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Vasser’s grandchildren and heirs, and an integral part of the Vasser family empire. Okay, she was technically an ex- wife now, but what did that matter? She had married into the Vasser family for a reason, and she did not intend to let her philandering ex-husband’s exploits ruin her long-term goals.
    Charlene felt important, affluent, and regal now that she carried the Vasser name. Surely in her youth she had been none of those things, but had instead been nothing more than a mousy girl with boring, forgettable features, stumbling around the East Village longing for a knight or a prince to whisk her away to a better life.
    But it had been in that haven of starving artists and drugged out musicians that she had met Win Vasser, one of the heirs to the Vasser Hotel fortune and legacy. Initially she had appreciated his whimsical views of the world, along with his hippie idealisms and penchant for experimentation, but what had really drawn her to him was his name. After all, once she’d discovered that no knight would ever ride to her rescue, she had learned that if she wanted something better, she was going to have to go out and get it. And for Charlene, the best way to get what she wanted, prestige, power, and status, was to marry up and have babies to cement herself in with the family for good.
    And that was precisely what she had done. After giving herself a complete and transformative makeover, at least by 1980s standards, she’d reemerged beautiful and as cunning as any smart woman should be. Then she had nabbed her man, and within months was with child.
    Only, when she’d grown frustrated and exhausted with Win’s sensitive emotions, impractical dreams and routinely wandering eye, she had understood that she had unfortunately chosen the wrong brother. She should have aimed higher and gone after Marshall. He was the oldest son, ten years Win’s senior, and next in line as family patriarch. He had never married, nor had any kids of his own. But despite divorcing Win and securing herself a comfortable life still ingrained in the family business just to keep within eyeshot of Marshall, he had never once given her the time of day.
    And oh, how it frustrated her.
    But that was neither here nor there, Charlene sighed disdainfully, pursing her lips and removing her glasses as she stared outside the window of her lushly decorated home office, watching the snow fall in silent flurries. She had her meticulously weaved honey blonde hair curled in smooth waves around her face, its short style modern and yet sophisticated, and very up and coming with the high society crowd. Her eyes of ice blue were sharp and at often times cruel in their assessment of others, though she was rarely wrong about a person’s hidden motives or intentions. She figured she had learned her skills of reading people while living in the old neighborhood, where, if she didn’t want to get shot, mugged, or worse, she had to keep a weather eye out for trouble and thoroughly scan those who surrounded her. And while she no longer lived in that hell hole of a place, but instead in the privileged and superior Upper East Side, she still found her innate talents to be of use. After all, the high society crowd wasn’t much different than the people who inhabited the slums; there wasn’t a person out there who wouldn’t lie, cheat, beg or steal to get what they wanted, and only the strong managed to survive the fray in such conditions.
    It was a ruthless world, Charlene mused thoughtfully, her lips curving as she glanced at her reflection in the silver framed mirror that rested on her desk. But she had survived, and until the day she perished she would see to it that her four children did as well. They were of Vasser blood, after all, and destined for nothing but greatness.
    Well, except for one.
    Her youngest daughter bounded suddenly into the room, excited and peppy, her light chestnut waves of hair bouncing cheerfully.
    “Are you going to the hotel today?”