who’d sworn off fatherhood, holding a baby in each arm. Those little bundles of joy cradled in his biceps. That guarded cynic that I’d fallen hard for was unrecognizable. I could never have hoped for a more caring and devoted man to have children with.
“Hey, gorgeous.” Blake smiled at me. He put Juliet down, and she clung to his leg. She adored her father.
“Elliot was just telling me that he’s building a mud-brick folly at the back of his home.”
“That sounds nice and rustic,” I said. “He’s nice. Your mom looks really happy.”
He nodded with a sparkle in those blue eyes with accents of the sky. “She is. He’s a good man.”
“James looks a little glum over there, though.”
“Doesn’t he? He’s still broken over Lilly.”
“Oh well. It’s for the better. She’s in love. And to someone he introduced her to.” I grimaced, recalling the dramatics of that past year.
After a sojourn in LA to hang low while the scandal of the depraved island affair played out in the media, James returned home, hoping to rekindle his relationship with Lilly. All the while, he’d continue to send money for their daughter. Although that had helped raise my estimation of him slightly, I was relieved that Lilly had turned her back on him.
It was late afternoon, and James seemed a little over the limit as he strutted unevenly toward us. “Hey, you two,” he said with a big cheesy smile. “This is a marvelous place you’ve got here.” He regarded Blake. “I miss you at the club, though.”
“I’ll be at Mayfair next week. We can catch up then. Like the good old days.”
James looked at me and then Blake. “It’s not exactly like the good old days, though. You’re hitched. A father of not just one but two children. And all in three years.” He shook his head. “My God.”
Blake gave me a subtle wink. “Time sweeps us along, and we can either grab a branch and pull ourselves out or keep rolling down the rapids.”
“And I’ve been rolling down the rapids, right?”
“You’ve always been adventurous, James,” said Blake, his tone neutral and devoid of judgment.
James let out a deep sigh. “Yeah. And look where it’s got me.”
“How was LA?” I asked.
“Predictable,” he said, sounding tired.
“How?” I asked.
He paused to think. “It’s wild.” He sniffed. “Exciting at times. But it’s impossible to get a decent cup of tea.”
We had to laugh at that time-honored English obsession with tea.
“But apart from that, it was sex, drugs, and rock’n’roll. No, let me rephrase that—sex, drugs, and techno.” He chuckled.
“I look forward to hearing about it,” said Blake.
“Not too much to tell. It all just blurs into one big endless party. Everyone ends up indistinguishable. And to be honest, I probably would have extracted more joy from reading Proust than hanging out at another anything goes weekender in Malibu.”
Blake laughed. “Well, I’ll be. Proust? James, we’ll make a deep man out of you yet.”
Instead of smiling, James looked at me and Blake seriously. He’d changed. His eyes kept flitting over to Lilly, who giggled raucously with Sheldon while Jasmine, her pretty three-year-old daughter, skipped about with Max.
“She’s so beautiful,” he said almost to himself.
“Lilly or Jasmine?” I asked.
“Both,” he said.
I felt so sorry for him suddenly.
A motorbike roared in the distance, stirring me out of my thoughts.
“Nice Harley-Davidson,” said Blake, staring at the gleaming motorcycle with high handlebars.
It was Lilly’s new boyfriend, Reggie, arriving in style. He possessed that bad-boy swagger that Lilly loved, only he was anything but that. The filthy-rich son of a lord, and a billionaire in his own right, Reggie was a tattoo artist. He was passionate about the art form, and his heavily tattooed arms proved it. Besotted with Lilly, he was sweet with Jasmine and loved kids. With a clownish life-of-the-party personality, he possessed a big voice and a head full of crude jokes but was always respectful when that was called for.
Wearing a sunny smile, he strutted toward Lilly with a soccer ball under his arm.
“Here comes David Beckham,” muttered James sarcastically.
“Are you going to be okay?” asked Blake.
I loved the way he cared for those around him. And although James didn’t really, in my book, warrant that kind of sympathy, I loved my husband for his empathy and understanding. As Blake had said, everyone was entitled to one or two fuck ups, as long as they redeemed themselves, and there was no harm done to children or animals.
Noticing Lilly and Reggie heading our way, James snuck off,