There's new money… and then there's the Hartmans. The kind of shiny, over-eager wealth that screams legacy by force. They walk into rooms like they're trying to convince old money to slide over and make space — like heritage can be bought if you just smile hard enough and spend louder. I'd run into them a few times at charity galas, fashion luncheons — the kind of events where the rosé is room temperature and everyone's pretending they don't read Page Six religiously.
Lucille Hartman is the self-declared queen of their castle — former beauty queen, now perfectly preserved in expensive filler and ambition. She still walked like she was balancing a crown and someone was watching. Her goal in life was painfully clear: get Vanessa — her so-called golden daughter — married into a name older and shinier than their own. Love didn't matter. A soul didn't matter. Assets, headlines, and the right kind of ring did.
Her infamous tea parties were held like court sessions — pearls mandatory, heels unforgivable, and gossip practically currency. I'd watched grown women freeze at her compliments and melt at her insults. Every conversation was a power play, disguised under laughs that were too sharp to be real. Half the women just came to report back to husbands who pretended not to care.
Then there was Gerald Hartman — Lucille's husband, CEO of Hartman Global Holdings, and the poster boy for Nice Guy With A Knife Behind His Back. On the surface? All warmth and firm handshakes. But behind closed doors? Every deal was bloodless until it wasn't.nHe smiled through mergers like they were cocktail toasts, always one play away from locking down the kind of alliance that would solidify the Hartman name in the upper crust — permanently. Rumor was their company wasn't doing as well as the glossy press releases claimed. But Gerald knew how to hide a dying fire behind expensive smoke. Still, they weren't just climbing the ladder — they were trying to rewrite the damn rungs. And with Vanessa set to return from Europe next week, I could already feel the next move coming. Carefully plotted. Ruthlessly executed. Wrapped in lace and legacy.
Vanessa Hartman wasn't in the country — not yet. Word was, she was in Florence on some sleek, photogenic fellowship that looked like it involved more spritz cocktails and sunset selfies than actual research. Stanford grad, minor in international relations, major in looking effortless. The kind of woman who could hold a conversation about carbon emissions while angling her face toward the best lighting. People called her polished, cultured, tasteful — and they weren't wrong. But there was something... rehearsed about it all. Like she'd spent her whole life studying the right way to be admired without ever asking why.
Her mother, Lucille, called her "a modern princess." Which was rich, considering Lucille herself was a pageant queen turned society strategist — all smiles and soft threats. Vanessa had inherited the full arsenal: the practiced tilt of the head, the diplomatic deflections, the smile that said bless your heart without moving a single muscle too far out of place.
Behind the scenes, she was ambitious — quietly, efficiently so. Not the fiery kind who made headlines, but the type who played the long game and made it look like an accident. She'd ghosted a senator's son once and got a handwritten apology from him. That was Vanessa: never messy, always memorable. Lucille said she was born to be married into power. Vanessa didn't argue. She just packed the right dress, the right heels, and flew first-class toward whatever kingdom needed a queen next.
She was due back next week, right on schedule — perfectly timed for whatever strategic tea party or merger talk the adults had cooked up. And knowing Vanessa, she'd make her entrance like a soft breeze scented with Chanel, all warm greetings and hidden agendas.
Then there was Billy. William, technically. Seventeen going on menace. Their personal PR disaster in sneakers and designer hoodies. If there was a scandal trending online, there was a 30% chance it was him — drunk in a rooftop pool or making TikToks in questionable outfits. Gerald pretended he was just "expressive." The rest of us knew better.
But the real star of Lucille's little social circus? Cynthia Hartman. Gerald's only sister — three marriages deep and still collecting husbands like limited-edition handbags. She owns this ridiculously curated high-end boutique in SoHo that sells the kind of clothes influencers cry over and trust fund girls pretend they discovered first. Cynthia calls it "tastefully rebellious." I call it a shrine to designer chaos. She's loud, stunning, opinionated, and utterly unbothered — the kind of woman who can walk into a room and make every married man adjust his collar while his wife pretends not to notice.
She's got this cackle that could derail a TED Talk, and stilettos that sound like a warning. The women at Lucille's teas practically line up to be verbally dismantled by her, and she does it with the grace of someone filing her nails mid-judgment. Brutal, brilliant, and somehow always right — even when she's wrong, she just rebrands the argument until it sounds like a win. She's made peace with being both the cautionary tale and the secret role model.
Over the third glass of overpriced prosecco, she'll lean in and confess, with perfect lipstick and zero shame, "I still go to Night Eclipse, you know. Not for the drinks. For the music. And sometimes the dancers." Then she'll wink like we're all in on it — which we absolutely are not — and add something completely outrageous like, "A woman's got needs. And if my husband can't salsa, someone else will. Lucille pretends to be horrified, but she lives for it. Honestly, we all do.