Chapter 5: Never The Best: Chapter 5

‘Yes, sir, I understand.’ I managed not to sigh too loudly after my father was finished lecturing me about the incident at The Olde Pink House.

The Great George Vanderbilt was all about appearances and maintaining the family name.

I struggled with his values more now than I had growing up. I was supposed to manage the family wealth and live like he had—doing absolutely nothing but checking on stocks, bonds, and investments, spending my time in a country club, and occasionally nabbing a mistress that my wife would overlook because that was how it worked.

When I decided to use my Harvard finance degree to build a company, my father scoffed but allowed me to do it, saying everyone needed a hobby. Now that Vanderbilt Finance was a successful consulting firm, he talked about it like it was the family business. It wasn’t.

I had done what I was supposed to do: expand the generational wealth, and considering I was not merely investing money but building a company gave me comfort. Vanderbilt Finance employed hundreds of people across multiple offices in several Southern states, with a portfolio that included not just wealth management but high-level financial consulting and corporate restructuring. We didn’t only handle the money of Savannah’s elite—we helped companies streamline their operations, ensure regulatory compliance, and set themselves up for long-term growth. It was about more than profit, it was about being privileged to help those who worked at my company to live fulfilling lives—that was what I was most proud of, for being the source of employment for so many.

And yet, despite all of that, my father still found ways to act as though my success was his accomplishment, casually dropping hints at parties about how he’d encouraged me to take the initiative to steer the family legacy into the modern age. The reality was that George Vanderbilt hadn’t lifted a finger beyond cashing his monthly trust fund distributions and ordering me around like I was some kind of PR Manager for the Vanderbilt name. The reality also was that I let him.

“Rhett, we cannot have such public scenes. You must talk to Josie. She’s a good girl, yeah? She just needs a little training. Tessa had the same issues with Macon, but he sorted her out.’

I controlled my temper. My brother-in-law, Macon, in my opinion, emotionally abused Tessa. I had tried to talk to her about it, but she couldn’t or wouldn’t see it; after all, she’d only seen a patriarchal marriage, where love was transactional, where silence was a weapon, and where apologies were unidirectional, from the wife to the husband. Our parents’ relationship had set the bar so low that Macon’s manipulations seemed normal—acceptable, even. She mistook his control for care, his criticism for guidance, and his coldness for strength. It made me sick to watch, but no matter how I tried to open her eyes to it, she told me, “You don’t understand him like I do.”

Macon probably reminded her of our father. They were similar in how they thought about and treated women. Hadn’t I been raised in the same manner? Women were ornamental and dispensable. It had taken growing up and expanding my emotional intelligence to unlearn all that crap.

I respected women—not for what they did for men or how they looked on a man’s arm but for who they were. But there was a time when I didn’t, and wasn’t that the source of my endless nightmares featuring Pearl?

I snapped back to the conversation with my father, clenching my jaw to keep my irritation from showing. “Yes, sir.”

“Good.’ He thoughtfully leaned back in his leather chair with the kind of self-satisfied smirk that made me want to walk out of his study and never come back. “Now, I hear that Luna Steele and Aurora Rhodes were there to witness the disaster. Luna Steele is…well, let’s not get into that. But I hope you understand how important it is to smooth things over with the Rhodes family. Aurora Rhodes is married to Gabe Rhodes, and you know what that means in Savannah.”

I knew exactly what that meant. The Rhodes family wasn’t merely old money—they were ancient money, so entrenched in Savannah society that even my father had to tread carefully around them. Their name was on buildings, schools, and foundations all over the city. To George Vanderbilt, upsetting a Rhodes wasn’t just bad manners—it was a social catastrophe.

‘Now, we all know she’s just some floozy who married into the family, but it appears that she has her mother-in-law’s ear,’ my father continued, ‘and you know Atticus does whatever Betsy wants. If they hear about this, there will be hell to pay.’

I doubted it. I knew Gabe Rhodes, and he didn’t give a shit about societal bullshit, not since he decided to tell the world to fuck itself, and married a woman who was an architect, half-black, and not from our elite circle. Betsy cared even less; she always had, but was still a power unto herself, thanks to the backing of the Rhodes name and money.

‘Aurora is not the type to go running, complaining to Betsy about every run-in she has with someone.’ I looked at my glass of scotch, wondering how it would feel to throw it against the wall behind my father where the portrait of my grandfather, George Vanderbilt the Second, hung.

‘Now, Dixie May is an airhead, we all know that, but I thought Josie had more sense. You need to do better with her, Rhett.’ My father’s tone took on that faux-paternal quality he used when he was teaching me. “You need to make sure she understands how to behave, and you need to make it right with Aurora. You make Josie send that woman flowers, write a note, whatever she needs to do. We can’t afford to have the Rhodes thinking poorly of us.”

‘I don’t think it was Aurora who she offended.’ No, I didn’t want to hurl this heavy glass on the wall but rather into my father’s face. ‘It was Pearl Beaumont.’

My father waved a hand. ‘No one cares about the Beaumonts, especially her. You know, Cash has made some lousy decisions of late, and I hear that Pearl signed away her entire inheritance.’

I knew about Cash’s poor investments but not about Pearl giving up her inheritance. Was that why she was staying with Aunt Hattie?

I knew Cash well enough to know he wouldn’t share those kinds of details with me. He’d rather complain about his sister than show any gratitude for the fact that she’d given him her share of the family wealth. The Beaumonts of the past had made their fortune in real estate, though I’d never dealt with them from a business perspective. I recalled that Pearl’s father had passed away when she was still a child, leaving the estate in the hands of trustees who mismanaged it—only for Cash to continue the decline when it eventually fell to him. They weren’t the first old-money Savannah family to squander a legacy until there was nothing left for the next generation, and they certainly wouldn’t be the last.

‘She’s staying with Hattie, who we all know is fuckin’ crazy,” my father continued.

He never liked Aunt Hattie, my mother’s younger sister. Big surprise there. Harriett “Hattie” Odom was what old, white Southern men called a problematic woman. In Savannah, she commanded respect and loyalty, her presence as steady and unyielding as the ancient live oaks. She was fiercely independent and unapologetically strong. She had carved her place in Savannah society through her intelligence, wit, and unwavering sense of self. She was equal parts charm and steel, capable of delivering a razor-sharp observation with a honey-sweet tone.

Unlike other society belles, Hattie never married. She remained single and managed her father’s steel mills with him. When he passed, she sold it all and had invested her part of the buyout wisely, so it had grown. Her investments included Pearl’s new employer, Savannah Lace, where she sat on the board to support her friend, Nina Davenport.

Unlike the indomitable Harriet Odom, my father had invested my mother’s share of the steel mills in ventures that were probably as unwise as Cash Beaumont’s.

I wondered if my father realized that, without me, the Vanderbilts would be having the same financial issues as the Beaumonts. If he did, he never thanked me. But then, men like him pretended they were winners even when they were losing.

‘This the girl you slept with in high school, isn’t it?’ he sneered. ‘Just shows her loose morals.’

‘And mine,’ I instantly countered.

My father cocked an eyebrow.

‘We had sex—I was involved.’

‘You’re a man,’ my father scoffed.

Like hell I’d been a man then. The way I’d behaved with Pearl had not been manly at all.

‘Anyway.’ Father looked at his watch. ‘Time to head to The Alabaster.’

I rose, wanting very much not to go to my engagement party. Josie and her mother, along with mine and, in fact, Pearl’s, who was Josie’s godmother, planned the damn thing and had been making it more elaborate by the minute ever since she got knocked up. They’d chosen, thanks to the Vance fortune, Savannah’s most luxurious hotel and a landmark of old Southern grandeur as the venue for the debacle our lives together were going to be.

“Yes, sir,” I clipped.

He put his arm around me. ‘You know, son, you did right with Josie. The Vances are the right kind of family. And like I said, with a little bit of training, I’m sure she’ll make you a good wife.’

I should’ve left it right there, but I didn’t; I couldn’t. ‘And what does a good wife mean, sir?’

He gave me a look like I’d asked the stupidest question in the world. His arm tightened around my shoulders, a mock show of camaraderie that felt more like a trap.

‘A good wife knows her place.’ His voice dripped with superiority and condescension. ‘She supports her husband. She knows when to keep her mouth shut. She knows how to look pretty on his arm at events, and how to run a home without bothering him about the details. And if she’s smart—well, smart enough—she’ll give you sons who know how to carry on the family name.’

I stiffened under the weight of his arm, disgust curling in my stomach, almost choking me. His words were so matter-of-fact, as if this was just the way the world worked, like he couldn’t fathom there was anything wrong with his worldview.

‘Right.’

He chuckled as he continued, “Son, these days, women keep saying they want more—a career, their own lives—whatever the hell that means. Let me give you some advice. You don’t marry a woman who wants to be more than your wife. You marry her to be your wife, to complement you. If she starts chasing things outside the marriage, she’ll make your life miserable. Mark my words—too much ambition in a wife is a recipe for disaster.”

He clapped me on the shoulder as if he’d just passed down tremendous fatherly wisdom. ‘You’ll see, in time, that I’m right. Josie’s got the right breeding for this. She just needs a little guidance. That’s your job, Rhett.’

I didn’t reply. What could I possibly say when he acted like we’d just had a perfectly normal conversation? In my father’s mind, my job wasn’t just to uphold the family name and fortune—it was to mold my wife into some Stepford ideal that would fit neatly into his warped sense of tradition.

“Josie just needs a tighter leash. A Vanderbilt wife needs to understand her place.”

God, I hated the way my father talked about women like they were accessories to be managed and displayed; their value tied entirely to how well they played their roles.

“Yes, sir,” I lied, shrugging his arm away, because I wanted to break it, as I opened his office door so we could go to the parlor and collect our women, and then head to fuck my life up in front of Savannah society.

“See that you take care of this,” he replied, dismissing me with a jerk of his chin as though I were one of his underlings instead of his son.

Making an excuse, I walked out onto the verandah instead of going to Josie because I needed a fucking breather. The air was thick with the smell of blooming magnolias, and the distant hum of cicadas filled the quiet. I wanted to loosen my bowtie, but I knew someone would admonish me for that. It was fucking hot and humid, and I was in a tux that felt too tight and uncomfortable, even though it was tailormade for me.