Wild Lover Complete Series by Natalie Wild Read Free Book Online

hope they aren’t cold.” He retrieved two plates from the cabinet. He brought her a plate with a sandwich and a few sliced strawberries.
    “Looks great,” Mia said. She wasn’t really in the mood to eat, but the anticipatory expression on his face made her take a bite. Mozzarella and peppers and Portobello mushroom. She smiled at him. “Great. Really yummy.”
    “Good,” he said. He looked truly relieved, as if he expected her to storm out if the sandwich hadn’t been up to snuff.
    “So,” she said.
    “Yeah. So.”
                  “To tell you the truth, I wasn’t sure, this morning. If I was going to come over.”
    “I figured that much.”
                  “I—” Mia struggled to find the right words. “I’m not sure there’s much point in us continuing. Even if I’m okay with you keeping your real identity from me. You’re leaving soon, right? Going to St. John to fish.”
              Blaine returned to the stool beside her. “I don’t know. I thought I was going to leave… but now that you know about the—” He blushed, as if he were talking about some kind of embarrassing disease instead of millions of dollars. “—the money. Maybe…maybe I can stay for a bit. We can see what happens.”
    His response took Mia aback. She’d sort of figured that his desire to leave town would negate her really having to make a decision about continuing to see him. “Oh,” she said. Her mind raced. She suddenly had to find a way to address her concerns.
    “Unless you don’t want me to stay?”
    “No…it’s not that. But—if you’re going to stay… that is… if we’re going to keep seeing each other…” Why was this so hard? She was only asking the man to be honest with her. She took a deep breath. “You can’t keep dodging my personal questions.”
    “Okay.” He twisted his napkin in his hands. “Ask away.”
    “Uh…okay. Where did you grow up?”
    “Dorset. In the south of England.”
“Family? Education?”
                  “Parents divorced when I was ten. I have a younger sister and a younger brother. Went to university at Cambridge. Internship at Microsoft led me to start my own software firm. I had some good ideas, and some luck with venture capitalists. During the boom years.”
    Mia scooted toward him in her seat, as if he’d just shown her the opening scene of a great movie. “How long have you been in the US?”
    “Since ’01. I lived in Seattle, and then Palo Alto.”
              Mia asked the question she both needed an answer to and dreaded. “That all makes sense. Are you married?”
    “Yes, twice.”
    Mia shook her head, her stomach plunging. “What do you mean? Are you one of those weirdos who lives a double life with two families?”
    Blaine’s eyebrows came together. “Two families—” He laughed. “No, no. I’ve been married twice. I’m not married to two women. I’m divorced. Twice.”
    Mia breathed a sigh of relief and exhaled her own giggle. “Oh—oh of course.” She had the feeling she was treading on thin ice. “Been divorced long?”
    Blaine took a long minute before answering. “First one lasted three years and ended six years ago. I met my second wife three years ago, and our divorce was final about six months ago.”
    Mia didn’t like the sound of that. “So, it’s pretty recent.”
    “Yeah.”
“Painful, I guess.”
    “Yeah.”
    She sensed she was losing him to his fear of talking about it. “Is that why you’re so hesitant to open up to women? Because of your—”
              “They both used me for my money. The first one was bad enough—but I think at some point she actually loved me. The second one—I’m sorry. I don’t want to talk about it anymore.”
    Mia stood and put her arms around him. “It’s okay. We don’t have to talk about it anymore. Thank you for telling me what you can.”
              “Maybe we can