I roll my eyes. “What do you know about having kids?”
“I helped raise you, remember.”
“True,” I admit. James pours me a margarita and tops off his own glass. I pick up my cup and hold it up. James clinks his against mine.
“To your son,” James says.
“Drinking margaritas to the baby growing inside of me…” I laugh.
“It’s just a dream, Joy. You can do whatever you want without consequence.” He emphasizes that last part, hinting at the consequences on the other side of this dream.
“Meaning what?” I ask, knowing what he’s going to say.
“You’re in love with both of them.” James starts to recap my life in the way he always could—laying out facts as if they were not attached to feelings. “Robert seems fine with that. Understanding, even. He may want other lovers too.”
I roll my eyes. “Did you just say lovers?”
“Are you jealous?” James raises a brow and sips his margarita.
“No,” I grab another pig in a blanket and fill my mouth before I can say more. But James is too good for that trick and he just sits there, half smirk in place, waiting for me to spill my guts. “I’m not,” I say around the food, not capable of holding out even for the length of time it takes to swallow a mini hot dog.
James blinks and waits. I sigh. “It’s not jealousy, I don’t think. I just. It’s so complicated.”
“What is? Actually getting what you want?”
I frown at him. “Mulberry isn’t on board.”
“That’s true. He is not willing to give you what you want and Robert is…yet you only feel good about sleeping with one of them.” James sips his margarita again. “What’s that about? Why do you only want to sleep with the man who doesn’t want to give you what you want?”
“Robert only wants to give me what I want so that he gets what he wants,” I answer.
“Isn’t that how the world works?” James asks. “Certainly, you wouldn’t want to be in a relationship with someone who was only thinking of your needs. It’s a two-way street, takes two to tango, and all those clichés.” James twirls his hand in a circle as if to encompass all clichés that imply we must give to receive and vice versa.
“He’s controlling.”
James tilts his head. “You kind of like it, don’t you?”
“No!”
James laughs. “He never actually controls you. And don’t you like the game? Just a little?” He shrugs. “It’s playful almost.”
“Almost,” I mutter. “He forced me into marriage—“
“To save you from prison…” James sips his margarita, waiting for my next argument.
“Robert is…I mean, James, he has tried to kill me!”
“That’s old news, Sydney. You’ve tried to kill him.”
“You don’t like him, do you?” I ask, shock in my voice.
“Like him?” James looks up, thinking. “It’s not about like, it’s about what works for you. It’s about you acknowledging what you want and getting it.”
I snort-cough on a sip of margarita. “I don’t know what works for me.”
“And you never will unless you try it on. I mean, what’s the worst thing that could happen if you sleep with him? If you try to give your relationship a chance.”
“I’ll hate myself.” The words come out fast and sure.
“Oh?” James says. “Now we are getting somewhere. Why would you hate yourself?”
“I’m not some prize, and that’s how he treats me. If I sleep with him then he will have won me.”
“Hmmm, is that true?”
“I think so.” I sip my margarita again, the sweetness of the passion fruit mixed with the bite of tequila relaxing me. “Besides, he’s a predator, James. If I sleep with him, he’ll probably lose interest.”
“Wouldn’t that be good then?” James asks. “Look.” He leans forward, putting his empty glass on the table and reaching for the pitcher to refill it. String lights twinkle in the tree above us. The back sections of brownstones rise up on either side, their windows lit—people inside living lives. “If he got bored with you then it would be over. You’d figure out a way to live separate lives—”
“Or he’d kill me,” I interrupt to point out.
“He never killed his other wives, Sydney, don’t be dramatic. Even if finally catching you bores him, then at least the game will be over.”
“But he will have won, again! Why does he always get to win? Why do the Robert Maxims of the world always win!” My breathing is heavy and my cheeks are flushed.
James sits back and sips from his freshly filled glass. “I don’t know.”
A jolt wakes me, the seatbelt cutting into my thighs. My heart kicks into high gear, flooding me with adrenaline before I realize we are on the ground, the plane bumping along on the runway. “You all right back there?” Bill asks.
