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Mia punched his arm. “You have to be really secure in yourself to walk a foo-foo dog.”
Blaine grabbed the leash. “No one has ever accused me of being insecure.” He skipped a few steps. Perdita yipped and jumped around his ankles. He tripped, almost falling on his face and squashing the dog.
Mia doubled over in laughter. “Please—please don’t step on my dog. Or skip on her.”
The sound of her laughter delighted Blaine, and it obviously delighted Perdita. She leaped against her mistress’ bare legs. “Okay—okay,” said Mia. “Go on now.” She smiled up at Blaine. “She’ll calm down in a few minutes. We might have to carry her home.”
Blaine took Mia’s hand. “You might have to carry me home if I fall on my arse.” His phone buzzed in his pocket. He pulled it out, saw Candice’s name, and stuck it back in his shorts.
“Who’s Candice?” Mia asked.
Blaine took a deep breath. A pleasant breeze blew around the lake, but what he had to say made the air taste stale. “My ex-wife. My second ex-wife.”
“Oh,” said Mia. “Do you have children together?”
“No, thank goodness.”
“And you’re officially divorced? Not separated?”
Blaine nodded. He knew what was coming, so he went ahead and answered. “There’s not really any reason for her to call me anymore, but she does. I usually ignore her.”
“Usually?”
Blaine wished he could erase question marks from the English language, but that didn’t seem to be a possibility. Besides, he’d decided he was going to let this woman in, so uncomfortable as it was, he had to open the door. “When we separated, she got a good bit of money from me, obviously. Most people would have been set up for life with that money. She screwed it all up. She bought this huge house.”
“How huge?” asked Mia. “Like, Jennifer Anniston huge?”
Blaine nodded. “She was never good at managing money. The house, all the furniture. Then just her day-to-day living. Traveling and clothes and spas. Not just for her, for her parents and siblings, too. She’s blown through most of her money. She put the house on the market, but she’s not even getting any nibbles. So now she wants me to invest in some business she wants to start. She wants to buy some chain massage therapy stores…” He sighed. “I don’t know what to do. I’d like to help her, but—“
Mia put a hand on his arm. “It sounds like you already helped her. She blew it. Is it your job to keep helping her?”
“No. You’re right. I guess I feel kind of guilty.”
“Why? You said she used you for your money, right?”
“Yeah. I’m pretty certain she never had any genuine feelings for me. But still, I wanted the divorce. She didn’t. So I feel responsible for her.”
Mia took a moment to reply. Blaine could see ideas running through her head. “Okay, I get that. But if she never loved you in the first place—”
“Maybe I also feel like a failure. Divorced twice before forty? Doesn’t look too good. It just validates all kinds of stereotypes about rich playboys. It’s almost like—” He struggled to find the words, because he wanted to make sure Mia understood. “This life I live, it’s forced me to become that stereotype. I’d rather have a stable home and a wife who loved me for me. Instead I get two divorces, and I’ve learned that it’s easier to just take care of myself and my needs by bouncing around.”
“Bouncing around the world,” said Mia. She frowned. “Bouncing around with women, too.”
Blaine stopped. “If I could meet a woman and I knew, one hundred percent, that she’d still love me if we lived on the street tomorrow, I’d stop bouncing.”
“Hey—Mia!” Another male voice entered the conversation. Perdita began yapping and squealing. A jogger stopped beside Blaine and Mia on the gravel path. He looked to be in his late twenties, fit and handsome in a college boy kind of way. He wore a baseball cap.
“Hey.” Mia’s face had paled. “Hey, Jeff.”
Her ex-boyfriend, thought Blaine.
Jeff knelt to appease the yipping Perdita by rubbing her belly. He cut a glance at Blaine out of the corner of his eye but spoke to Mia as if they were alone.
“Have you gotten my messages?”
She nodded. “I’ve been busy. This is Blaine—“
The Jeff guy didn’t show one bit of interest. “Right, you’re obviously busy. I’d like to talk to you, if you can find some time.”
