“And Alec was the artist,” he grumbled. How he knew that, I couldn’t recall. It’s possible that I mentioned Alec and our time together but Wes wasn’t giving anything away.
Pursing my lips, I looked away and down at my half-filled drink and took another large wallop of whiskey.
“You had a sexual relationship with him.” Wes asked in a way that wasn’t accusing, which I hoped meant it would be okay.
I nodded.
He shrugged and looked out at the setting sun. “But it was just casual, like Gina.”
The mere mention of that bitch’s name made the jealousy flags wave, the green-eyed monster sing, and the two-faced bitch shake hands with the Devil. “Alec was special. He means something to me.” I’d become defensive, not realizing I was showing my hand in a way I hadn’t been ready to deal with.
Wes inclined his head, leaned forward, and rested his elbows on his knees as he steepled his hands together under his chin. “Is that so? Special how?”
Tears pricked at the edges of my eyes. “Alec made me feel beautiful.”
“And I didn’t?” he challenged.
My hackles rose. “You did, but he made me feel like the Mia that everyone didn’t see, the same one I was with you, but not the rest of the world was okay to let out. Forced me to put down the mask and let the world in. I learned a very valuable lesson from Alec.”
“And that was?” His tone was hurt and scared.
“To love myself.”
Wes closed his eyes, inhaled, let out the breath and relaxed. “Mia, you have every reason in the world to love yourself.”
I shook my head. “I didn’t believe it. Not before Alec. Not before his art made me see what everyone else saw. Even though I was broken, was struggling in life, that I’d become an escort because my gambling, drunk father couldn’t hold his shit long enough to take care of his own debts, that I”—I slapped my chest”—“me, Mia Saunders, the waitress from Vegas, deserved more. I deserved happiness. Deserved love.”
“And I don’t give you that?” His voice cracked when he said it.
“You do, only at the time, Alec did too. In a way, he still does.”
Wes’s eyes hardened and then sadness swept across his features. “He loves you.”
I nodded and he closed his eyes. I was quick to respond. “Alec believes that you love the one you’re with for however long you’re with them. That it’s okay to take a piece of each other with you as you carry on throughout your life.”
“Does he want you back?”
And there was the jealousy on my normally laid-back, movie-making, surfer. “No. Not in that way. Alec loves every woman he’s with or he wouldn’t be with her. There are probably hearts all over the globe breaking daily because he’s loving someone new right this very moment.”
“That’s not how I operate. Mia. I’m a one-woman man when I commit, and I’m committing to you. To us. In order for this to work, you have to commit, too.” He cleared his throat. “And we have to get past all this history. Because, honey, that’s what it is. It’s history.”
I thought briefly of Gina, but I didn’t know the timeframe of when he was fucking her and making love to me. I only knew that now he wouldn’t be, and I believed him.
“That’s all the months. So you only slept with one man since we’ve been together?” His gaze was incredulous. He had reason to be so.
Closing my eyes I braced for it. “No. I was with Tai Niko, the male model, in Hawaii.”
“Hawaii? In May?”
“Yeah.”
“Like a one-time thing?” There was so much riding on my response.
My voice shook. “No.” I admitted because if anything, I wasn’t a liar. There was no way I was going to start out my first real relationship in years built on lies.
“Fuck!” he stood and started pacing, tugging on his hair and cursing. This seemed to be his go-to response.
“You don’t understand. Wes, it was just fun! He’s already with someone else right now. Someone he plans on marrying!” I yelled to get my point across. Wes was too important to not get past this.
Wes shook his head from side to side. His shoulder slumped once more. “Shit. Sweetheart, you’re killing me. You spent a month in paradise loving someone else?”
He used the word paradise to torture me. Playing fair was off the table. “And you spent the last how many months fucking Gina DeLuca, America’s goddamned sweetheart, hot throb, sexiest woman alive and I’m supposed to be okay with that?”
Like a shot from a cannon he backed up several steps and clasped the side-table behind him. “Mia, she means nothing to me!” He clutched at his chest. “Nothing!” he reiterated.
“I find that hard to believe. You’ve been casually fucking her for months.” I gestured with air quotes at the word casually. “You don’t think she believes it’s something more?”