Mine At Midnight. Jamie Pope
are beautiful, Ava. There is no denying that, but I thought you seemed a little too skinny.”
“Did I ask you what you thought?”
“Nope, but I’m telling you that starving yourself for a man is stupid, and if he didn’t appreciate you the way you were, you should have sent his ass packing a long time ago.”
He was right about that. Max never told her that she had to look a certain way. It was simply expected. Be thin. Be fit. Be fashionable.
Her mother was incredibly curvy. The women in her family weren’t thin. Her weight had been a huge struggle for years.
They ate in quiet for a while. It should have been an awkward silence, but for her it wasn’t.
“So are you going to tell me why you ended it? I can list a dozen reasons you should have, but I would like to hear it from you.”
Ava picked up her glass and took a long sip. “Max has a secret family.”
“What?” Derek sat up straight. “There were a million things I thought you were going to say. None of them were that.”
“He has three children. The oldest one is practically an adult.”
“How did you find out?”
“Ingrid, his mistress, came here a couple of weeks ago to tell me. She had a photo album full of candid pictures of Max and his kids.”
“Mistress...he’s still sleeping with his children’s mother?”
“Yes. He loves her. There was a picture of them together. They were laughing. His arm was wrapped around her. The look of love on his face was undeniable. He’s never looked at me that way. Not even once.” She felt herself growing emotional, and her eyes filled with tears. She tried to hold them back. She hadn’t cried yet. She had refused to. Max wasn’t worth it, but she was feeling too much at the moment.
“Ava.” Derek reached across the table and took her hand. The simple gesture was more comforting than it should have been.
“He was never going to tell me about them. If she hadn’t come here, I would have walked down the aisle like an idiot thinking that every time he went away, he was going on a business trip.”
“If he loves her, then why did he ask you to marry him?”
“He was using me. I fit the image. Ingrid doesn’t.”
“So she came here to get back at you?”
“No. She thought I should know that we would be sharing him. I guess she thought having everything out in the open would be for the best. She was quite distressed when I told her that I wasn’t going to marry him.”
“She still expected you to marry him?”
“Of course, and so did he.” She swiped at the tears rolling down her cheeks. “He always gets what he wants. I’m not a person to him. I’m property. I was supposed to be happy spending his money and doing as he wished. I’m not supposed to be angry. I’m supposed to feel lucky that he chose me to spend the rest of his life with.”
“Ava...” His arms came around her, and he pulled her from her chair and into his lap. She felt protected then. Completely safe. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d felt this way.
Actually, she could. It was before he father had died.
“I thought I was going to spend the rest of my life with him, and he doesn’t even love me. I’m such an idiot.”
“No, you aren’t. I saw the way he treated you, like you were a precious stone. He loves you in his own way. But a man like that is incapable of true, deep love. Because there is something broken inside of him. You didn’t do anything wrong. You expected him to love you the way you loved him. That’s what every woman should expect of the man she is going to spend the rest of her life with.”
His sweet words made her cry even harder, and she hated him for that. It had been a full two weeks since she had called off her wedding, and she had been holding it together for all that time. But Derek had come and made her think about her father and made her feel safe when she no longer thought that was a feeling she could have, and it undid her.
He held her, rubbing his big hand down her back. She wasn’t sure how long she cried, but she felt his lips graze her cheek. It felt nice. Warm. Comforting.
“You’ll find a new man,” he whispered. “One that will love you.” He kissed her cheek. It was a soft peck, which was probably given to be kind, but as she lifted her head to say something to him, his mouth moved closer and his lips brushed against hers.
Before she had felt an electrical charge when they had touched, a little humming that told her there might be something there. The moment his lips pressed against hers she felt a full zap to her system, and instead of moving away from him, she moved closer to him and allowed him to kiss her again. She allowed him to deepen that kiss. She allowed herself to kiss him back. It was only a moment before she came to her senses and realized what was happening.
“What the hell are you doing?” She jumped off his lap. “Why did you kiss me? Who told you that you could kiss me?” She swiped her hand across her lips, hoping to remove the warm, tingling feeling that he had put there with his mouth. She had never been kissed like that before, never felt that way after she had been kissed. It was like he performed some sort of witchcraft on her.
“You’re wiping your mouth?” He raised a brow. “It was that bad?”
“Yes. You’re a terrible kisser. It was gross. I need to gargle with bleach. Get out.”
“Get out?”
“Yeah, get out, Mr. Grabby-Hands-Kissy-Mouth.”
“You were... I was...” He let out a sound of pure frustration, grabbed his toolbox and stormed out of the room. A moment later she heard the front door slam. She collapsed into her chair then, relieved.
She had no business kissing him.
And certainly no business wanting it to happen over and over again.
* * *
The next day Derek took the ferry to Miami. He needed to get some supplies for his furniture business, but the real reason he had gone off-island was to visit Mariel. Mariel was divorced and in her early forties with a kid in college. They had been casually seeing each other for years since they’d met at a dinner for Florida entrepreneurs. She didn’t want anything from him. Not a relationship, not a commitment, not even much of his time. It was the perfect arrangement. She was smart, funny, good in bed and focused on growing her business. She understood that his work came first. She was exactly the kind of woman he needed in his life.
“I’m a little surprised to see you, Derek. It’s been a while.” They sat on her patio. She was sitting across from him in a designer chair, her legs crossed seductively, a high-heeled red shoe dangling from her foot. It should have turned him on immensely, but he was distracted.
“Is this not a good time?”
“It is always a good time when you are here. I haven’t seen you in a few months. I thought you might’ve moved on to younger pastures.”
“No. I’ve been busy. This is the first chance I’ve gotten to get off-island in weeks.”
“Oh? I’m not sure how you do it. I’d go crazy if I had to wait for a ferry to escape someplace.”
“It’s not escaping. I love it there. There isn’t a place on earth that can compare to Hideaway Island.”
“Yes. It’s beautiful, but if you want good shopping or exciting nightlife, it’s not exactly the place to be. You’re a young man, Derek. A beautiful, talented young man. If you came to Miami after your term is over, I think you would love it here. You would be stepping over women.”
“I’m not looking to step over women. I just need one