It was too freewheeling, opulent, and jet set for her. While Maxine opened her own practice, and signed up for an important research project on childhood trauma, Blake hired the most important decorator in London to do their house, and a different one to do Aspen, and bought the house in St. Bart's as a Christmas gift for her, and a plane for himself. For Maxine, it was happening much too fast, and after that, it never slowed down. They had houses, babies, and an unbelievable fortune, and Blake was on the covers of both Newsweek and Time. He went on making investments, which continued to double and triple his money, but he never went back to work in any formal sense. Whatever he did, he managed to accomplish on the computer and phone. And eventually, their marriage seemed to be happening on the phone as well. Blake was as loving as ever when they were together, but most of the time, he just wasn't around.

At one point, Maxine even thought about giving up work, and talked to her father about it. But in the end, her conclusion was that there wasn't much point. What would she do then? Fly around with him from one house to another, hotels in other cities where they didn't have houses, or on the fabulous vacations he took, on safari in Africa, climbing mountains in the Himalayas, financing archaeological digs, or racing boats? There was nothing Blake couldn't accomplish, and even less that he was afraid to attempt. He had to do, try, taste, and have it all. She couldn't imagine dragging two toddlers along to most of the places he went, so much of the time she stayed home with the kids in New York, and she could never quite bring herself to let go and give up her work. Every suicidal kid she saw, every traumatized child, convinced her that there was a need for what she did. She had won two prestigious awards for her research projects, and at times she felt almost schizophrenic, trying to meet up with her husband on his jet-set life in Venice, Sardinia, or St.