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Mia Tennyson jumped into her car in the public library parking lot. She’d spent the past three hours tutoring children. Math facts and phonics hopped around in her head. The last mom had been almost thirty minutes late to pick up her son. Now Mia herself was running late for lunch with Blaine Daniels.
The conundrum of Blaine ran through her head as she drove down the Interstate. The blinding South Florida sun beat its way through her sunglasses. She had a headache, but she couldn’t really blame her sore brain on fidgety kids and too much glare.
Could she forgive Blaine for basically lying to her about his identity? Portraying himself as a simple wandering charter boat captain, when he was really a retired software mogul? When she thought about it, it was better that way than reversed. Better to think Blaine to be of modest means and find out he wasn’t, than vice versa.
She admitted that she found his humility and lack of need to flash his money around appealing. She probably could have forgiven him, because when she really considered it, he’d withheld information from her, but he hadn’t actually lied. It was his continued evasiveness that truly bothered her. Now that the cat was out of the bag, you’d think he’d just tell her everything, but he continued to push off her personal questions.
She punched the entry code into the keypad on the front door of Blaine’s waterfront building. She took the elevator and entered his condo to find him sitting at the kitchen bar. He wore jeans and had bare feet.
“Do you have something against shoes?” she asked him.
He turned and smiled. His tan skin accentuated his deep blue eyes. “You’re here. I thought you’d changed your mind.”
“One of the moms was running late. She has four kids, so I can’t get too mad. That’s a lot of juggling tutors. And she pays me well.” Mia sat in the stool beside Blaine. “What’s for lunch?”
“I made paninis.” He pointed at two sandwiches on a platter beside the stove. “I 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.”
