. I would not cave or admit defeat. I wasn’t going to roll over at the slightest inconvenience. This event was the perfect excuse to come out. After all, I ran the committee that built the new rec center.
Scheduled to give a small speech and reveal the finished building, I wasn’t going to miss it. It gave me the opportunity to put my “personal” issues aside and focus on the greater good… or whatever it was people said.
Unshakeable, I would show everyone I had nothing to hide. Max was on his own now. He had caused far more damage than he was worth. It was time to cut my losses and jump ship. Sighing,I couldn’t deny that I was disappointed. I’d thought Max was like me, that he was cut out to survive in our world, but he was soft.
Somehow, he took after his father and grandfather more than I expected. He was weak. His feelings for Sophie clouded his vision and affected his actions. How could a girl worth so little cause so much damage?
Since Sophie first walked into our lives, I knew she was trouble. She didn’t know what it was like to be born into a swarm of sharks, to have to spend every day staying alive, on top, not to get chewed up and spit out.
As the daughter of a venture capitalist, I was raised to always be looking for the next bigger and better opportunity. Every new person or interaction was studied and analyzed for its potential worth—use or be used.
“The first rule is not to lose. The second rule is not to forget the first rule.”My father would quote Warren Buffett frequently.
Losing was not allowed in our house, so I won everything. I kept my hands clean, played well in public, and whispered in the right ears at night. By hook or crook, I got everyone out of my way until the trophy at the end of the finish line became clear: Thomas Townsend.
Money was good, but without respect, there’s no power. That’s why reputation was so important, why optics really did matter. The Townsends were always the big fish in a small pond.
Wealthy, successful, but above all, respected. They were smart in business and kind to those around them. They valued family and the townspeople. With nothing tawdry to discuss, they became untouchable.
When I first met Thomas, it wasn’t life-changing, not in the way one would think. It wasn’t love at first sight. It wasn’t a grand chase or conquest. He went by unnoticed until I started paying closer attention to the whispers.
“The only heir, all of that money, the company is going straight to him.”
“Good businessman. Naive, though. Wouldn’t last a second if itweren’t for nepotism.”
Those were the two facts that caught my attention. Thomas liked to blend into the background, never rocking the boat, never stealing the limelight. He didn’t feel the same clawing need as the rest of us to make sure we were seen and heard.
In the beginning, I admired that. It made him moldable, allowing me to take control. Once we married, though, that steady temperament and wholesome approach to decisions would slowly chip away at me.
With the Townsend name and wealth behind us, we could do anything—unlock any door, break any boundary—but Thomas wasn’t interested. All he cared about was the family and the company. He went in every day and was involved with every aspect of the business decisions.
He could have handed those tasks off easily. We could have traveled the world or tried to start our own venture, investing in other areas, but he wouldn’t be deterred. His loyalty was to Townsend & Sons, above all else. We went on trips and to all the right parties, but Thomas had no sense of fun or frivolity. He was a straight-laced daddy’s boy.
Everyone spoke about Walter and Eloise as if they were some mystical couple, their love a tale for the centuries. To me, it looked…boring. There was so much untapped wealth, resources, and access they weren’t using. All of that money and power to do what? Host family dinners?
I wanted lavish parties where I stood front and center. Plates costing over $1000 a piece. I wanted that bitch, Maryanne, to look at me with jealousy and rage, knowing I had beat her in every way. Once best friends, we instantly became rivals, but everything came so easily to her. The sweet one, the nice one. Always saying, “yes, sir” and “yes, ma’am”. She thought she was better than all of us, but I kept up until I surpassed her.
Maryanne Craft married for love—how naive. Now, her husband Barry worked at our company, sat on the board my son ran, and it was all because of me. Her so-called devoted spouse had let me into his bed nearly a decade ago, and since then, we’d had avery mutually beneficial relationship.
After Thomas died, it was like a weight had been lifted off me. His death was jarring and sudden; a drunk driver blew through a red light when Thomas stayed too late at work one night. Shock was my first reaction. I hadn’t really entertained the idea of a future without a husband. My father had raised me with the knowledge that women were only good to barter and marry off.
But I didn’t want to tie my hands again, bound to the restrictions placed on me by a weak man. So I made sure, under the guise of executing Thomas’ will, that everything went through my hands. All finances, his life insurance policy, the trust fund for Maxwell, and the shares in the company went to me.
