The last six months had been crazy but strangely satisfying. It had been full of business and personal challenges, but Helen, Greg and Ellie had faced them together and, with the almost reluctant help of Byron they had improvised, adapted and overcome every one of those challenges.
The first challenge had been to assimilate Byron and Ellie into Helen and Greg's life and family ... a family that also included Amy and Serge. It started out really well with an unforgettable weekend for Byron's birthday but when they actually moved in together it started to go downhill very quickly.
Sadly, three people tried their hardest to make it work while one did nothing. Despite being in his 50's, Byron was more of a child than an adult thanks to his sheltered upbringing.
He still believed that problems and mundane chores were for others to solve or do and every challenge was surmountable if you threw enough money at it. Fortunately, Byron and Ellie had enough money of their own to solve the problems that just about any person the planet might have ... but living under the one roof with a couple who were prepared to work to solve their challenges was not one of them.
But living separately but just next door to one another was a solution that money could buy ... even though the house next door to the Helen and Greg was not for sale. But throw enough money at the problem and add a little sweet talking by Helen and the house next door became Byron and Ellie's and peace and pleasure returned to the relationship just before Ellie reached the point where divorce seemed like the only option.
Byron and Ellie had definitely not wanted to return to their mansion. Ellie had confided in Greg that she really did not like living in a house where generations of her ancestors had lived before, and their portraits hung on many of the walls. She felt that they were watching her and were condemning her just because of her morals.
Of course, most of the men in that family had their dalliances and more than one of the women had lovers but those were never spoken of while Ellie was more open and honest. She wasn't trying to hide the fact that she was beginning to love Helen and Greg with a passion that only got stronger the longer they were together.
Byron was happy to leave the mansion if it meant being closer to Helen. While he had become a little more circumspect with Helen his love for this worldly-wise woman was growing and he admitted ... at least to Greg ... that he was happy to have found Helen and been welcomed into her life.
Byron was very happy with their new house too and he secretly didn't want to return to the mansion either. Their new house was larger than Greg and Helen's and had more than enough room for his office and his PA and, when they removed the side fence Helen could slip across to see Byron whenever she wanted to, and Ellie could go the other way to see Greg.
They could even cross over as couples although it was usually Byron and Ellie heading for Greg and Helen's place because they all seemed to like the Weston's big bed better ... and the extra fun that came with having other horny people living in the house was another excellent reason to visit too.
Not so quickly overcome was the issue of finding more staff for Helen's burgeoning business. The analysis that the business was providing to The Syndicate was allowing the group of wealthy men to make investments that were almost guaranteed to make them more money and there were others in the investment community who were wondering how The Syndicate could be doing so well.
Helen had started with the intention of flying under the radar and not growing the business beyond a small client base. Although she hadn't said anything at the time she had been hurt when the small businesses they had been helping when she and Greg had been doing consulting at the same time as they ran the lumber yard all turned on her and Greg when she started doing porn.
She didn't want that to happen again and so she had focused on the work for The Syndicate because they knew what her other occupation was all about and they valued her work regardless of what other things she did.
However, the reality was that her business needed to grow ... she knew that she needed to go hard or go home ... and after a lot of discussion with Greg she decided to go a little harder and so HGEB Partners was born.
The business was a complete mystery to the investment community and, thanks to one of Byron's corporate lawyers, finding out who was behind this new company was proving to be impossible. Even finding their offices was difficult and the closest anyone got to it was a shopfront in Guntersville Alabama.
And to hire Helen and her team was all but impossible too because they didn't advertise their phone number anywhere. Who needs to advertise when all your work comes through referrals or a group of trusted individuals who have enough work that might keep you going for years?
But Helen was no dumb bunny ... she knew that the very thing that allowed her to develop the business unhindered by gossip and hypocrisy was the very thing that would destroy the business if her only source of work ever decided to move away from her.
Plus, she wanted to expand back into consulting and three of the four guys in The Syndicate were already using her business for that purpose. She and Greg talked for hours as they considered becoming a little more public. She also spent some time in pillow talk with the guys from The Syndicate to see what they suggested.
Byron had spoken so highly of his time with her that one night of the party that the other three quietly approached her to buy some of her personal time. They never spoke to each other about it and Helen never revealed that she was seeing them ... and being paid handsomely for her time ... but even Byron was doing a little cheating on his wife with Helen.
Helen understood that some guys get an even bigger thrill out of sex if they have to pay for it and Byron had almost pleaded with her to be allowed to pay for some of her time and he had begged her not to tell Ellie about it.
Helen was happy to accept Byron's money, but she did let Ellie know what was happening. At first, Ellie was a little angry but then she decided that if Byron could play without telling her then so could she and one of her pilots suddenly found that he was getting to spend a lot more layover time with her than he had in the past.
She used the excuse that she needed to keep her hours up on the 737 in her fleet so, at least once every two weeks she appeared in the cockpit on the LA to Montreal run and it was just coincidence that those appearances always coincided with flights that her lover was working.
When Helen told each of the guys from The Syndicate what she was thinking of doing each of them wanted to recommend her to a select group of their friends and finally she agreed and work started to trickle in.
A "trickle" was good because they hardly had enough staff to cope with the analysis work that they already had and they weren't ready to start advertising for more staff ... but then things were taken out of their hands.
One newspaper headline changed their business forever. It wasn't a particularly eye-catching headline, and most people paid no attention to it ... but, for anyone interested in making money from the stock exchange, it was earth shattering.
Authorities were investigating claims that three named companies, two big and one small, were being investigated for falsifying analysis and consulting reports in exchange for large sums of money. The same three companies were also named for taking kickbacks from businesses that they had recommended to some of their consulting clients.
Within hours Helen's phone was ringing non-stop as businesses rushed to have their analysis reports verified by a company that was apparently a cleanskin in the industry. Other calls were coming from companies who wanted a recommended third-party to review the consultants' reports that they had received to ensure that the recommendations they had received in those reports were reliable and not tainted by the rancid odour of kickbacks.
Helen's little network of The Syndicate companies that recommended her was working at full capacity and things looked good for HGEB Partners ... until you realised that they were still very short of qualified staff.
Each consultancy job would require a personal visit to the company and the calls were coming in from all over the country. There were so many calls that Helen considered throwing her phone in the pool just so she could have a few minutes of peace and quiet without ringtones and voices ... but she managed to control that urge.
And then the CVs of analysts and consultants that had worked for the named companies started to come in via an email address that appeared on the HGEB Partners' website. These were from people who were trying to jump ship before their reputation was flushed down the toilet along with their employer's reputation and Greg surprised her when Helen asked him what she should do with them.
"Shred every one of them ... don't even look at them. These are people who, at the very least, worked for companies that tried to make money by rorting the system and at the very worst, these are people who were willing participants in that kickback scheme.
