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“It suits you,” Juliette states. “So you’re going to bring her up as your own?”
He nods.
“Is she going to call you Daddy?”
Everyone looks at him. He exchanges a glance with me and says, “Uh… I’m not sure yet.” He lets Leia wrap her hand around his finger. “Do you think it would be weird? She has a real father.”
“She has a birth father,” I correct.
“Most children call their adoptive fathers Daddy,” Juliette states. “I don’t think there’s anything wrong with Leia calling you Daddy at all.”
“You don’t think it’s odd because Maddie was my sister? It sounds sort of incestuous.”
“If Maddie was still here, maybe it would be weird,” Elizabeth says, “but with her gone, I think it makes perfect sense for you to call yourself her father.”
“Now we just need to find her a mummy,” Gaby states mischievously.
James’s gaze slides to mine. I glance around the group and discover everyone’s looking at me.
I blush scarlet.
Gaby giggles, and the others all burst out laughing.
“Shut up,” I say, fanning myself and having a big mouthful of Gaby’s wine.
“Oh, are you two…” Elizabeth glances from James to me. “Together?”
“Yes,” he says.
“No,” I say at the same time.
“Kinda,” we both say together, and everyone laughs.
“How lovely,” Alice, Kip’s wife, states. “You seem so well suited.”
I meet James’s eyes, and his lips curve up.
“So is she going to call you Mummy?” Juliette asks mischievously.
“It’s a bit early for that yet,” I reply carefully. I don’t know what James is planning, if indeed I’m still Leia’s nanny by the time she starts talking, but I imagine she’ll just call me Aroha. He’ll want to save the title of mummy for the woman he ends up with, right? He’s hardly used to being a monk, so I can’t imagine it will be long before he wants to start dating again.
The thought makes me sad.
Leia finishes her bottle, and James gets to his feet and brings her over. “A few people look like they’re leaving,” he says, “will you take her?”
“Sure.” I lift her onto my shoulder and pat her back, watching him walk through to the foyer.
“You kept that quiet,” Elizabeth says, amused. “After you told us what happened back in December, I didn’t think you were going to get together.”
“Oh,” I reply, “it’s… um… very new.”
“He looks at you the way that Huxley looks at his forty-year-old bottle of Talisker,” Elizabeth jokes. “He’s obviously crazy about you.”
I blush again, and they all go, “Awwww!”
I meet Missie’s eyes. I know James has told Alex the truth, and he said that Alex was going to tell Missie, but that she might not approve of what we’re doing. She smiles, but there’s a touch of concern in her eyes.
“Shall we make a move?” Saxon asks as he comes over to Catie. “I want to see the twins before they go to bed.”
