Free Wild Lover Complete Series by Natalie Wild Page A

model.”
                  Mia gritted her teeth and refused to let Jeff stoke her insecurities. “He’s not just any dude like that. He’s different.”
                  “Whatever, Mia. Good luck. Don’t come crying to me when he dumps you on your ass.”
                  “It couldn’t be much worse than when you dumped me on my ass. Although, now I feel like that’s the best thing that could have happened to me.”
                  “Right. Guess I made a good decision.” He opened the apartment door.
     
    *
                  Blaine sat in stunned silence after Mia left his condo. He didn’t understand what had just happened. He’d asked her to come with him, and she’d not only turned him down, it seemed like she’d broken it off with him.
                  He wondered the condo aimlessly for a few minutes. He moved piles of papers and picked up bits of lint and rewashed a few dishes. What did I do wrong?
                  His phone rang, and in his distraction he answered it before reading the name. Candice’s voice on the other end didn’t improve his mood.
                  “I finally caught you!” his ex-wife said. “Where have you been?”
                  “Sorry,” he said. “Busy. Offshore a lot with no reception.”
              “Oh, well…” Candice launched into her spiel about the massage parlors. Blaine tuned her out. Mia’s angry face kept running through his head.
                  “…so it’s a sure thing! Really lucrative. And I promise, this time I’ll hire a financial advisor. Please, Blaineee…. Please?”
                  “I—What?” He rubbed his eyes. “Candice—I don’t know—“
              He could almost see her pouty face. Her collagen puffy lips and her blinking blue eyes. “You’re not listening to me,” she said.
                  “I’ve got a lot on my mind. I’m having some—some problems.”
                  Candice took a deep breath that Blaine could hear through the phone, across the three thousand miles that separated California from Florida. “Business problems?”
                  “No.”
                  “Boat problems?”
                  “No.”
                  “Hmmm…your parents harassing you to come back to the UK?”
                  “No! Don’t worry about it.”
              “Ah,” said Candice. Blaine remembered that while Candice was materialistic and irresponsible, she wasn’t stupid. “Woman problems?” she asked.
                  Blaine wasn’t sure why he answered her, except for the fact that she and Mia were both women, and at least Candice could relate to the crazed XX chromosomal arrangement. Blaine started at the beginning, with Mia showing up on his boat and puking her guts out, and continued until her got to her abrupt departure that afternoon. “So now, I have no idea what I did to make her so upset, or what to do to fix it.”
                  Candice was silent, and Blaine thought the call had failed. “Hello?” he said.
                  “I’m here,” Candice said. “It’s just sort of weird to hear you talk about another woman.”
                  Maybe she did have some kind of feeling for him at some point. There was a bit of a relief in that. He’d convinced himself that Candice had seen him as nothing more than a meal ticket. “Sorry—if you don’t want to hear it—”
                  “No—it’s okay. Here’s my advice. You freaked her out by asking her to come with you. She’s probably totally intimidated by the kind of people she imagines you know down there. I was.”
              “You were?”
                  “Yeah. And honestly, Blaine, a