Chapter 17 #3
“Wasn’t I?” Stella smiles. “I truly came into my own in my forties. I was so confident with myself and my body. You have that to look forward to, girls. Women do get better with age, even if the men can’t always see it.”
“Where was Max while you were speeding around with this fox?”
“He took the picture, of course. Max knew he never had anything to worry about in that department, not with anyone, though they all tried. Gianni Agnelli was such a playboy, despite his very Catholic wife. We spent a month on his private island off the coast of Naples. Max sold him all of his art. Made millions. It wasn’t really my scene.
Too many drugs. His wife was sweet but naive.
I helped her understand what it meant to be the spouse of a powerful man.
I don’t think she was at all prepared for how much work it would be.
You must spoil them like children while placing them and their work at the center of your universe.
Know when to be completely present and know when to be invisible.
These men exude arrogance, but in private they all want to be assured of their greatness.
One of the hardest jobs a woman will ever undertake.
I think she appreciated the advice, but her husband was constantly trying to seduce me.
He showered me with diamonds and furs every time we visited until Max told him he had to stop.
I gave all the coats away to the poor and locked up the diamonds. ”
“Wasn’t Gianni Agnelli the owner of Fiat?” Colette blinks in amazement.
“He was. He made a fortune after the war and even though his ego was huge and his hands and eyes would not stop wandering, I found him much more pleasant to spend time with than the Greeks, the Niarchoses and the Onassises. But it was part of our job at the time. Art was no longer relegated to the walls of their grand homes. Those shipping magnates wanted it with them at sea. Niarchos had a gorgeous three-sailed masted schooner decked out with Cézannes, Van Goghs, and Renoirs. The salt air was terrible for them. They’re in the worst condition today. ”
“You’ve led an amazing life,” Colette says, wrapping one of her long arms around Stella’s tiny shoulders.
“Thank you for saying that, dear. Sometimes I worry there isn’t enough to show for it. I never truly created anything. All of the work I did for my husband’s business has never been and will never be acknowledged. And I didn’t do the one thing women are allowed to do to secure their legacy.”
“Which is?” I ask, even though I know the answer.
“Breed,” Stella says shortly. “Maxwell had been snipped. His first wife required it if he wanted the divorce. She wasn’t taking any chances that her son would lose his share of the business.
Of course I didn’t know that when we got together.
So every month without a baby I assumed I was the failure, blamed myself.
He should have told me. He should have told me a great many things. ”
“She forced him to get a vasectomy?” I gasp.
“She refused to grant the divorce if he didn’t. She wanted to make sure her only son would get the company and most of the money.” Stella is so matter-of-fact about this terrible thing that I ache for her.
“When did you find this out?” Colette asks.
“When Maxwell was on his deathbed. At first, I worried he thought I was the priest, come to take confession, but then I could tell he knew it was me. I think he wanted to absolve himself of his sins against me before he died.”
“These people. This whole family is terrible. Do you think money makes you wretched?” Colette asks Stella.
Lucie answers first. “I think wretched people are good at making money. That’s why I think I’d be quite good at it if given the chance,” Lucie says, licking butter from her fingers.
“You’re not wretched,” I say.
“Never underestimate my cold, dark heart.” Lucie snorts. “It only warms for the two of you.”
“I absolutely believe money makes you terrible, but also terribly cunning, I’m afraid,” Stella concedes.
“Max’s ex-wife was wickedly smart. I think under different circumstances she and I would have been wonderful friends.
” Stella thumbs to the next page in the photo album.
As if she conjured them in that moment, there’s an eight-by-ten photograph of Stella with two small children on her lap, a boy and a girl.
“Matthew and Caroline,” she says. “Back when the girl still adored me. She was absolute perfection from the day she was born, and I doted on her like she was my own. We had private tea parties once a week with all her dolls. Her father tried to turn both of the children against me once they were teenagers, and for some reason it only worked with Caroline, not Matthew, thank god. I still miss the girl every day. I’ll never know what her father told her to make her hate me so.
” The memory is clearly a painful one, and we let Stella sink into it for a few moments.
“Now Caroline is the smoothest operator I’ve ever met and a woman who would stab her own mother in the back if she thought it would get her a promotion; a carbon copy of her father, sadly.
Yet another reason we need to get down to the important business.
No time to waste. If anyone is going to sniff out that I’m still alive, it will be Caroline Swanson. So right now we need money.”
“You’re rich.”
“I’m dead, my dear. Remember? Also, it is not cheap to fake your own death, love.
I don’t actually have a ton of money, or should I say, I never had a ton of my own money, but I didn’t know that either.
That’s one of the many problems. Since Maxwell died all my accounts have been frozen.
I know none of this was his intention, but my stepson would love nothing more than to see me destitute and dead in a gutter somewhere.
He’s always hated me and the possibility of my running Swanson Enterprises since the day we met.
I was able to hoard a little cash by selling jewelry and clothes.
I was locked out of most of the family properties before I could access some of the most valuable pieces, and I’ve been paying a fortune for lawyers to fight all of it, to no avail.
We need more money to do what we need to do.
We have to pay experts, cover travel costs, and probably pay some not-so-savory people to do some not-so-savory things. ”
“Why aren’t you better protected?” Colette finally asks the question that’s been on the tip of all of our tongues.
“I trusted Max and I loved him. We were a team. I was the one who cultivated connections with the American tycoons. I threw the dinner parties, organized the theater outings and elaborate vacations on yachts where everyone was wined and dined and cared for like they were royalty. I led the whisper network of wives, the ones who often held the real purchasing power. When Maxwell had the wild idea to begin producing our own catalogs for Monet, Van Gogh, and Renoir, I did all the legwork to make it happen. Those catalogs could make or break a painting’s value.
And yet I never took a salary. I never thought I needed one.
What was Max’s was mine. I did it all willingly and happily.
But I was naive. And when he passed away Louis and Caroline began their campaign against me, and unfortunately it was all too easy.
They accused me of being nothing more than Maxwell’s mistress, a gold-digging courtesan, and on paper that’s all I was. ”
“What do you mean?”
“My wedding day was one of the happiest of my life. We celebrated our anniversary every single year with a week of parties, mostly here on this island. But that day was a lie. We were never legally married. Yet another thing Maxwell promised his ex-wife in order to get a divorce. She wanted to make sure her son would be his only real heir, as if they were royalty or something. Max forged our marriage certificate. I was nothing more than his mistress and I had absolutely no idea until he died. He was a good man in many ways, but weak in others. I suppose that’s why I no longer feel guilty about what we have to do. ”
“And what is that?”
“Destroy Swanson Enterprises,” Stella says cryptically. “You girls are going to help me expose the biggest financial con the art world has ever seen.”