Page 62 of Happily Ever After

That was exactly what she wanted to do to the Queen Bees. Maude felt the prickle at the back of her neck that always accompanied a breakthrough.

She clicked into another archived page, this one from a women’s organization that made her pause. The mission statement could have been lifted almost word for word from something Paige might have written. It was all about community, coming together, and sharing experiences.

Darcy had joined a year after the group’s founding. Six months later, there had been a bylaws challenge.

Maude let out a soft curse. Darcy was relentless. Why did she like destruction so much? Was it the sense of power it gave her?

Maude scrolled through old comments, press mentions, and interviews about the group. The shift was easy to see, the moment when the tone changed from celebration to conflict. The language Darcy favored crept in then. Questions about fairness. Concerns about exclusivity. Calls for review.

The founder stepped down shortly after. The group dissolved within a year.

Maude closed her eyes for a second, vowing right then that she was not going to let this happen to the Queen Bees. Maude reopened her eyes and kept going.

The sick truth was, Darcy wasn’t going after Paige because she was special or for some personal reason, it just felt that way to Paige.

The reality was, Darcy was going after Paige because she was visible as the founder of the book club and she was vocal online. Darcy didn’t want the book club gone because it excluded people. She wanted it gone because it didn’t include her.

Maude searched for legal disputes next, not court cases, but threats. Things hinted at in meeting minutes. Any mentions of an attorney being consulted. Or language that suggested someone had pushed enough to scare people into backing down.

There Darcy was again.

Never enough to land in court. Always enough to drain energy. To sap morale. To make leadership feel like a liability instead of a privilege.

Maybe Darcy didn’t destroy things outright, but she definitely wore them down. Maude glanced at the clock on her laptop. Nearly midnight. She didn’t feel tired.

She felt alert.

She started a new section in her document and titled it simply: Pattern.

Then she listed out all the pertinent points. Established group, often with strong female leadership. Darcy joins quietly, raises procedural concerns. Decides there’s a fairness issue. Forces a review or a discussion about restructuring. Enough to destabilize the leadership, which leads to the group dissolving or fracturing.

She stopped typing and stared at the list. She supposed it was good that this wasn’t about Paige personally, but Maude doubted that would make Paige feel any better.

Bottom line was that it all came down to power. And what Darcy did when she didn’t have it. Or thought someone else had too much.

Maude closed the laptop halfway and leaned back against the headboard, exhaling. Her mind replayed what Cece had described about Darcy’s words at the fitness center, and the gleam in her eyes. The confidence.

Darcy thought she was repeating a successful strategy. What she didn’t know was that she’d picked the wrong group this time.

The Queen Bees weren’t a loose collective. They were anchored by real friendship and their own sense of community.

And Paige? Paige had already survived far worse than a bylaws dispute.

Maude opened the laptop again and saved the document, backing it up to the cloud. She had more work to do to get this ready to share, but she could sleep in tomorrow.

Information was only power if you used it wisely.

Maude sat there for a long moment, thinking things through, her thoughts already moving ahead. “Patterns,” she whispered. “It all comes down to patterns.”

So what if Darcy had a playbook.

Now, so did the Queen Bees.

She just hoped it was enough.

Chapter Twenty-Six

The sky was still dark when Paige eased her golf cart out of the driveway.