Chapter One - Porter

A distant roar reached Porter, limbs askew in his enormous bed, navy comforter half on the floor. Through the fogginess in his head, he could hear thudding and more roaring, slowly getting louder. Dad must have lost a deal. Or...

Porter sat bolt upright, just as his father burst into his room with Loretta close behind. Poor Loretta, she was getting old for these scenes, leaning over to catch her breath before crossing the room to stand halfway between his father and the bed. The number of times she'd covered for Porter over ten years probably wildly exceeded her housekeeper’s salary.

“Get up, Porter,” said Julian Biltmore through clenched teeth. “I just got a call from Dean Hannigan at Stanford. I took it upon myself to find out why they would choose to ignore my son when I've gifted that school millions of dollars precisely for your admission. Apparently they never received your application. Can you explain that?”

Loretta Merrow looked nervously between father and son. “Mr. Biltmore, Porter worked very hard this year. He was admitted to plenty of good schools!”

“Loretta, when I want your opinion, I'll pay you for it. The fact that I never have should be a clue. And I don't need you interfering once again. Get back downstairs. Well, Porter? And stand up when you speak to me!”

Porter slowly climbed out of bed, breathing slowly to control his temper and his nerves. He noticed that Loretta had backed away, but defiantly remained in the corner of the room, just in case his father decided to repeat the flare-up last summer that ended with a black eye for Porter.

“Dad. I have been telling you all year. I got into Harvard, I got into Princeton. I got into Columbia. Cornell. My friends are here on the East Coast, Skylar's here, and I want to stay here.”

“You will go where I send you! The only reason you have anything is our last name and my reputation, so don't mouth off at me about how ‘you got’ anywhere. How dare you lie to my face...for months!”

“I didn't send it in because I didn't need to! I want to go to a school where I don't have to think about doing everything the way Julian Biltmore did it!” That's it, he was dangerously close to his father's fist. But Julian unclenched his jaw, breathed deeply, and lowered his voice.

“There will be no discussion. You may stay here at the house for the summer if you wish, but you will spend it studying the Biltmore Fund’s holdings to prepare for your finance major. In August, you're heading to California. Period. If you want to rebel, you do it without a penny to your famous name.” Julian turned on his heel and stalked out the door, leaving a nasty thump on each step. A minute later, Porter heard the BMW start as Julian sped back to his Manhattan headquarters on the Montauk highway.

Loretta waited to make sure that tears weren't forthcoming - a habit from when Porter was eight and not yet used to his father's rages. They were so much worse after his mother died, behind that very house. Marina Biltmore was lost somewhere in the Southampton sea, and her son had paid the price every day since then. Now 18, Porter still hadn't learned how to handle his tyrannical father. But there were no more tears.

“Sorry about that, Loretta,” he managed a shaky smile. “Not a great start to the summer, I guess. When did he even arrive?”

Loretta came over and laid a hand on his head - she was the only person who still dared to do that since Porter shot past six feet tall. “He drove in last night after an event in the city, a couple of hours after you came to bed. I think he actually wanted to spend a day or two with you, but he loses control so easily…” she trailed off.

“Anyway, it's a beautiful day. You have two months free to sort out this situation. Skylar is coming by for brunch as well, so come down and have some eggs.” Loretta turned and left the room, picking up Porter’s crumpled shirts from the floor on the way out.

Porter slammed back down on his bed, staring at the ceiling. He should have known that his father wouldn't just accept the lie that Stanford hadn't had a place for him. Julian would never cede control of a situation he'd engineered for so long. But Porter hated the thought of Stanford. Great school, sure. Good weather. But even knowing that he'd be popular anywhere couldn't erase the isolation he felt when he thought about it. Even at the Academy, he never felt like he'd fit in. Student council, soccer captain, prom king - through it all he only ever felt close to his cousin Skylar, a year below him but infinitely wiser. Her brother Hunter, who shared a birthday with Porter, had a slavish devotion to the family business that made Porter uneasy sometimes. Hunter was the heir Julian had always wanted Porter to be.

Porter grudgingly got up, throwing on a Patriots t-shirt and stubbing his toe on the door frame to his bathroom. Decorated all in navy blue anchors and ship themes, it had been the last room his mother had decorated before she died. So the yellow and blue life-preserved embroidered towels remained, along with the sea-green model ships emblazoned with “Porter” that sat next to the cavernous jacuzzi tub overlooking the Biltmore beachfront. Sand sculptures next to the mirrors depicting Triton and Poseidon. When he was a kid, Porter had wanted to be a ship captain and his mother had chuckled over it. “Whatever you want, Captain,” she'd smiled. “Lord knows that your father’s money can build you as many ships as you like.” Captain, that's what she'd always called him. He couldn’t remember the accident, but everyone said that the storm had come on quickly. That no matter how good a sailor Marina had been and how many times she’d taken him out on the Siren, she couldn’t have overcome the uncharted line of rocks to the east that had killed her and left his right arm scarred.

He tried not to think about her much anymore. No one else’s mothers were like her. Aunt Jana, Julian’s sister and Skylar and Hunter's mother, was nice enough but always disappearing for her “me time” in the city, hitting the spa or shopping at Bergdorf with her “girlfriends,” who were all in their 40s but had claimed to be 35 for the past few years. They hosted white parties in the Hamptons and black-and-white parties in Manhattan, and Botox parties in between.

Uncle Hal, who’d married Jana partly to get involved in Julian’s hedge fund (everyone knew that), seemed to appreciate her social events enough, so who was Porter to judge? As far as he knew, he was supposed to find someone like that as well. Certainly Alex, his on-and-off girlfriend from the Academy, fit the bill. Her family was good friends with his, her father was rich, she was a gorgeous icy blonde, and he’d been forced to escort her to cotillion at the St. Regis two years ago. Ugh. But they hadn’t spoken since he refused to join her in Paris for a graduation shopping trip, so maybe he was out of it for good. Poor old Alex - she could be nasty, but he was also pretty sure she’d been raised by the household staff.

Loretta was different. She’d worked for his mother’s family since Marina was a teenager, and Marina has insisted on bringing her to work for them once she was married. Loretta was like a grandmother to him. Maybe Porter could take her with him to Stanford - and then he laughed out loud. ‘You're already worried about being isolated,’ he rebuked himself. ‘Arriving on campus with a housekeeper is definitely going to win you tons of normal friends.’

Normal. Porter looked at himself in the mirror, pushing his messy brown hair out of his eyes with a tan, scarred forearm. Porter didn't quite know what normal meant, but he knew it involved working hard, not being able to afford everything at once, trying to achieve goals that would make a difference to other people. His father's company made a lot of money for people who already had a lot of money, but Porter couldn't see the value beyond that and had no interest in joining Julian. In lieu of a concrete alternative, though, Porter had never been able to combat his father's expectations. That's what he had to do this summer, Porter resolved. He had to figure out exactly what it was he was going to do with his life, and why Stanford wasn’t the best place to do it.

Pulling on board shorts, sneakers, and a baseball cap, Porter bounded down the grand staircase. He could smell frying eggs and browned pancakes, and hollered down the hall in the direction of the sunny kitchen. “Loretta! When Skylar gets here, tell her I'll be back in an hour. I'm heading to the library.” Before she could protest, he ran out the door and jumped into his convertible.