after a quick kiss in the air, and a wave to his wife, Sam ran back downstairs to Daphne.
“Happy again, my love?” she asked him, moving closer to him in the car, but he was disappointed in the weekend with his daughter, and it still troubled him at times when he saw Alex. They were both haunted by the ghosts of their past life, and trying to forget them.
“I'm sorry things didn't work out a little more smoothly,” Sam said quietly, acknowledging the fiasco.
“She'll be fine,” Daphne said confidently, and started talking to him about the apartment.
But once he moved into the Carlyle in June, things were even harder. Daphne was there all the time with him, and Annabelle suddenly understood that she was a permanent intruder.
“I hate her!” she said adamantly every time she came home to her mother.
“No, you don't,” Alex said firmly.
“Yes, I do.”
They took her to the new apartment and she said she hated that too. The only thing she said she liked was the lemonade and chocolate cookies at the Carlyle. Sam was trying to organize their summer too, he had gotten the yacht, and a house in Cap d'Antibes, and Alex had agreed to let her go with them.
But it was Daphne who objected vehemently to Annabelle's being included. She was not having Annabelle with them in Europe, she said, not even with a nanny.
“She's my daughter, for heaven's sake.” He was horrified by her attitude and very hurt by it. This was not what he had expected from the woman he lived with. And they were going to be gone for six weeks, a long time not to see his daughter.
“Fine. Then bring her along when she's eighteen. She doesn't belong with us on a yacht, and in a house in the South of France. What if she falls overboard? I'm not going to spend my time worrying about her.
I'm not bringing my son along either.” In fact, she was only seeing him for a week in London. She made it sound like the ultimate sacrifice, but Sam was beginning to know better.
They argued about it constantly, and he was not about to give in, but it was Annabelle herself who finally decided. She didn't want to go away with them, didn't want to go to Europe, and leave her Mommy. They were going to spend a week in London, two in Cap d'Antibes, and three on the yacht, cruising around France and Italy and Greece. It sounded heavenly to Alex, but not to her daughter.
“Maybe she's just too young,” Alex suggested gently to Sam. “Maybe next year.” She assumed he'd be married to the girl by then, and Annabelle would have to get along with her. It was odd, because he hadn't asked Alex for the divorce yet, but she knew it was coming, probably at the end of the summer. He probably just didn't want to look like he was pushing. She had resigned herself to it by then. Their marriage was history, it had never been as glamorous as his life with Daphne anyway. He would never have thought of going to the South of France or renting a yacht while he was married to Alex.
“What are you going to do with her?” Sam asked, worried about Annabelle, and unhappy not to have her with him for the summer.
“I've rented a house in East Hampton. I'd love having her with me. I'll ask Carmen to stay out there during the week, and I'll work a short week so I can be with her.” It sounded fine to him, and Annabelle was thrilled when they told her.
“I don't have to go with Daddy and Daphne?” she said incredulously. “Yippee!” But her reaction really hurt him, and he was annoyed with Daphne that night when he went back to the Carlyle.
“Oh for heaven's sake, don't pout,” Daphne teased, pouring a glass of Cristal for him. “She's only a child, she'd have hated it. And we'd have been miserable, watching her, worried all the time. It wouldn't have been a vacation.” She smiled at him, enormously relieved to have the issue disposed of. “What do you want to do tonight? Go out or stay home?” Life was a constant party to her and if not a party, an orgy.
“Maybe I ought to do some work for a change,” he said glumly. He had been letting his partners handle everything. He and Simon were bringing in all the new deals, and Simon took care