He had been making plans for his fledgling company then, she'd never fully understood it, but was fascinated by his incredible energy and passion for the ideas he was developing. They had met at a party she didn't want to go to, but a friend had dragged her along. She'd been working in the trauma unit for two days straight and was half asleep the night they met. Blake had woken her up with a bang. The next day he had taken her for a helicopter ride, and they had flown over the bay, and under the Golden Gate Bridge. Being with him had been thrilling, and their relationship had taken off like a forest fire in a strong wind after that. They were married in less than a year. She was twenty-seven when they got married, and it had been a whirlwind year. Ten months after their wedding, Blake sold his company for a fortune. The rest was history. He turned the money into even more, seemingly without effort. He was willing to risk it all and was truly a genius at what he did. Maxine had been dazzled by his foresight, skill, and brilliant mind.

By the time Daphne was born, two years after their wedding, Blake had made an unheard-of amount of money, and wanted Max to give up her career. Instead, she became chief resident in adolescent psychiatry, gave birth to Daphne, and found herself married to one of the richest men in the world. It was a lot to adjust to and digest. And as a result of either denial or overconfidence in the ability of nursing her baby to keep her from getting pregnant, she got pregnant with Jack six weeks after Daphne was born. By the time the second baby came, Blake had bought the house in London and the one in Aspen, had ordered the boat, and they moved back to New York. He retired soon after that. And even after Jack was born, Maxine didn't give up her career. Her maternity leave was shorter than one of Blake's trips, and he was all over the map by then. They hired a live-in nanny, and Maxine went back to work.

It was a handicap working while Blake wasn't, but the life he was leading frightened her.