Tessa, the only daughter of Norwegian aristocrats, was blessed from birth. Her parents had money, a nice home, and the ability to provide their only daughter with whatever she wanted. For the first ten years of her life, everything was perfect. She idolized her father and dreamt of being just like him, from his demeanor to his profession (a lawyer). Everything she did, she did to make her father proud, and her relationship with her mother suffered for it.

So, when Adrian unexpectedly died in a car crash, young Tessa's life took a turn for the worse. Her mother, unable to cope with the grief, went on a downward spiral and pushed her already estranged daughter further away. Tessa was sent to boarding school while her mother moved to the United States for a change of scenery. Had it not been for her father's over-preparedness, Tessa would have lost everything he wanted her to have, but he had taken measures to ensure that Charlotte could not access money set aside for his daughter, money that he had cleverly invested so that it would double by the time his daughter could access it.

Because of the path her mother had set her on, Tessa was able to finish school earlier than expected, and she moved to Boston to join her mother in early 2004. It was here that she was spotted by a modeling agency and her life changed forever. Her plan had been to go to an Ivy League school to follow in her father's footsteps as a lawyer, which she still did, but she found that she had a passion for modeling (and the attention that came with it). She balanced her heavy course load with various modeling jobs and, despite the conflict of interest, managed to obtain her law degree.

Though Tess still models occasionally, her devotion to her father led her to begin working for a respected law firm in the city of Boston. She worked her way up from there and eventually won a job in the legal department at Trevisan International. Some say it's because she's in good favor with the CEO, but Tess insists that she won the job independent of her ex-boyfriend turned world-traveling partner. Sometimes she wonders how things might have been different had modeling become her sole focus, but Tess takes comfort in knowing how proud her father would be of what she has accomplished.