AS THEY CRUISED around the bay, Julie drank in the sights of Manhattan and the Statue of Liberty and the droves of people lined up to tour the statue. Blake drank in the sight of Julie taking in the sight of Manhattan. Watching her enjoy it was already one of the highlights of his day.
“It’s a beautiful day,” Julie acknowledged as they returned to the dock. “I’ll never forget it.”
Blake pulled her head against his shoulder and stroked her hair, watching the way it glided through his fingers. “Beautiful,” he agreed.
“Thank you,” she whispered.
He dropped a kiss on her temple. “My pleasure. Let’s go find a nice place to eat lunch,” he said.
She wondered what nice meant to him. Another class-conscious maître d’, or was he going to buy out an entire restaurant?
“I’m not that hungry,” she said. “I think I’d just like to get a salad somewhere.”
“Julie, I know you’re hungry. You just don’t want to spend any money. But loosen up,” he urged gently. “This is fun. It’s as bad to hoard money as it is to blow it.”
“Blake, watching money go down the tube is not fun for me. It upsets me terribly. That ‘fun’ could support the Spring Street Hospice Center for years.”
“The money isn’t going down the tubes. Think of it as a contribution to the New York economy.”
“New York will live without our contribution.”
He tugged her into another restaurant with white tablecloths and a snobbish maître d’, tipped him as he had the others, and got them a table. She had that look on her face when they sat down.
“Okay, if it makes you feel better, from now on I’ll be as frugal as a monk.”
“Sure you will,” she said skeptically. His charm seemed to be working, sapping the irritation right out of her. “Are you telling me you’ve abandoned your wish for a Jacuzzi for Paul and an iPhone for every niece and nephew?”
He chuckled lightly. “Not really,” he rumbled.
“And the fancy doorbell for your mother?”
“I was thinking of getting one that plays Handel’s Messiah.”
“Well, no. Maybe just the ‘Hallelujah Chorus.’”
“And the yacht?”
“My church doesn’t want one,” he said. “I’ll get them a bus instead.”
“Oh, Blake . . .”
“‘Oh, Blake . . . ,’” he mimicked. “You know, this whole thing is just unreal. Who in the world would have guessed that I could spend almost a million dollars in just two days?”
“A million dollars!” Julie shrieked. “Are you serious? You only had a little less than four hundred thousand!”
“Funny how being rich gets you deeper into debt!”
Julie looked queasy. “Tell me you’re kidding,” she whispered. “Tell me you haven’t really spent every penny you had.”
“Don’t worry; I still have a fortune. I still owe a fortune. It’s not what you have but what you owe. Right?”
Julie’s face turned pale.
“I’ll be good from now on,” he said. “I promise not to throw any more money away. But if I run out of money, I’ll always —”
“Have mine to fall back on?” Julie muttered.
“Well, yeah. I was thinking this morning, and I have this great idea about our teaming up. We pool our money and open a building with Sheffield Fashions on one side and Adcock, Inc., on the other. We borrow the whole ten million of mine against our future payments, so we can have it now, and then we aggressively invest yours. We live off earnings from our companies and our stock dividends. So I’ve spent a little much. . . . But with yours added to mine, it could work. The money would grow along with our businesses, and we’d have even more coming in each year.”
She gaped at him, her disappointment clear. “You’ve given this a lot of thought, haven’t you?”
“Well, yeah. I mean, doesn’t it sound like a wise idea? We make a good team, Julie.”
“I thought you said we wouldn’t do business together. That we’d keep this strictly personal.”
“Well, we would. I wouldn’t interfere with your business, and you wouldn’t interfere with mine. We’d just pool the money. What do you think?”
She stared at the lantern on their table as if the light had suddenly illuminated something she didn’t want to see. “If you’d wanted my half, Blake, you shouldn’t have given me the ticket.”
“I don’t want your half, Julie. I’m not regretting that. I’m just saying —”
“That you’ve already blown yours and now you want mine.”
He closed his eyes and sighed heavily, then leaned in and took her hand. Locking onto her gaze, he said, “Julie, you’ve got me all wrong. I’m not after your money. It was a bad idea, okay? Stupid. Don’t let this ruin our time together.”
“All right,” she said. “I’ll try.”
But he could see that it would require great effort because his idea had already been planted in her mind.