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girlfriends, so learning her name at this juncture was an exercise in futility.
    Marc slid his gaze to one of his older sisters, Alexa, forty-five, who was seated next to their dad, watching the scene with a look of disgust on her typically composed face. To Alexa’s left sat her husband, Ronald, a super-sharp, super-driven finance guy. They had two kids who weren’t in attendance. Good thing, since the kids weren’t very well behaved. Both Alexa and her husband worked all the time and the nannies they hired weren’t big on discipline. Plus, the kids loved their grandmother, and they didn’t need to see their grandfather’s girlfriend or the fact that her hand had slipped under the table and was now caressing Norton’s thigh. At least, Marc
hoped
it was his thigh she was caressing.
    Unfortunately, Marc’s mother, June,
was
witness to this ridiculous display of affection between her ex-husband and his girlfriend. Seated to his right, she’d clasped her bony hands so tightly in her lap that her knuckles had turned white. It pained him to see his already fragile mother like this, but it pained him more that after all this time she still pined after her ex-husband like a lovesick puppy. She’d grown thin and weak, fading away before everyone’s eyes. Of course, his dad was oblivious to her agony, and was now toying with Beth-whatever’s bra strap under her sleeveless dress.
    Marc arranged his expression into one of complete dispassion and focused on his other older sister, Whitney, forty-two years old but as yet unmarried. She sat to his left, ignoring the scene completely as she scribbled in her leather-bound Filofax, undoubtedly adding yet another task to her lengthy to-do list.
    Whitney spent much of her time and energy on various community service projects. She was a member of the Junior League, the DAR, and the Library Board, among other organizations. She’d done a lot of work for them in Westport, where she’d returned to live after college at Vassar and had become a pillar of the community. Yet many people thought she was defective because she wasn’t married with a passel of kids, which, in his opinion, just showed their narrow-mindedness. His sister was happy, and he wanted her to be able to do whatever she wanted without being judged.
    Norton ignored everyone at the table, focusing instead on whispering something in his girlfriend’s ear. When his parents had gotten divorced a few years ago, Marc couldn’t understand how they’d lasted that long. His mother was beautiful, poised, and gentle, the perfect wife for a hard-hitting surgeon. She’d given her husband the best years of her life, putting her own career as a schoolteacher on the back burner in order to raise their children. He’d been an asshole to her almost from day one, yet she’d borne it with the patience of a saint for one reason—she loved him. She’d been willing to put up with anything as long as he stayed with her. But then, one day, he’d come home and announced he wanted a divorce.
    Marc sighed, wishing he weren’t there, not just because he had to deal with his father, but mostly because being present at the reading of Aunt Sarah’s will reminded him that his beloved aunt was no longer alive.
    Things hadn’t been going his way lately. The situation at Briarwood was heating up. He’d met with Press and Jake that morning to plan for their board meeting next week—the one that would determine whether the trustees would throw their support behind the renovations or give them pushback every step of the way. Needless to say, the stakes were high. He’d missed an important meeting to attend Aunt Sarah’s funeral, so his deal with the Russians had fallen through. He’d also had to postpone his trip to India, and Lord knew that the Mumbai project needed a hell of a lot of work. To try to get the Mumbai project back on track, he’d thought to take a calming, reflective walk through the woods, and that’s when he’d