Carter von Oehson mixed himself a tall gin and tonic from behind the polished mahogany bar of his father’s billiard room, topping it off with a squeeze of lime.
“Remember,” his father once told him, “never put the used wedge of lime in your drink. Toss it and reach for a new one. Anything less is sloppy.”
Carter never forgot that piece of fatherly advice, if for no other reason than he was only nine years old at the time.
A von Oehson man is never too young to learn the finer points of life.
Nor will he ever be deprived of the finest education. After boarding at Phillips Exeter, Carter was now a freshman at Yale. Never mind that he was whip smart and probably could’ve gotten in on his own. It didn’t matter if he had the grades or test scores. What Carter had was his name—von Oehson—and, more important, the man who gave it to him.
Mathias von Oehson, Yale class of ’86, ran the world’s most profitable hedge fund. Fortune magazine listed his net worth north of twenty-four billion dollars, a hundred million of which was earmarked for his beloved alma mater upon Carter’s graduation. Of course, Carter had only just submitted his application to Yale when his father made that hundred-million-dollar pledge to three of the university’s senior trustees over some butter-drenched porterhouses at Peter Luger. Timing is everything. And for Mathias von Oehson, so was his only son going to Yale.
In fact, Carter’s enrollment had never been discussed between the two of them. It had always just been assumed. Like it or not, Carter, that’s where you’re going.
But, oh, how Carter liked it.
The all-night parties at Durfee Hall. The infamous naked run through Bass Library. Taking in a dome show at Leitner Planetarium while completely stoned out of your gourd, and afterward eating an entire coal-fired large pepperoni from Pepe’s Pizzeria. An Ivy League education at its absolute finest.
Best of all—what Carter really liked—was that a mere thirty minutes away, a straight shot south on I-95 in his matte-black BMW M8 coupe, was his parents’ home. One of their houses, at least.
It was a sprawling Nantucket shingle in Darien, designed by Francis Fleetwood, that overlooked Long Island Sound and measured twenty-six thousand square feet with an estimated value of fifty-four million dollars. And most of the time it just sat there. Empty.
Except when Betty was coming over. Betty was one of Carter’s best-kept secrets. She was also late.
Carter glanced again at the Patek Philippe strapped to his wrist with a preppy blue-and-white nylon band. He and Betty had had many dates, and he couldn’t remember another when she had kept him waiting. Time was money, after all. Her time, his money.
The thought of calling her flashed through his mind as he took a sip of his gin and tonic, but that idea was quickly rendered moot by the melodic chime of the front doorbell.
In ripped jeans and a faded polo shirt, Carter strode barefoot across the white Italian marble of his parents’ foyer. In some ways Betty’s arrival was the best part. The anticipation. The initial slow climb of a giant roller coaster before the ride of his life. And always, always, always the same two words when he opened the door.
“Hello, handsome,” she would say.
Not today, though.
Carter blinked a few times, confused. But also a bit mesmerized.
She was auburn hair, lush and long. She was tanned skin, even now, in the month of December, accessorized with a full-length mink that left little doubt that not much was worn underneath it.
“You’re not Betty,” he said.
“No,” she replied, slinking up to his left ear and whispering in a Russian accent. “I’m better than Betty.”