6

Sean arrived at the renowned One Madison building and tossed a Jackson over the front seat at the cabbie. Within minutes, he’d entered his apartment and collapsed on the off-white uncomfortable couch, still attired in the suit he’d worn to the Senate launch. Exhausted, he didn’t take his shoes off but propped his feet up on the coffee table. A second later, he could hear his mother in his head: “Take your feet off that table. You know better than that.”

The irony struck. Even when his family wasn’t there, they still controlled him.

Anger, embarrassment, and the futility of trying to please his father built to a crescendo as a text arrived on his phone. For the first time ever, he didn’t check the message. Just muted his cell, then slung it down the hallway.

After kicking his shoes off so his good breeding wouldn’t go to pot, he propped his sock feet back on the table. While waiting for his stress headache to subside, he scanned the room. Stark off-white walls, off-white furniture, with only a single large painting of birch trees and a weird sculpture crafted from branches that he’d allowed the extraordinarily expensive New York designer to talk him into. It was cold, sterile . . . like his life. Just when he’d thought things were about to change for the better, they’d leaped into the worst category.

When the AF board had swung in the direction of the old CEO, Will had walked out and arranged for an immediate sale of the Worthington family’s shares. Sean had applauded that decision. When Will decided to make a Senate run in New York, Sean not only supported him but agreed to be his campaign manager.

Sean loved Will—always had, always would. His older brother could walk on water. He was powerful, in control of his world. Sean admired Will far more than he’d admit to anyone, even himself. The problem was in the comparison. Sean came up lacking time after time. Knowing he could never measure up to Will as a standard, Sean had pushed ahead in his own accomplishments—in the opposite direction.

While at Harvard, Will had pursued the highest academic achievements and captained an NCAA national championship lacrosse team. Whenever Sean called him, though, Will was hunkered down in his room or in the library, studying. It was rare for Will to be found in a social setting, even on a Friday night. Sean never asked him why. It was Will’s pattern and had been since childhood.

Sean had chosen Stanford—as far from Harvard in location as he could get and still receive the satisfied nod from Bill Worthington—and had nearly achieved a 4.0 GPA. But his education lay more in the friendships and loyalties gained there and the discovered bridges that connected him with a wide world. He also garnered significant firsthand perspective by traveling and interning in far-flung locations that needed what a Worthington could provide. By his junior year, he was building wells in remote parts of Africa, improving the drinking water in parts of India, refitting old corporate cell phones so disadvantaged areas could access health services in China, and much more.

As a Worthington, he had nearly bottomless resources. He wrote six-figure checks often to launch start-ups. But more and more, pursuing NGOs with the sole purpose of increasing Worthington Shares wealth bothered him. What good was it to build an empire if it couldn’t bring a better life for those who were disadvantaged?

He could hear his father’s response already: “Without the empire and the resources it creates, we wouldn’t even have the opportunity to do good.” Such answers were so expected that years ago Sean had given up asking aloud the questions on his heart and his mind. Yet his longing to do all he could to make life better for others multiplied.

And there it was, the quandary he found himself in every day. The Sean Worthington on the front pages of GQ and the tabloids—the smiling, handsome playboy—wasn’t the real Sean Worthington. The real Sean felt more at home saving marine species on the high seas with Green Justice, stooping in the dirt with a Malawi villager to locate the best spot to dig a well, or assessing a remote mountain settlement in China to evaluate its medical needs. The real Sean didn’t sleep for 36 hours straight when he identified an emerging NGO that could financially sustain villagers for a 100-mile radius.

The people who knew the truth about Sean were disconnected—disparate groups who welcomed his help, flourished, and gave their loyalty, time, and talents in return. Even if an NGO wasn’t “successful” in the eyes of Worthington Shares, if the enterprise increased the standard of living of an area, Sean was satisfied.

Yet, in his wide social network, only two contacts had completely gained his trust and confidence—Dr. Elizabeth Shapiro and Jon Gillibrand, who had both been on the Russian-flagged ship with him in the Arctic.

The three had met some years back at an environmental symposium. Elizabeth was the quirky, brilliant daughter of a world-renowned marine biologist. She wanted to earn her own PhD in ecology and biology at UCLA. Jon, already a veteran reporter for the Times, was more informed about a wide variety of relevant issues than anyone Sean had met. They all cared passionately about ecological issues and disadvantaged groups.

Since that meeting over a cafeteria lunch table, the three had formed a deep friendship as they traversed the globe. Sometimes they couldn’t communicate for months when Elizabeth was undertaking a remote scientific expedition with her father, Jon was buried in a high-profile assignment, or Sean barely had time to switch out the clothes in his carry-on before he was on to the next potential NGO. However, in the ever-changing social scene of the wealthy and powerful, where dirty deals and betrayal abounded, two facts were a given—the three friends would reconnect, and if something big came up, they’d have each other’s backs.

Sean knew his family would also support him. However, the baggage that came along with that support—the expectations—he sometimes had to flee from. His father, never satisfied with anything Sean did and pushing him to do more. His mother, with her perennial questions about when he was going to find a nice girl and settle down. His sister, who nagged him to show up more often at family events and routinely shot down his excuses. Lately she’d even started calling him an hour before, then a half hour, to make sure he was on the way.

Will? He didn’t pester Sean. When a bottom line on the start-ups was particularly good, Sean could feel Will’s approval. At times his brother verbalized it.

But Worthington Shares and the unspoken comparisons by their father continued to be the thorns that kept the brothers apart.