“Bexley, I don’t think I should leave you here. I don’t think Mike will like that.”
“Go, Milly. I need this. Just go.” I pushed a strand of hair out of my eye, careful not to drop my wine, and yanked free from her grasp.
I didn’t wait for an answer before I stomped toward the pool. “Hey, Darcy! Hey, little buddy,” I said, smiling at their son. “Mom’s gonna take you for a treat. Go dry off!”
A trail of hoorays and dripping water followed them into the house.
“Bexley?” Mike looked up from his phone at me, one eyebrow raised.
“Put the phone down. We have to talk.”
“Huh-uh. Not doing this.” He stared me down and started to stand.
“Guess who showed up at my house today?” Without pausing, I spat out, “Aston—that’s right. So, sit down. We’re going to talk for once.”
“I didn’t have anything to do with that,” he said, raising his hands in surrender before he sat back down.
I set the wine box on the table next to him, then crossed my arms over my chest as I towered over him. “When he showed up at my door, I asked if you gave him my address, and he said you did. Told me about his innocence, his divorce, made a move on me, and then hightailed it out of there to rescue his kids from his wife. His ex, or whatever she is.”
Mike shook his head. “I didn’t give him your address, but that’s easy enough to google, Bex. I didn’t have anything to do with this, so what do you want from me?”
“I want you to give me the SparkNotes on the last ten years.”
Mike let out a frustrated sigh. “No can do.”
“You can and you will.” I tipped the nozzle of the box into one of the plastic glasses out by the pool and took a healthy swig of wine.
“Stop standing over me and bossing me around, Bexley. I told you after Milly and I got married, when you woke up hanging over the toilet, barf stuck in your hair, your pregnant belly hitting the floor, that I was never getting in the middle of you and Aston.”
When he tried to stand again, animosity surged through my veins. Furious, I pushed him back into the lounge chair.
“Listen to me, Mike. I need to know what the hell is going on. Is the guy a criminal? Is Aston, the only man I’ve ever loved, a criminal? Was he happy with this wife? Is he happy now? Why would he show up at my house like that? Didn’t he think Seth might be there?”
Mike shook his head at that.
“So, you told him we split? The rule didn’t work both ways? Milly respected his silence and confidence, but you betrayed mine?”
He shook his head again, and I felt like tossing his stubborn ass in the pool.
Slamming the end of his chair with my foot, I jostled him. “Wake up and answer me!”
“You have to calm down, Bex. Sit down.”
Closing my eyes, I counted to ten in my head. When that didn’t calm me down, I took another gulp of wine, letting the alcohol coat my soul. Like a wet noodle, I flopped into the chair next to Mike.
“Breathe,” he told me, and I did.
In and out, in and out, my lungs gasped for fresh air.
Finally seeming convinced that I’d calmed down, Mike said, “I never wanted to have this conversation, understand me?”
I nodded, leaning forward in the chair. With sweat dripping down the back of my neck and my hair a frizzy mess, I waited for him to elaborate.
“I wanted Aston to make a life for himself, and Milly wanted you to be happy. But neither of you did that. After he ended things with you, he thought you’d wait for him. He’d planned to convince his dad you were the only choice for him. But you married Seth and pushed out two babies, so Aston married Cass. His stepmom picked her, and he agreed to it.”
Stunned, I dropped into the chair. My lungs hurt from trying to breathe. “I didn’t know. He was so mean, leaving me like he did, just waiting. Nothing but a phone call telling me he’d moved on like his dad wanted him to.”
“When you showed up at our wedding, pregnant for a second time, he went crazy. He spent a week drinking and destroying everything in his path. The next month, he took Cass to Vegas and married her.”
“We always wanted to get married in Vegas,” I whispered to myself.
“In less than two years, you made a life. He had nothing, so he grabbed what was available. Except the fucker was never happy and worked all the time. He couldn’t hire enough people to be with the kids, and Cass drank all the time. It was a clusterfuck.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“We had an arrangement, or did you forget? We didn’t talk about Aston, and he and I didn’t talk about you.”
“Seems like that didn’t really work out. Did he ever ask about me?”
Mike shook his head, his brow furrowed, and closed his eyes.
“What? What are you not telling me? How does he know so much then?”
Rather than answer, Mike kept shaking his head.
“Tell me.” I sat forward again, my head cocked to the side as I watched him.
“He didn’t have to ask. He kept tabs on you.”
“What? How? That’s nuts. I wasn’t his to keep tabs on.”
“That’s where you’re wrong.” Mike raised an eyebrow at me and waited for me to clue into what he meant. When I squinted at him in confusion, he explained. “Aston had a private investigator on you, so he pretty much knew everything. When you split from Seth. All the fights. The money issues. Piper’s appendix . . . and the hospital stay afterward.”
“No, not Piper,” I whispered to myself, shaking my head. “No, no, no.”
“He’d stayed away from
