“Here’s $100—Can you be my mom today?” a billionaire boss’s son asked—until a shy woman replied, “Keep it. Billionaires pay in secrets.”

The Park residence sat on a cliff above the water in Manchester-by-the-Sea, north of Boston, surrounded by pines, cameras, iron gates, and men who pretended not to watch every breath I took. It was less a home than a warning built from glass and stone. The Atlantic spread beyond the windows — gray and restless, as though the ocean itself had been continue reading …