Chapter 3

Mark Sterling was furious.

He stormed into the penthouse, his face red. Tiffany trailed behind him, already dabbing at her eyes.

"What did you do, Eleanor?" he yelled, forgoing any pretense of civility.

"Your friends! They' re trying to sabotage Tiffany! They' re trying to ruin me!"

Eleanor sat calmly on a chaise lounge, reading a book. She didn't even look up immediately.

"My friends make their own decisions, Mark," she said, her voice cool.

Tiffany burst into theatrical sobs.

"She' s jealous!" she wailed, pointing an accusing, manicured finger at Eleanor. "She can't stand to see me succeed! She' s old and bitter!"

Eleanor finally closed her book and met Mark' s gaze.

"Jealousy is such a pedestrian emotion, Tiffany," she said, her tone cutting.

"And as for success, one actually has to achieve something beyond getting a man to leave his wife for it to count."

She then turned to Mark.

"The gala committee resigned because your new protégée demonstrated a profound lack of understanding, decorum, and basic competence. They value their reputations."

Mark' s face contorted. He was losing control, and he knew it.

"I want you out, Eleanor," he seethed. "Out of this apartment. Out of the city."

He gestured wildly. "Go to the Hamptons house. Stay there."

The "Hamptons Cold Palace," as Eleanor sometimes privately called it, was their sprawling, somewhat remote countryside estate. An exile.

Tiffany smirked through her tears, a flash of triumph in her eyes. She thought she had won.

Eleanor simply nodded.

"As you wish, Mark."

Her acceptance was too easy, too quick. It should have worried him.

It didn't.

Eleanor relocated to the lavish estate.

But it was no exile.

Her loyal household staff, many of whom had been with her family for generations, had already been alerted by her network.

The moment Mark issued his decree, they had sprung into action.

The estate was not cold or empty.

It was prepared to her exacting standards, filled with flowers, her favorite books, and fully stocked with everything she might need.

It was less a prison and more a perfectly appointed command center.

Within days, her "Sisters" began to arrive.

Beatrice, Caroline, Victoria, and others.

They came with overnight bags and laptops, ostensibly for an "extended girls' weekend" or a "much-needed country retreat."

The Hamptons estate, once a symbol of Mark' s desire for social climbing, transformed.

It became their sanctuary, their war room.