Wild Lover Complete Series (14 page)

             
Mia laughed. “Sorry, Blaine, but I am a woman. Women always have an angle when we do things. She knew if she came here to help you, it would give her leverage on the business.”

             
“So what? Maybe I just give her the money. It’s no sweat off my back. Then I’m done with her.”

             
“No—you’re not. She’ll blow that and come back for more.”

             
Blaine changed the subject. “So you met her. And it was all okay?”

             
Mia climbed onto the bed and wrapped her arms around her knees. “She wasn’t obviously rude, but she wasn’t friendly either.”

             
“That’s just how she is. She’s the ice princess. Unless she wants something.”

             
“She wants you.”

             
Blaine sat beside her. “Come on, Mia. She doesn’t. And even if she does, I don’t want her, and she knows it.”

             
“How?”

             
“Well—there’s the fact that I already told her about us.”

             
“You did?”

             
He nodded. “And I must have been pretty convincing about how crazy about you I am. She’s the one who told me to go after you. Not let you get away.”

             
Mia’s mouth fell open. He could see her mentally comparing the snobby woman she’d met with a woman who would have granted Blaine such new-girlfriend-friendly advice. “She did?”

             
“Yeah.” He kissed her forehead. “I know it’s tough. But try not to worry about Candice, okay? If I have to get together with her before she leaves, you’ll know.”

             
Mia didn’t look totally convinced, but she kissed him back. “Okay, you promise?”

             
He nodded.

             
“Pinky swear?” She held out her little finger.

             
“Huh?”

             
“We used to do it when we were kids. You can’t break a pinky swear.”

             
He smiled. “Pinky swear.”

*

              The dreaded meeting between Blaine and Candice happened the following morning, as Candice was planning to leave Miami in the early afternoon. Mia and Blaine drove together to the marina. The Coast Guard had towed the Wanderlust back to port, and Blaine had significant work to complete on the boat before he could get it ready to head to St. John. He and Mia had to leave within two days if he planned on making the tournament. Mia decided to come with him for the day. She’d sunbath on the boat and swim in the marina’s pool when it got too hot. Thankfully, she’d have easy access to Blaine and Candice’s meeting in the little marina restaurant.

             
Blaine kissed her and left her on the Wanderlust’s sunbathing deck. She donned her darkest pair of sunglasses. All the better to spy on Blaine and Candice if possible. She felt childish and somewhat ridiculous, but oh well.
All’s fair in love and war
, she thought.

             
Candice pulled up in her little red coupe as Blaine walked into the restaurant. He stopped and held the door for her. They gave each other polite hugs before entering the restaurant.

             
Mia kept checking her phone. Five minutes felt like five hours. She flipped and flopped on the deck, but she couldn’t distract herself. Regardless of Blaine’s claim that Candice had encouraged their relationship, something about that women’s icy stare and tense posture while they waited for news of Blaine had put all of Mia’s girl radar on high alert. She’d had enough experience with conniving females to not trust this one.

             
Fortunately for her, the bathroom was just outside the restaurant, and gave her a good excuse to go strolling past. She could use the Wanderlust’s little cubby, but even if there hadn’t been a good excuse to avoid it she would have. Mia didn’t like to think of going tinkle in a dark hole where drunken fisherman went to relieve themselves.

             
She slowed as she got to the restaurant’s windows. A quick glance showed her Blaine and Candice at table in the corner. Her heartbeat picked up. Candice was leaning across the table. She had one hand on Blaine’s arm, and Blaine was rubbing his forehead with his free hand.

             
Mia’s mind went into imaginary dialogue mode.

             
Candice: Oh, please, Blaine. We can work it out. Shouldn’t we try?

             
Blaine: Maybe… I’m not sure.

             
Candice: Your parents would be so happy if we got back together. This new girl means nothing to you…

             
Mia’s feet took over. Without thinking, she opened the restaurant door. The air inside caused goose bumps to rise on her shoulders after the hot sun beating down on them. She pulled her beach cover-up tighter around herself and made a beeline for Blaine and Candice.

             
“Hey,” she said. “Are you two catching up?”

             
Candice looked up and gave Mia a stiff smile. “We are. Nice to see you, Mia.”

             
“Nice to see you, too, Candice,” Mia said. She turned her attention to Blaine. “You have a lot of work to do. And you still have to pack.”

             
“Right I—“

             
“It doesn’t take Blaine long to pack,” said Candice. “He just throws stuff in a bag.”

             
The familiarity irked Mia, especially since Blaine himself had said the exact same thing a few days before when she encouraged him to start packing. She smiled at Candice, and felt very much like one of the sharks that might be swimming around the marina in search of dropped fish bait. “I’ll help him get organized. That’s part of my job!” She purposely kept her voice perky and cheerful.

             
“Right,” said Candice. “It is, isn’t it.”

             
Mia nodded. Blaine looked between the two women like a cat watching a tennis ball. “Umm—well, maybe we should wrap it up.”

             
“Right,” said Candice. “I need to get to the airport, anyway.”

             
Blaine threw a twenty on the table and the three of them walked toward the exit. Blaine excused himself to use the bathroom, and left Mia and Candice on the little porch outside the restaurant. Mia took her sunglasses from her pocket and retreated behind a wall of protective tinted glass.

             
“You don’t need to be nasty to me, Mia,” said Candice.

             
Her bluntness took Mia aback, but she recovered quickly. “I’m not being nasty. Or any nastier than you were the other day. I just want to make it clear where we all stand.”

             
Candice lowered her own sunglasses. “I know where we stand. Blaine loves you. He’s made that pretty clear.”

             
“Oh—okay.” Mia felt a strange combination of a warm heart at Blaine’s proclamation and pity for Candice.

             
“He and I have been friends for a long time. Keep that in mind. We were married for three years, but we dated for two before that. And we met ten years ago. When he was just leaving Microsoft and going out on his own. So I’ve been in his life a long time.”             

             
“Well, that’s fine. But I don’t think you need to be contacting him all the time. Especially after he gave you all that money and you blew it.”

             
Candice smiled. “That simple, huh? My fault.”

             
Mia squinted through her sunglasses. “Well, there are two sides to every story—”

             
“Right. How about my part? How about the fact that Blaine wanted kids and we tried, but nothing happened?” 

             
“So you’re saying—“

             
“I suggested adoption, but he wasn’t into it.” Candice smiled. “Blaine wants to throw his colors, if you know what I mean. I’m thirty-six. His age. We tried for two years. Guess he figured my time was up.”

             
Mia didn’t know what to say. Blaine had firmly placed the blame for the divorce on Candice and her lack of real love for him. He’d told Mia she never really loved him at all.

             
Candice went on. “Look, I played my part. I’m not a very affectionate person. I’m practical, not romantic. I couldn’t keep up with Blaine’s—” To Mia’s surprise, Candice blushed. “Uh—energy level. The more tension there was over our fertility issues, the more of a bitch I became. But he’s the one who pulled the plug. Maybe if we’d had a baby, he wouldn’t have.”

             
“I’m sorry,” said Mia. “That sounds painful.”

             
Candice shrugged. “It’s over now. And I made mistakes with the money afterward. But I have a lot of people in my family and no one is wealthy. I probably gave too much away…anyway, I need a bit of help from him now. I learned my lesson, and I really think I can make this massage therapy thing work. So, I gave you a leg up with him. Maybe you can do the same for me.”

             
Candice refreshed her lipstick as she got into the rented coupe. She drove off in a swirl of red and chrome.

             
Blaine emerged from the bathroom. He put a hand on Mia’s shoulder. “She’s gone?”

             
Mia nodded. Candice was gone, but she’d left a lot of questions in her wake.

*

              That night, over a dinner of takeout Thai food on the deck of the Wanderlust, Mia had to ask Blaine about Candice’s revelations. He swallowed and nodded as Mia talked.

             
“That was a bit out of line. Her telling you all that.”

             
Mia was oddly defensive of Candice. “Well, she wanted me to understand where she’s coming from. Why she still feels like you owe her something, I guess.”

             
Blaine took a long drink from a can of Bud Light. He grimaced. “This stuff is shit,” he said.

             
Mia pressed on. “So you left her, because she couldn’t have children?”

             
He threw up his hands. “Yeah. That was part of it.”

             
“Blaine—that’s awful.”

             
“What am I, on trial?” His nostrils flared. “That was personal business between me and her. You really don’t need to know that about our marriage. I haven’t even talked to my brother or sister about it.”

             
“I thought you were going to be honest with me!”

             
“Jesus, Mia. There’s a difference between me being honest and telling you every personal detail of my life. If that’s what you want, I’m not your man. It’s not even healthy, anyway. Now you’re going to obsess about it.”

             
“Well maybe I should. Maybe you just want me for my eggs.”

             
Blaine burst out laughing. “Are you kidding me? Look. If that’s what I wanted, a baby, and that’s it, I’d hire a damn surrogate and do it that way. A hell of a lot less complicated!” He stood and started collecting the tools that lay around the boat.

             
Mia felt stupid. “Okay, fine. That’s not really it. It’s just—when you marry someone you stick it out. Through thick and thin.”

             
“Okay, fine. Yes, our inability to have children affected my decision. If that’s selfish, so be it. If Candice thinks that’s the primary reason, maybe I didn’t make it clear enough to her. But the fact is, I never felt loved by her. Maybe our ways of showing it were just so different that we couldn’t reach a middle ground, but I never felt it. I’m a romantic. I want passion. I want a soul mate. She’s practical. All business. She’s not affectionate. We were not going to meet each other’s needs.”

             
Mia couldn’t believe how accurately Blaine and Candice had described each other. Maybe that’s what you got after ten years of knowing someone.

             
“I could have stayed with her, and adopted, if we’d been happy. But why give up my dream of having children for someone who wasn’t the right person?” He sat down again. “And believe me, Candice would never have married me in the first place if it wasn’t for my money. If it had disappeared, she would have disappeared with it.”

             
Mia took a deep breath. “Okay. I understand. Are you going to help her?”

             
He nodded. “Yeah. I am. I do feel sort of guilty for how it ended. If that makes me too nice, whatever. One last gesture, and I’m done.”

             
Mia watched the dark water. She needed to decide if she was okay with his reasoning. She thought of Candice’s obvious sadness and Blaine’s obvious need to do the right thing by someone he’d known most of his adult life. In the end, Mia decided that life was complicated, and there could be no harm in Blaine helping an old friend. As long as she got one final validation from him.