They settle on the sofa. Winnie is at Baker’s side now—fickle girl.

“It’s your baby,” Ayers says.

“I heard.”

“I want to make that clear. It’s yours, not Mick’s. Also, I’m finished with Mick.”

“You’re sure? Because you said that last time and it didn’t end up being true. I was gone for two days and you got engaged to the guy.”

When he says it that way, it sounds awful. It was awful. In agreeing to marry Mick, Ayers was unfair to all parties involved—Baker, Mick, and, most of all, herself. “I thought it was what I’d been waiting for,” Ayers says. “It was validating after what happened with Brigid to feel like he was choosing me, to feel like I’d won.”

“You told me that story about your parents in Kathmandu. The hiccup, your mother with another man.” Baker’s gaze wanders over to the travel photographs Ayers has on her wall. “In telling me that story, you made me feel like the hiccup.”

Ayers can’t believe she told Baker the story about her parents in Kathmandu. Her mother had had a brief affair with a British expat bar owner…or she hadn’t; Ayers isn’t sure to this day. Ayers pulled that story out, she supposes, because she wanted to justify forgiving Mick. She was making excuses for him. But she was finished with that now.

“This doesn’t have to look any certain way,” Baker says. “First question: Do you want to keep the baby?”

“Oh. Yes. Yes, I do.”

“Great. Second question: Do you want to have the baby and still be with Mick, Ayers? If the answer is yes, I will understand.”

“You will?”

“Yes. Is that what you want?”

“No,” Ayers says. “I told you, I’m finished with Mick. That’s my final answer, in the name of self-respect.”

Palpable relief emanates from Baker.

“But,” Ayers says.

“But?”

“I don’t know that I can be with you either, not right away. I think I need to be alone for a while.”

“Alone.”

“Romantically alone, yes. I need some time and I need some space.” This is something Ayers has given a lot of thought to. If she weren’t pregnant, she might have climbed right into bed with Baker, forging ahead without any introspection. On to the next guy! She would have used Baker like a bandage, plastering his love and devotion over the wounds that Mick left. But being pregnant changes things. Ayers needs to be alone. She needs to worry less about falling in love with someone else and instead fall in love with herself. It’s the best gift she can bestow on this child: a mother who is happy and capable and whole.

Ayers puts a hand on Baker’s arm. “But we can be friends.”

“Friends.”

“Until I feel like I’m ready to start something new. I don’t want this baby to dictate my love life. I want my heart to dictate that.”

“We’re not exactly starting from ground zero,” Baker says. “We have something to work with. I fell in love with you the second I saw you—”

“Don’t say love.” Ayers collapses back into the cushions. “Before I found out I was pregnant, I figured we could just start over, go on some dates, take things slow, do it properly.”

“That’s what I thought too.”

“Nothing says taking it slow like instant family.”

They laugh. It’s funny for a few seconds.

“You heard we lost the villa?” Baker says.

“Maia told me. She said you were looking for a rental?”

“Yep, yep. I stayed at the Westin for so long that they offered me a job selling time-shares, which I accepted.”

“Seriously?”

“I start Monday,” Baker says. “And I got Floyd settled at Gifft Hill with the cool kids.”

“All the kids at Gifft Hill are cool,” Ayers says.

“My feelings exactly,” Baker says. He gives her an uncomfortable smile. “And I found a villa.”

“You did?” Ayers says. “Where?”

“Across the street,” Baker says. “The Happy Hibiscus.”

At this, Winnie barks in a way that sounds like a laugh.

“The Happy Hibiscus? Right across the street?”

“Yes,” Baker says. “Floyd and I are moving in…today.”

“Today?”

“I was just over there dropping off groceries.”

“Ah,” Ayers says. She rubs Winnie behind the ears. So much for space, she thinks. She and the Steeles are becoming one big extremely nontraditional family. She casts her eyes skyward. Rosie is either laughing or crying up there. Or both.

Cash

The night before Tilda leaves on her weeklong research trip with Dunk, she and Cash drink a bottle of Granger’s Cristal while skinny-dipping in the pool (Granger and Lauren are gone, off to LA) and then Cash makes love to Tilda on the round sun bed under a crescent moon. Later, when they’re wrapped in the luscious Turkish towels, gazing at the twinkling lights of Tortola, Tilda cries a little. She doesn’t want to go away without him, she says. She’s going to miss him.

“It’s only a week,” Cash says. His casual attitude is an act. He can’t believe this is happening. Tilda is going to Anguilla, St. Lucia, and a tiny private island called Eden, home to a resort so exclusive that you have to be invited to stay there; management curates its guests as though it’s selecting art for a museum. (How did Tilda and Dunk make the cut? Cash wonders. He hopes it was through Granger’s prodigious network and not Dunk’s influence.)

Tilda and Dunk have separate rooms at Midi et Minuit, the resort on Anguilla, and at Emerald Hill on St. Lucia. But of the dozen freestanding villas at Eden, only one is available during Tilda and Dunk’s stay. So they’ll be sharing.

“You’d better behave yourself,” Tilda says, resting her head on Cash’s chest. “No picking up women at the Soggy Dollar.”

“What about you?” Cash asks. “Are you going to behave yourself?”

“Oh, please,” Tilda says. “You never have a thing to worry about with me. But especially not with Dunk.”

The next day, as Cash is aboard Treasure Island heading for Virgin Gorda, a boat cuts in front of them going at least sixty knots—it’s coming from the direction of the East End and heading for St. Thomas. It’s the Olive Branch, of course. Tilda and Dunk are sitting in the stern, laughing. Cash hears the captain yell out and Cash wonders if this will finally be the time James calls the Coast Guard to complain. Or maybe Cash will call the Coast Guard himself. Dunk did this on purpose; is he trying to make a point to Cash? I’m taking off with your girl. Tilda is wearing a black sundress Cash has never seen before; it’s sleek and sophisticated, possibly borrowed from her mother’s closet. She’s also wearing a pair of dark cat’s-eye sunglasses, Tom Ford, that Cash knows she lifted from Lauren.

When Tilda sees Cash, she waves and blows a kiss. She seems older and more glamorous, as though she outgrew him overnight.

“Hold on!” Cash calls to his passengers as the boat slams into the Olive Branch’s wake.