She Wanted It All - Kathryn Casey [34]
Yet, that was only a fraction of his money. It was a conservative document engineered by a conservative man. Steve wanted to share his life with Celeste but didn’t intend to act rashly. As in love with her as he appeared, he’d spent a lifetime building his fortune, and he didn’t intend to lose it.
It must have seemed the ultimate triumph, as Celeste stood beside Steve under an arch in Harvey’s, the main dining room at the Austin Country Club, on February 18, 1995, near windows that overlooked a garden. Little more than a year earlier she’d been a waitress in that same room. Now, surrounded by fifty or so guests, many from Austin’s elite, she was becoming the bride of a very wealthy man.
The ceremony didn’t escape the notice of the staff. “There was a lot of talk,” says the maitre d’, Fernando von Hapsburgh. “We’d never had a waitress marry a member before.”
As her matron of honor, Celeste had Ana Presse, a petite and pretty woman with frosted hair. She and her attorney husband, Philip, had been acquaintances of Steve’s and Elise’s, meeting in the early nineties on a radio station trip to Hong Kong. Some would wonder why Celeste asked Ana, whom she’d only recently met through Steve, when such honors are often reserved for old, dear friends.
Meanwhile, Steve’s best man was someone he’d known since boyhood, his first cousin, C.W. Beard. A tall, dour-looking Dallas banker with large ears and horn-rimmed glasses, C. W. had handled Steve’s financial affairs since the eighties.
Paul was on a ship and couldn’t attend the ceremony, but Becky was in the audience, watching apprehensively as her father recited his vows. In her heart she knew it was a terrible mistake. Celeste was a full fourteen years younger than Steve III, and Becky was acutely aware that her father was nearly old enough to be Celeste’s grandfather. But that wasn’t what bothered her. There was something about Celeste she simply didn’t trust. “She was fake,” says Becky. “We could see it. We just wished Dad could have seen it.”
If he sensed his daughter’s apprehension, Steve didn’t acknowledge it. That day, he exuded happiness. He must have believed he had good reason to be proud. Dressed in a cream brocade suit cut to show off her trim waistline, with her blond hair swept up in a sophisticated French twist, Celeste looked truly lovely. She was dressed with exquisite care and taste. Her jewelry was simple, a strand of pearls around her neck with matching earrings, and on her left-hand ring finger a beautiful diamond solitaire. “It wasn’t flashy big, but it was stunning,” says a friend.
After the ceremony, the group dispersed to tables adorned with rose centerpieces for a four-course dinner as waiters circulated with trays of crystal flutes bubbling with champagne. As they mingled, Steve grinned so broadly one friend said that a young wife must be the road to happiness.
Still, many of his friends had a sense of impending trouble. In the men’s rest room one asked another, “What the hell is Steve doing?”
“I’ve got no damn clue,” the other answered.
At the wedding, Kristina was delighted for her mother. Celeste was exuberant, flushed with excitement, and Kris wondered if this, perhaps, would be it—the match that gave her mother everything she’d ever wanted, the marriage that would finally make her happy. Halfway through dinner, Kristina left for softball practice. At the door, as she walked out, she took one last look at the happy couple. “I hoped it worked,” she says. “Steve seemed like such a nice man.”
Jennifer learned the way she had always did about Celeste’s wedding. “I got a postcard,” she says. “I just threw it away. I figured, well, here’s another new guy.”
On March 3, 1995, after they returned from a New Orleans honeymoon, Celeste and Steve signed a postnuptial agreement confirming the terms of their prenup. It must have made Celeste pause, realizing she hovered so close to wealth and all it could buy, but it still wasn’t hers. Even as Steve’s wife, she had no claim to his money. Only if he died while