Chapter 1- Valois & Matheson

A/N: Just a quick introduction. The chapters in this story will be longer since you'll have to wait a week in between and the story is longer. This will help me develop the plot and the character relationships. It's in first person POV after this (Mary mostly, with some occasional Bash chapters.) I apologize for any errors. I haven't slept much these past 2 weeks, and this is my first fic.

They called themselves Society's Elite and Rightful Citizens. They came from old money and new money, homes and fortune passed through generations. Women turned their backs when another woman tried to seduce their husbands. Men turned to their scotch when their wives left the house at night for another's company.

It was only when Henry Valois opened a law firm that the truth made its way into the public. 1984 was the year that SERC was no longer a secret, because of an ambitious 26 year-old Valois who had spent a mere part of his childhood hearing the whispers of rumors circulating among the people of his street, Georgetown Pike. When the public started learning of SERC, the whispers stopped and it became but a memory for Henry.

The eldest Valois married a woman named Catherine soon after and she bore him a daughter, Elizabeth, and two sons, Francis and Charlie. Between the birth of Elizabeth and Francis, he had another son with a woman named Diane Poitiers, a son by the name of Sebastian Lucas Poitiers. Sebastian, better known as Bash, lived a quiet life with his mother while they worked to meet ends meet. Diane was Henry's secret. One not well kept to his family, but to the public eye she was a ghost. And their son was no one.

They lived like this until Bash was 25, when light started to come into the young man's life. He was considered an "East End Boy," with no money to his name because of his illegitimacy. He worked at a Sports grille where he had more drunken women thrown at him than money, a car that only worked half of the time, and nowhere to go but home if he wanted another's presence. His younger years had been spent watching the other kids at school associate themselves with their friends on the playground while he stayed in the sandbox making doodles with a stick he'd pick up on the road walked to school every day. Bash was not the person who would have normally crossed Mary Stuart's path.

He was certainly not the guy that would have talked to her had she not turned around that day in the pastry shop. Guys like Bash were ignored once someone got past their looks and made note of their social or economic standing. It had become such normality for him that he had accepted it long before Mary Stuart walked into his life. He had nothing to offer but a one night stand or the lack of his father's inheritance. At least, if somebody was looking for something materialistic he couldn't help them. Knowing his luck, there wouldn't be a girl out there that would look past those things. There was never going to be a girl who could accept his struggles, his past and present, or lack of fortune. All he could hope for was that he'd find somebody to love with all he could give them. He promised himself that he would never have either of his parents' relationships.

At least, that was Bash's way of thinking. After so many disappointments, what else could he do but prepare for more? No matter what effort he gave, everything would eventually come back to blow up in his face with such force he'd wonder why he even tried at all. All he could hope for was that, one day, things would start to get better. And they did. In the form a young girl from the other side of the tracks.

She was a "West End Girl," and had been the whole 21 years of her life. Her father had passed away during her childhood and she and her mother relocated from Scotland a year after. Her mother, Marie, was one of the wealthiest and most respectable chefs of the state. Mr. Stuart had left them plenty of money because of the bank that had been owned by his parents, passed to him. Marie's parents left her their fortune when they passed away, one year apart. With that, Mr. Stuart's inheritance, and the wealth Mrs. Stuart made, Mary was in good company. Her wardrobe could fill the entire bedroom she'd been given plus more, she loved shopping and dining (especially when her mother was so well known other restaurants tripped over their feet to please her with a discount), and she liked to believe nothing was missing from her life. She had a caring mother, a nice home, and the cutest outfits and accessories she could want.

There was only one thing Mary never had the opportunity to cherish.

Love. Not the love she was given by her mother, or restaurant owners that scrambled to meet her needs, but rather from somebody who would join in her in her awful dancing rather than laugh at it, or tell her she looked beautiful at any time of the day. The love she could still feel when all else would only be a small flicker of light in a dark place. Maybe that was the reason why she went shopping and dining often. It helped her to forget the loneliness her mind had not accepted the way her heart had.

The day she received her internship opportunity was the day everything changed. SERC came back into the spotlight 30 years later, eventually due to a case that would become front page news. She thought she had it all but one case helped her to see the reality and acknowledge what she was missing.

And Mary Stuart found herself involved in a world fueled by wealth, passion, secrets, and betray. And she found herself falling in love in the most unlikely places.

Two strangers, two worlds, came together as one throughout those months.