To have and to Hold

Goodwill to all men? so not true

Darren couldn't help himself coveting what wasn't his.

He had been eight years old when his mother had met and married Robert Maxwell. Although his stepfather treated him well enough, Darren still always felt like the outsider.

He knew from the beginning that Adam and his younger brother Kevin looked down him because he had been part and parcel of his mother, whom they both disliked, and in return he resented them.

Darren's mother had never told him anything about his real father, only that he was a loser, and they were better of without him.

Darren was also quite aware the attraction Robert Maxwell had for his mother was to do with his wealth. She had always been ambitious, wanting a better life for herself than working as a secretary, with wages that barely got them by on rent and food.

His mother had expensive tastes, and Robert Maxwell had been their meal ticket.

She couldn't believe their luck when she finally managed to ensnare him. But then she was an attractive woman, who had never been short of interest from men.

And what if his mother had married the older man for better security that would set them up for life?

He didn't see why that give the Maxwell boys the right to look down on him.

It had never improved as the years went by.

Darren's idea of getting back at Kevin and Adam, was to make up stories and lies about them to their father. This was backed by his upset Mother, who claimed Robert's two sons treated Darren unfairly, it usually worked in his favour. Robert Maxwell never could stand a woman weeping, and so he tended to believe her, rather than his sons.

It had caused a lot of friction in their younger days. Kevin and Adam only grew to mistrust Darren, not that he cared, he despised both of them, because they thought they were better than him.

But of course 'blood was thicker than water', Darren soon discovered.

Whilst Adam and Kevin automatically became executives and shareholders in their father's wealthy Hotel business, he, Darren, got some measly job as a junior manager in one of their offices.

There he was expected to prove he could make it, and work hard to achieve a higher goal.. and live up to the damned Maxwell name, which, they somehow expected him to be grateful for.

But his lack of people skills, and apathy towards this job, only led to him becoming more resentful, and blaming it all on the Maxwell brothers.

So Darren continued to covet all they had, wanting everything he felt he deserved, and wanting to be on equal footing with Adam and Kevin.

It had been bad when he had the both brothers ganging up on him. But now with Kevin gone, Darren and his mother seen his chance to step up, and take the position in the Maxwell business that they felt was owed to them.

But Adam was still causing them trouble.

No doubt he had never really got over Darren stealing his wife from under his nose. It was the only victory he had ever achieved over the damned man, and it had been worth all the trouble. Although, in truth, it had not even been particularly difficult.

Darren could be quite a charmer when he put his mind to it, and he knew that Sandra was a little resentful with Adam because he spent most of his time at his office, and had very little time for her.

In the guise of being sympathetic to her plight, and fuelling her resentment with his own, Darren had managed to turn Sandra against Adam, then he had encouraged her into having an affair with him. It was something he still got a kick out off, knowing they were doing it in the very bed which she and Adam had slept in.