A speeding car in his neighborhood, an accident in his front yard, a young person found under his bird of paradise, then a little thief stole his heart. All this started a new life for Charles Xavier Cooper.
Young man resists cuckolding attempt by fiance. He moves west and builds a new life with two women he meets there. One is half Indian. Her grandfather instructs him on the old Indian ways of life modified for modern times. They live well but modestly.
1880 Philippines. Mia, a merchant's daughter, marries into a brutal plantation dynasty. Alana, an Indio concubine, is given to her husband as property. Expected to be rivals, they choose alliance instead—then love. When violence destroys the patriarchs who owned them, these two women seize an empire through strategy, not rebellion. Pregnant and widowed, they negotiate a hostile takeover that leaves them controlling everything: the land, the shipping, the future. Lock, stock, and barrel