Книга - The Billionaire From Her Past

The Billionaire From Her Past
Leah Ashton


The tycoon she never forgot…Mila Molyneux had always harboured a secret crush on her childhood friend Sebastian Fyfe – until he married another woman. She buried her feelings and moved on, knowing it was best for everyone…Meeting Seb years later – now widowed and gorgeous as ever – their long-lost connection is as deep as ever. Only now difficult emotions challenge not only Seb but Mila as well. Dare she hope they can now find happiness – if she can confront the hold this brooding tycoon still has over her…?







The tycoon she never forgot...

Mila Molyneux had always harboured a secret crush on her childhood friend Sebastian Fyfe—until he married another woman. She buried her feelings and moved on, knowing it was best for everyone...

Meeting Seb years later—now widowed and still gorgeous—their long-lost connection is as deep as ever. Only now difficult emotions challenge not only Seb but Mila, as well. Dare she hope they can now find happiness—if she can confront the hold this brooding tycoon still has over her?


There wasn’t much space between them. A meter... maybe a little less.

Mila still held his gaze. He wished hers was unreadable, but it wasn’t—not any more. He was sure his wasn’t either.

All he had to do was reach for her...

And that would be it.

And it would change everything.

Their friendship—the friendship that was so important to him, that he needed so badly— would be altered for ever.

And Mila...

Was this really what she wanted?

‘I just want tonight,’ Mila whispered, reading his mind.

And with that he was losing himself in those eyes, falling into their depths.

He needed to touch her. He needed Mila. There was no going back.


Dear Reader (#ulink_48bc37b5-394b-5a3e-a87d-803564fa0592),

Next year will be my twenty-year high school reunion (how did this happen?), and I’m lucky to still be very close to two of my friends from high school.

Through interstate and overseas moves, marriage and children, our friendships have shifted over the years. Right now, we catch up with a backdrop of exuberant children, or—even better—over a glass of wine. Quite the contrast to the nights we wore satin trousers, midriff tops (it was the ’90s!) and drank cheap sparkling wine as we tottered about Fremantle! While I’m glad those days are behind us, much of our friendship remains unchanged. We still talk for hours, we still support each other unconditionally and we still laugh and sigh at rom coms at the local cinema.

I’ve always thought there’s something special about childhood friendships that endure, and that’s where Mila and Seb’s story came from. Mila and Seb’s friendship has drifted, but a tragedy brings them back together—until a long-forgotten attraction makes things very complicated!

I hope you enjoy Mila and Seb’s journey as the boy—and girl—next door discover that their childhood connection has become so much more.

Leah xx


The Billionaire from Her Past

Leah Ashton






www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)


RITA® Award–winning author LEAH ASHTON never expected to write books. She grew up reading everything she could lay her hands on—from pony books to the backs of cereal boxes at breakfast. One day she discovered the page-turning, happy-sigh-inducing world of romance novels...and one day, much later, wondered if maybe she could write one too.

Leah now lives in Perth, Western Australia, and writes happy-ever-afters for heroines who definitely don’t need saving. She has a gorgeous husband, two amazing daughters and the best intentions to plan meals and maintain an effortlessly tidy home. When she’s not writing, Leah loves all-day breakfast, rambling conversations and laughing until she cries. She really hates cucumber. And scary movies. You can visit Leah at www.leah-ashton.com (http://www.leah-ashton.com) or Facebook.com/leahashtonauthor (https://Facebook.com/leahashtonauthor).


For my dad, Jeff.

Whether it be for a tennis match, dressage test, job interview or career decision, you have always supported me with your wisdom, your positivity, your love—and your ability to reverse a horse-float. Thank you for always being there for me. I love you. Go Freo!


Contents

Cover (#u3c70ef4a-f4b5-5711-b25c-100054f98a05)

Back Cover Text (#u247977ac-6efd-516d-b52c-65bb8db8675c)

Introduction (#u4a3305a8-2f8e-5aa6-93d7-b0eaf013fbd7)

Dear Reader (#ulink_133d2a45-bdfb-57ec-8849-db3acaad543d)

Title Page (#u400c3e3c-ffff-5157-bf2e-e648c4aa9415)

About the Author (#u2830087e-465b-5e3e-af4f-89a8f324e431)

Dedication (#u935eae0a-283c-53dc-8c5a-f95c5ea6855e)

PROLOGUE (#udb81bda5-3d25-513c-910a-69c13327c03d)

CHAPTER ONE (#uac378a8f-e238-5bdf-aba0-53d9194b958b)

CHAPTER TWO (#ue9e89e34-dff6-52b6-a18d-e678ddbdcec4)

CHAPTER THREE (#u2afcedbf-ac3b-5b25-9b36-c9e9f117ba18)

CHAPTER FOUR (#u0ef6e442-e707-5486-b510-071830f66bef)

CHAPTER FIVE (#u6e63d022-b184-589b-a3e0-66bdfece3dce)

CHAPTER SIX (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER SEVEN (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER EIGHT (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER NINE (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER TEN (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER ELEVEN (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER TWELVE (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER THIRTEEN (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER FOURTEEN (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER FIFTEEN (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER SIXTEEN (#litres_trial_promo)

Extract (#litres_trial_promo)

Copyright (#litres_trial_promo)


PROLOGUE (#ulink_7235c4cc-d7b3-5f6a-a338-734a578a88f1)

PURPLE.

That was what Mila Molyneux remembered.

And bubblegum-pink. Crocodile-green. Little-boy-blue.

So many colours: primary and pastels, and in stripes and polka dots. Everywhere. On party dresses, balloons and pointed party hats. Or scrunched and forgotten in the mountains of desperately ripped and dismissed wrapping paper that wafted across the lawn.

A rainbow of happy, excited eight-year-olds beneath a perfect Perth sky.

But Stephanie had definitely worn purple to her birthday party all those years ago. Purple tights, purple dress and glittering purple cowboy boots.

Mila remembered how excited her best friend had been that day. She remembered how excited she’d been, too—what eight-year-old girl wasn’t excited by a birthday party? It had been years before their dreary Gothic black high school days, so Mila guessed she’d been wearing some shade of red—her favourite colour—but that detail of her memories had faded. As had the memory of what Seb had worn, but he’d been there, too. Three friends, neighbours all in a row, although back then Seb had most definitely still had ‘boy germs’.

But that had changed later.

As had Stephanie’s backyard.

Today there were no balloons in Mr and Mrs van Berlo’s garden. No patchwork of forgotten wrapping paper. No mountain of presents or shrieking of excited children.

And definitely no purple, nor even the tiniest hint of a rainbow.

Instead the guests wore black as they mingled amongst tall tables topped with elegant white flower arrangements. In this same garden, where Stephanie and Mila had played hide and seek hundreds of times, it just didn’t seem real. Didn’t seem possible.

But then—none of this did, did it?

‘If anyone else tells me how lucky we are to have such amazing weather today I’m going to—’

Sebastian Fyfe stood beside her, staring out at the monochrome guests beneath the unseasonably perfect winter sky. His voice was strong and deep, as it always was.

It had been years since they’d spoken face to face. Almost as long since their emails and social media messages had dribbled out into nothing.

‘If anyone else tells you how lucky we are to have such amazing weather today you’re going to nod politely—because you get how no one has a clue what to say to a man at his wife’s funeral,’ Mila finished for him.

Seb raised his untouched beer in Mila’s direction. ‘Correct,’ he conceded. His tone was as tired as his grey-blue eyes. ‘I don’t know what to say at my wife’s funeral either. Maybe I should steal their material and start the weather conversation myself.’

Mila managed a small smile. ‘Do whatever you have to do to get through this,’ she said. ‘Personally, I’m just not talking to anybody.’

Even her mother and two sisters were giving her the space she needed. But they stood nearby, in a neat half-circle, just in case she changed her mind.

‘Is Ben here?’ Seb asked, not really looking at her.

Mila shook her head. ‘No,’ she said. ‘We broke up.’

A few months ago now. Steph had known, but obviously she hadn’t passed on the news to Seb. Not that long ago Mila would’ve told Seb herself—but things had changed.

For a long while they just stood together silently, Seb was tall and stiff and stoic in his perfectly tailored suit, looking like the successful businessman he was—but it was impossible to ignore the flatness of his expression and the emptiness in his eyes. His dark hair was rumpled—it always was—but today it looked too long, as if he’d missed a haircut. Or two.

A waitress offered canapés, which they both refused. Mila swirled her remaining Shiraz in its glass, but didn’t drink.

She desperately wanted to say something. To ask how Seb was—how he really was. To wrap her arms around him and hold on tight. To cry tears for Stephanie that only Seb could understand. But it had been too long since their friendship had been like that.

It had been six years since Seb and Stephanie had moved to London, and maybe they should have expected things to change with so much distance between them.

‘Did Steph—?’ Seb began, then stopped.

‘Did she what?’

He turned to meet Mila’s gaze. ‘Did you know?’ he said. ‘What she was doing?’

Did you know about the drugs?

Mila shook her head. ‘No,’ she said.

Something shifted in his eyes. Relief?

‘Me either,’ he said. ‘I hate myself every day for not knowing. But it helps—in a way—that she hid it from you, too.’

Mila blinked, confused. ‘I wouldn’t say she hid it from me, Seb,’ she said gently, not really wanting to disagree with him on a day like today, but also knowing he deserved her honesty. ‘The last time I spoke to Steph was her birthday.’ Almost six months ago. ‘And we weren’t really talking regularly before that. Not for a long time.’

Seb’s expression hardened. ‘But you’re her best friend.’

Mila nodded. ‘Of course. It’s just...’

‘You should’ve been there for her.’

His words were clipped and brutal. His abrupt anger—evident in every line of his face and posture—shocked her.

‘Seb, Steph always knew I was there for her, but our lives were so different. We were both busy...’

It sounded as awful and lame an excuse as it was. Mila knew it. Seb knew it.

Maybe everything had changed when they’d moved to London. Maybe it had been earlier. Not that it really mattered. No matter how rarely they’d spoken recently, Stephanie had been her Best Friend. A proper noun, with capital letters. Always and for ever.

Until death do us part.

Tears prickled, threatened.

She looked at Seb through blurry eyes. The sunlight was still inappropriately glorious, dappling Seb’s shoulders through the trees. He was angry, but not with her. Or at least not just with her. She knew him well enough, even now, to know that he was simply angry. With everything.

So she wasn’t going to try to defend herself with words she didn’t even believe. Instead she could only attempt to turn back the clock—to be the type of friend none of them had been to each other for this past half decade and more.

She reached for him, laying her hand on his arm. ‘Seb—if I can do anything...’

He shrugged, dislodging her hand. His gaze remained unyielding. ‘Now you just sound like all the others. You’ve just skipped the bit about the weather.’

And as he walked away her tears trickled free.


CHAPTER ONE (#ulink_a030e327-ca66-5130-a688-13413368734d)

Eighteen months later

MILA TOOK A step backwards and crossed her arms as she surveyed the sea of figurines before her.

Fresh from the kiln, the small army of dragons and other mythical creatures stood in neat rows, their colourful glazes reflecting the last of the sun filtering through the single window in the back room of Mila’s pottery workshop.

There was a red dragon with only three legs. A beautifully wonky centaur. A winged beast with dramatically disproportionate wings.

Plus many other creations that Mila now knew she must wait for the children in her class to describe.

It had only taken one offended ten-year-old for Mila to learn that it was best not to mention the name of the creation she was complimenting. Now she went with, That is amazing! Rather than: What an amazing tiger! Because, as it turned out, sometimes what appeared to be a tiger was actually a zebra.

Whoops.

But here she was, surveying the results of her beginners’ class for primary school age children—a new venture for Mila’s Nest—and, to her, the table of imperfect sculptures was absolutely beautiful. She couldn’t wait for the kids’ reactions when they saw their creatures dressed in their brilliant glazes—such a change from the muted colours they’d worn prior to being fired in the kiln.

A tinkling bell signalled that someone had entered the shop. Mila’s gaze darted to the oversized clock on the wall—it was well after five, but she’d forgotten to put up her ‘Closed’ sign.

With a sigh, Mila stepped out of her workshop. Mila’s Nest was one of a small group of four double-storey terrace-style shops on a busy Claremont Street, each with living accommodation upstairs. Mila had split the downstairs area into two: a small shop near the street, and a larger workshop behind, where she ran her pottery classes.

The shop displayed Mila’s own work, which tended towards usable objects—vases, platters, bowls, jugs and the like. Mila had always been interested in making the functional beautiful and the mundane unique.

The man who’d entered her shop stood with his back towards her, perusing the display in her shop window. He was tall, and dressed as if he’d just walked off a building site, with steel-capped boots, sturdy-looking knee-length shorts and a plaster-dusted shirt covering his broad shoulders.

He must have come from the shop next door. Vacant for years, it had been on the verge of collapse, and Mila had been seriously relieved when its renovation had begun only a week or so ago. Even teaching above the shriek of power tools, hammering and banging had been preferable to the potential risk of her own little shop being damaged by its derelict neighbour.

The man picked up a small decorative bowl, cradling it carefully in the palm of one large hand.

‘That piece has a lustre glaze,’ Mila said, stepping closer so she could trace a finger across the layered metallic design. ‘If you’re after something larger, I have—’

But by now Mila’s gaze had travelled from the workman’s strong hands to his face. His extremely familiar and completely unexpected face.

‘Seb!’ she said on a gasp, her hands flying to her mouth in surprise.

Unfortunately her fingers momentarily caught on the rim of the tiny bowl and it crashed to the jarrah floor, immediately shattering into a myriad of blue and silver pieces.

* * *

‘Dammit!’ Mila said, dropping to her knees.

Seb swore under his breath, and dropped to his haunches beside her. ‘Sorry,’ he said, inadequately.

This wasn’t the way he’d planned for things to go.

Mila looked up, meeting his gaze through her brunette curls. Her hair was shorter than it had been at the funeral and it suited her, making her big blue eyes appear even larger and highlighting the famous cheekbones she’d inherited from her movie star father.

‘It wasn’t your fault,’ she said. ‘You just surprised me’.

She piled the largest pieces of the bowl into a small heap, then stood and strode over to the shop’s front door, flipping the red and white sign to ‘Closed’. When she turned back to face him she’d crossed her arms in front of the paint-splattered apron she wore.

Her expression had shifted, too. He’d thought, just for a second, that maybe she was glad to see him. But, no, that moment had gone.

‘Yes?’ she prompted.

He had a speech planned, of sorts. An explanation of why he’d hadn’t returned her many phone calls, or her emails, or her social media messages in the months after Steph’s funeral—before she’d clearly given up on ever receiving a response.

It wasn’t a very good speech, or a good explanation.

Explaining something that he didn’t really understand was difficult, he’d discovered.

‘I stuffed up,’ he said, finally. Short and to the point.

Mila raised her eyebrows, but he could see some of the tension leave her shoulders. Not all of it, though.

‘I wasn’t contacting you to make myself feel better, like you said,’ Mila said. ‘Or out of guilt.’ Another pause. ‘I was worried about you.’

Ah. Yes, he had replied to one email. He remembered typing it, with angry, careless keystrokes. He didn’t remember the content—he didn’t want to. It wouldn’t have been nice. It would have been cruel.

‘I wasn’t in a good place,’ he said.

Mila nodded. ‘I know. I wish you’d let me be there for you. Steph was my best friend, but she was your wife. I can’t imagine how difficult this has been for you.’

She stepped towards him now, reaching out a hand before letting it drop away against her hip, not having touched him at all. He realised, belatedly, that she wasn’t angry with him. That he’d misinterpreted the narrowing of her eyes, the tension in her muscles...

She was guarded, not angry. As if she was protecting herself.

He’d known he’d hurt her at the funeral. Not straight away—it had taken months for his brain to function properly again—but eventually. And she was still hurt, now.

That was difficult for Seb to acknowledge. The Mila he knew was always so together. So tough. So assured. She didn’t sweat the small things. Didn’t put up with nonsense.

But he’d hurt her—and he was supposed to be her friend. Once he’d been one of her closest friends—and the last person in the world who would want to cause her pain. And yet he had. He didn’t like that at all.

‘You didn’t stuff up,’ she said after a long silence. ‘I mean, I don’t think there are really rules in this situation. When a man loses his wife. But I think lashing out occasionally is allowed.’ She shrugged. ‘I’m a big girl. I can deal with it.’

She was being too kind, too understanding. ‘I can still apologise,’ he said. ‘That’s why I’m here. To say sorry. For what I said at the funeral and for everything afterwards. We both lost Steph. I should’ve been there for you, too. I should’ve been a better friend.’

He could see her ready to argue again, to attempt to absolve him of all guilt—but he didn’t want that. And maybe she understood.

‘Okay.’

But he could see she wasn’t entirely comfortable.

‘I accept your apology. But only if you promise not to send any more mean emails. Deal?’

There it was—the spark in her gaze. The sparkle he remembered from the strong, cheeky, stubborn teenage version of Mila. And the strong, cheeky, stubborn early-twenty-something version, too.

‘Deal,’ he said, with a relieved smile.

She was twenty-nine, now. A year younger than Seb. She’d matured and lost that lanky teenage look, but she was still very much the Mila Molyneux who featured in so many of his childhood memories. He’d lived two houses down from her in their exclusive Peppermint Grove neighbourhood—although at first they’d had no idea of their privileged upbringing. All the three of them—Steph, Mila and Seb—had cared about was their next adventure. Building forts, riding their bikes, clandestine trips to the shops for overstuffed bags of lollies... And then, once they were older, they’d somehow maintained their friendship despite being split into separate gender-specific high schools. All three had studied together, hung out together. Had fun.

Mila had even been the first girl he’d kissed.

He hadn’t thought about that in years. It had, it turned out, been a disaster. He’d misread the situation, embarrassed them both.

Mila was looking at him curiously.

‘So, any chance of a tour?’ he asked, dragging himself back into the present.

Mila shook her head firmly. ‘Not until you tell me why on earth you’re wearing that,’ she said, with a pointed look at his work clothes.

Seb grinned. ‘Ah,’ he said. ‘Long story. How about you give me the tour of your shop first? Then I’ll give you a tour of next door and explain.’

‘Nope,’ Mila said firmly. ‘You’re giving me your tour first—because I need to find out how an international IT consultant has ended up renovating the shop next door.’

‘Well,’ Seb said, smiling fully now, ‘that’s kind of all your fault, Mila.’

‘My fault?’ Mila said, tapping her chest as if to confirm who he was referring to.

‘Most definitely,’ he said. Then he grabbed her hand and tugged her towards her front door. ‘Come on, then.’

And, for one of the very few times he could remember, Mila Molyneux looked less than in control of a situation.

Seb decided he liked that.


CHAPTER TWO (#ulink_c7f30541-26e0-5735-89fc-e851b871d6f7)

SEB’S HAND FELT DIFFERENT.

Not rough, or anything. Just... Mila didn’t know how to describe it. Tougher? As if this utterly unexpected transformation from brilliant IT geek into rugged workman had not happened recently.

But then—how did she even know it felt different? How long had it been since he’d held her hand? Or even touched her?

Years.

For ever.

She gave her head a little shake as Seb led her through the entrance of the shop next door. This was just silly. She’d let go of thinking about Seb’s touch years ago—or reacting in any way. She wasn’t about to start again now.

Especially not now.

‘I promise, Steph, I don’t like him, like him. It’s okay.’

Thirteen-year-old Mila had managed a wide smile, even if her gaze hadn’t quite met her best friend’s.

They’d sat cross-legged on Steph’s bed, a small mountain of rented VHS tapes between them, awaiting their planned sleepover movie marathon.

‘Are you sure?’ Steph had asked. ‘Because—’

‘Yes!’ Mila had said emphatically. ‘He’s just my friend. I don’t have like...romantic feelings for him. I never have and I never will. I promise...’

He’d dropped her hand now, anyway, oblivious. He’d taken a few steps into the gutted shop and now spread his arms out wide to encompass the cavernous double-height space, pivoting to look at her expectantly.

Mila needed a moment to take it all in. To take Seb in.

It had been more than six months since his email—since he’d so unequivocally told Mila never to contact him again. He’d then blocked her and unfollowed her on all social media. Set all of his accounts to private.

Effectively, he’d erased himself from Mila’s life. And, on the other side of the world, she’d been helpless to do one thing about it.

Rationally, she’d understood that he was in a dark place, and that his behaviour was not about her. That he wasn’t deliberately trying to hurt her. But it had still hurt.

So she hadn’t expected to see Seb again. At least, not like this. Certainly not dressed like a builder, proudly showing off the elderly, crumbling building next door.

She wasn’t sure how she felt about it. After shock, her immediate reaction on seeing Seb had been joy—maybe a Pavlovian reaction to seeing her once-so-close childhood friend. But now she wasn’t so sure. She felt confused. And cautious, too. His apology, his earnestness... It was such a contrast to what she’d believed to be her last ever interaction with Seb Fyfe.

Mila surveyed the dilapidated space. It was the exact external dimensions of her own place, and it was interesting to see how her shop would look without necessities like a staircase or—well, the entire first floor. The walls had been stripped of plaster, leaving bare brick, and there was absolutely no lighting. Now, at dusk, little light pushed through the dirty, cracked shop windows and the open doorway behind her.

Basically—it was a big, dark, empty, filthy room.

‘Well,’ she began, ‘I may need to hear a bit more of your plans before I can be appropriately impressed.’

Seb’s lips quirked upwards. God, it was so weird, seeing her old friend dressed like this. He’d always had lovely shoulders, but now they were muscled. And, yes, of course he’d always been unavoidably handsome. But more in a lean, very slightly geeky way—befitting his career in IT consulting and her memories of him tinkering with hard drives and other computer paraphernalia.

Now he looked like a man. A proper, grown-up man—not an oversized version of the teenage Seb she remembered. And not even one per cent geek.

Seb had always been self-assured, always had that innate confidence—probably partly because he had enough family money behind him to know it was nearly impossible for him to fail in anything—but mainly, Mila felt, because that was the kind of guy he was. But now there was something more. Something beyond the confidence she recognised. An...ease.

And it was an ease he had now, in his tradesman’s outfit, that she hadn’t even realised he’d lacked in a five-thousand-dollar suit.

‘Fair enough. There’s not a lot to see just yet.’ He pointed to the far wall, where a large poster-sized plan was taped to the bricks. ‘The details are there, but really it’s nothing too exciting. It’ll be fitted out for a fashion retailer I’ve got lined up—a good fit for the other shops in the terrace.’

‘Fashion? So this isn’t some new obscure location for Fyfe Technology?’

That was about as far as Mila had got in trying to work out what this was all about. A trendy suburban location for a multinational company with offices across Europe, the US and Australia and an office already in the Perth CBD? It didn’t actually make any sense. But then, she was still trying to process Seb’s new shoulders...

Another shake of her head—mentally, this time.

‘I sold Fyfe,’ Seb said simply.

It was so nonchalantly delivered that it took Mila a long moment to comprehend what he’d just told her.

‘Pardon me?’

He watched her steadily. ‘It was a difficult decision. Dad wasn’t happy at first—I mean, in many ways it was still his company, even though he’s been retired for years. But eventually he understood where I was coming from. Why I needed to do this.’

Again his arms spread out to take in the building site.

‘And this is...?’

Seb shrugged. ‘To do what you do. Follow my dreams without just sliding down my family’s mountain of money.’

Mila twisted her fingers together, suddenly uncomfortable. ‘I don’t think anyone should ever use me as a good example for anything.’

‘Why not?’ Seb said. ‘You’re doing exactly what you want to do—earning your own income and treading your own path. What’s not great about that?’

Mila laughed. ‘You’re skipping the bit where I dropped out of two different universities, at least four different vocational courses, and completely ignored the advice of basically everyone who cares about me.’

‘Exactly,’ he said, with a truly gorgeous smile. ‘And how awesome is that?’

Mila ran her hands through her hair. Yes, she was proud of what she’d achieved, and proud that she lived completely independently of her frankly obscene trust fund, but that was her... Seb was... Seb wasn’t like that. Seb had taken his family’s already successful business and blown it out of the water. He’d expanded Fyfe throughout Europe, stayed one step ahead of new technologies and made a multi-million-dollar empire a multi-billion-dollar one.

‘I’m confused,’ Mila said. ‘Steph always told me how much you loved your work. How excited you were about the company’s expansion, about—’

‘How I loved my work more than my wife?’ he said.

The sudden horrible, harsh words hung in the air between them.

‘No,’ she said softly. ‘She never said that.’

‘Not to you,’ Seb said.

Mila didn’t know what to do with what he’d said. She didn’t know what to do with any of this. It was all so unexpected, and it had been so long.

This Seb before her was such an odd combination of the boy she’d thought she’d known and this man she barely recognised. The Seb she’d known would never have sold his father’s company. But then, the Steph and Seb she’d known had been deliriously happily married. The Steph she’d known would never have taken drugs.

Emotion hung in the air between them.

‘What’s going on here, Seb?’ Mila said, suddenly frustrated. She’d never thought she’d see or hear from Seb again. And now here he was, with unexpected apologies and painful memories. ‘Because I don’t for a minute believe that your new dream just coincidentally started with the shop next door to mine.’

A small but humourless smile. Then Seb rubbed his forehead. ‘Okay—here’s the deal. I sold the company, donated a big chunk of the proceeds to addiction-related charities and then put some aside for the children I have no intention of having—that would require a wife—but my lawyer still insisted I provide for. Then I gave myself a relatively modest loan—’ he named an amount that would buy the row of shops many several times over ‘—which I will pay back once my new venture takes off. And the new venture is a building company. I’ve started with smaller developments, like this one, although already I’m starting on bigger projects: think entire apartment blocks, maybe office towers one day.’

‘So your dream wasn’t to play with computers all day but to build skyscrapers?’

Seb shook his head. ‘No, my dream was to do exactly what my dad did, but better. Which was the problem. I’ve spent my whole life deliberately walking in my father’s footsteps. I’ve finally realised that I’m more than that. That I can build a company from the ground up myself.’ He paused for a long moment. ‘When my acquisitions team recommended I buy this place I didn’t know it was next to your shop,’ he said. ‘But obviously it came up in the research. I should’ve known, really—I remember the photos you sent through to us when you first bought it.’ His lips quirked. ‘And that was really what sealed it—’

‘So you bought this place because of me?’

‘No,’ Seb said. ‘I was always going to buy it for the right price—which I had no problem negotiating.’

There it was—a glimpse of the ruthless businessman Mila remembered. Just this time without the suit.

‘The question was whether I’d let you know I’d bought it.’

Mila looked again at the building plan. In the corner was the company logo and its name: Heliotrope Construction.

‘Steph...’ Mila breathed.

‘It’s not that original,’ Seb said. ‘But if Steph could call her fashion label Violet, I figured...’

Shades of purple—Steph’s favourite colour.

‘I like it,’ Mila said.

But Seb was moving the conversation along. ‘I did consider not being hands-on with this place, to reduce the chances that we’d bump into each other. But that would have been pretty gutless. I’ve been back in Perth a few months now. I couldn’t avoid you for ever.’

Months? Seb’s email had been six months ago, and she’d dealt with his rejection then. Even so, it stung to realise he’d been back home for so long. Somehow rejection had hurt less when he was a million miles away.

‘I thought about calling. I knew I couldn’t email you.’ He shoved his hands into his pockets. ‘But I had to apologise in person. Buying this place just forced me into action. I’m sorry,’ he said again. ‘For waiting this long. Since Steph...everything’s been messed up. I’ve been messed up...’

‘I know,’ Mila said. She got it. Or at least some of it. She did.

They were both silent for a while. Mila didn’t quite know what to think—she’d mentally classified Seb as part of her past. And now here he was—so different—in her present.

‘I hope I’m not too late,’ Seb said.

‘For what?’ Mila asked, confused.

‘To fix things.’ He was watching her steadily, his gaze exploring her face. ‘To fix us. I’d hoped—’

Maybe he’d seen something in her expression, because for once Seb looked less than completely assured.

‘You and Steph were my closest friends. Steph’s gone for ever, but we still have each other. I want you in my life again, Mila. If you’ll let me.’

Part of Mila wanted to smile and laugh, tell Seb Of course! And in so many ways that was the obvious answer.

She’d told him she’d forgiven him for his behaviour amidst his grief. But it had still hurt. A lot. Because she’d certainly had enough rejection in her life—her ex-fiancé being the latest purveyor of rejection. And part of her—the pragmatic side—just wondered what the point actually was.

Had too much time passed? Was it better that their friendship remained a fond memory? Limited only to the occasional catch-up message on social media?

Remembering how she’d felt when he’d held her hand before—the warmth and strength of his fingers and the echoing, unwanted warmth in her belly—Mila thought she definitely knew the answer.

Seb had just lost his wife. And he’d been Steph’s husband. She had no place considering the breadth of his shoulders or the strength of his hands.

She should keep her distance. Be his friend, but acknowledge that things could never be as they had been. They could never have the connection of their childhood again. It was too complicated. The emotions too intense.

And yet—here he was. Right in front of her. This strange, compelling mix of the cute boy next door and this handsome almost-stranger next door.

Seb must have seen the conflict in her gaze.

‘Well,’ he said, ‘maybe I am too late.’

He was looking straight at her, but his eyes now gave nothing away. Gone was all that emotion, shuttered away.

He really wanted this, Mila realised. This was more than an extended apology or an attempt to make amends. And what was she worried about, anyway? Really?

So what if Seb still had the smile that had made her teenage self weak at the knees? She’d dealt with all that years ago. All that messy unrequited love and the whole heap of angst that came with your best friend marrying the first boy you’d fallen in love with. The first boy you’d kissed.

That had been for ever ago.

Today the butterflies in her tummy meant nothing. She was being silly. Right now Seb didn’t need her pushing him away for no apparent reason. And—frankly—she didn’t really want to push him away. She’d missed him.

‘So, do you honestly want a tour of my pottery studio?’ she asked.

Seb grinned triumphantly. ‘Lead on, Ms Molyneux!’

And of course Mila found herself smiling back.


CHAPTER THREE (#ulink_45aa7cdf-3591-5de8-8964-f8a08d7a3985)

‘KNOCK, KNOCK!’

The familiar female voice floated through to Mila’s shop and was promptly followed by an impatient rattling of the workshop’s back door.

‘Mila!’ Ivy called out. ‘Could you hurry, please? I really need to pee.’

Mila grinned as she hurried to greet her sister. Her nephew, Nate, was fast asleep in his pram on the other side of the fly screen, looking exactly as angelic as Ivy said he was not.

‘Mila? I mean it. I have about fifteen seconds.’

Mila dragged her gaze away from Nate to glance at her sister.

‘Maybe ten,’ Ivy clarified.

Quickly Mila flicked open the lock, and Ivy sprinted past her to the small powder room in the corner of the workshop used by Mila’s students.

‘You’ll understand one day,’ Ivy said as she slammed the toilet door, muttering something about eight-and-a-half-pound babies.

Mila stepped outside, then squatted in front of Nate’s pram. There wasn’t much space behind Mila’s shop—enough for Mila’s car, her bins, and a large collection of enthusiastically growing pot plants—all planted in an eclectic mix of pots and vessels that Mila had decided unfit for sale after firing.

Nate held Mila’s mail in his chubby fist, collected by Ivy from the letterbox beside the rear courtyard gate. Nate loved junk mail, and he was happily gazing at the lurid colours of a discount store brochure with intent.

She wasn’t exactly sure how old Nate was—nine months, maybe? He’d just started crawling, anyway, and talking in musical meaningless tones. He was so beautiful, with long eyelashes that brushed his cheeks and thick, curly blond hair. Both from his father, apparently—although Mila couldn’t yet see even a hint of Ivy’s hulking SAS soldier husband in delicate, picture-perfect Nate.

Ivy had taken to dropping by regularly—a result of Nate’s unwillingness to nap in his cot and, Mila thought, a latent ‘big sister’ instinct for Ivy to check up on her that had begun just after Steph had died. Originally it had taken the form of daily phone calls from Ivy’s office at Molyneux Tower, and had only metamorphosed into actual visits when Nate had come along and so adamantly refused to sleep.

Mila had always been close to both her sisters—but she hadn’t seen workaholic Ivy so often since they were kids living at home. And for that Mila figured she owed Nate one.

She leaned in closed to kiss his velvety cheek. ‘Nice work, kid.’

‘You know what I wish?’ Ivy asked a few minutes later, when they were settled with cups of tea on the old wooden church pew that edged one wall of the workshop. ‘That I could have banked all those hours of time I wasted over the years so I could have them now. Because, honestly, I don’t know how I ever thought I was busy before. This mum stuff is nuts.’

Mila raised her eyebrows. ‘You didn’t have any spare time to bank,’ she pointed out. Her big sister had always been the high-flying, high-achieving child in the family—groomed practically from birth to take over the Molyneux mining empire.

Ivy shrugged. ‘Maybe.’

Mila smiled. Ivy had never been good at acknowledging her obsession with work.

Her sister leant closer and spoke in a hushed tone. ‘This is going to sound terrible, but I’m really enjoying being back at work a few days a week. I can actually get stuff done. Yesterday I committed Molyneux Mining to a joint venture project with a British conglomerate. Today I’ve discovered that Nate no longer likes peas.’

‘Don’t worry,’ Mila said with a grin. ‘There isn’t actually a Mum Police.’

Ivy sighed. ‘Yeah, I know. There is definitely Mum Guilt, though.’

‘Hey,’ Mila said, catching Ivy’s gaze. ‘Don’t feel bad for enjoying the career you loved before Nate came along. He knows you love him.’

‘Words can’t describe how much.’ A long pause, then a wobbly bottom lip. ‘Oh, God, I’m going to blub. Now I can’t even blame breastfeeding hormones.’

Mila scooted closer to her sister so she could press her shoulder against Ivy’s as they sat together quietly with their now empty teacups.

‘Cake?’ Mila asked. ‘One of my students baked—’

The tinkling sound of the shop door being opened had Mila on her feet, giving a vague gesture towards the small fridge in the workshop kitchenette as she hurried out of the room.

‘Good morning—’ she began, then stopped. It was Seb. ‘Hi!’ she said, with a wide smile. Mila still wasn’t sure if reconnecting with Seb was a good idea—but she couldn’t deny that she was pleased to see him.

Seb lips quirked as he glanced at the forgotten teacup in her hand. ‘Busy day?’ he teased.

Mila shrugged. ‘I’ve had a flood of online orders this morning, actually, after one of my pieces was used in a feature in the latest Home + Home mag.’ She’d swallowed her pride over a year ago and accepted her sister April’s offer to feature one of her indoor planters on her hugely popular lifestyle blog. The subsequent interest from stylists and interior decorators hadn’t abated. ‘The store makes up a pretty small amount of my income,’ she continued, pointedly, ‘leaving plenty of time for guilt-free tea.’

‘That’s my favourite type of anything.’ He grinned. ‘And, really? “A pretty small amount”?’

‘Eighteen point two-three per cent. Down one point nine per cent from the previous quarter.’

‘There you go. Mila and her numbers.’

‘I had to be halfway decent at something at school, otherwise Mum would’ve completely disowned me.’ She hadn’t had much interest in anything other than maths, and had been truly terrible at pretending.

‘She probably wouldn’t have, you know.’ Ivy leant casually against the workshop doorframe, her eyes sparkling with curiosity as she glanced between Mila and Seb. ‘Probably.’

A pause, and Mila knew her sister had taken in Seb’s unfamiliar work clothes. ‘I didn’t realise you were visiting Perth. It’s good to see you.’

Under better circumstances. It went unsaid, but the fleeting reference to Stephanie still made Mila’s heart ache.

‘Not visiting,’ Seb said. ‘Back. For good.’

Those last two words he directed at Mila, and her awful, disloyal heart flipped over.

No. In the same minute her throat constricted at the memory of her friend. She was not allowed to get all fluttery about Sebastian. She crossed her arms in front of her chest, but that was completely ineffective. Instead, while Seb filled Ivy in on his new business venture, she deposited her teacup on the counter, then needlessly wiped a cloth over the vases in shades of teal and grey that were silhouetted like a skyline in her shop window.

‘Mila?’

She didn’t even look up at Seb’s voice, instead focusing her attention on a non-existent mark on a blue-green glaze.

‘I’m sorry—now isn’t really a good time,’ she said. Maybe if she appeared suitably busy he’d go away—and so would her inappropriate heart-flipping.

‘For what?’

She straightened to face him, once again crossing her arms. Aware that Ivy was watching, Mila didn’t really know what to say. What could she say? It’s not a good time for me to still be attracted to my best friend’s husband?

Accurate, but never, ever to be articulated.

At her continued silence, Seb leant a little closer. That didn’t help anything.

‘I thought you were okay with us being friends again?’

‘I am,’ she said. And she was. It wasn’t Seb’s fault she had faulty hormones—or whatever it was inside her that just would not quit when it came to Seb Fyfe.

Seb needed her right now. But she needed space. More time, maybe? To recalibrate to a world where she co-existed with Seb without the fact of his being her best friend’s husband to stall any heart-flipping or tingling of skin.

He will always be Steph’s husband.

She’d been a terrible friend to Steph for too long. That stopped now.

‘Do you still play tennis?’ she said, a bit more loudly than she would have liked.

‘On occasion.’

‘Great!’ she said, even louder. Dammit. ‘Let’s hire a court later this week. Have a hit.’

This was a genius plan. Physical distance. Smacking of objects.

‘Sure...’ he said, sounding a little confused.

‘Great!’ she repeated. ‘Great!’

Then finally he left, with a tinkling of the doorbell, and from Mila a significant sigh of relief.

Ivy marched over, every inch the billionaire businesswoman demanding to know exactly what was going on. But before she could open her mouth a low, sleepy cry reverberated from the workshop.

‘Later,’ Ivy threw over her shoulder as she jogged back to Nate.

Seemed Mila owed Nate another one: Nice work, Nate.

Now she had time to work out something to tell Ivy—to explain whatever her sister had thought she’d witnessed. Because Ivy had never known about Mila’s unrequited teenage crush. Nor April, for that matter.

And no one was ever going to find out about this silly adult version either.

* * *

Seb propped his shoulder against the front wall of his shop. Inside, the sounds of building activity thumped and buzzed through the open door, and a lanky apprentice chippy carted rubble in white plastic buckets to the large skip that hunkered at the kerb.

His meeting with the foreman had gone well. So well, in fact, that Seb knew it wasn’t even close to necessary that he checked in with the man each day. Richard had thirty years’ experience and knew exactly what he was doing. He knew more than Seb, actually—although to be perfectly honest that wasn’t particularly hard for anyone in the construction industry.

This bothered Seb. He’d known from a very young age that he would one day own his father’s company. Just like for Mila’s older sister Ivy it had been his destiny, and he’d done everything in his power to be worthy of following in his dad’s footsteps.

That had included actually knowing what his staff did.

He’d graduated with honours in his Computer Science degree so he could write code like his developers. Then he’d done an MBA as he’d begun taking over from his father. And he’d attended each and every course before he’d sent his staff—whether it be marketing, customer service, project management or system development. He’d known that he didn’t get to stop learning just because he was the boss, and he hadn’t been about to waste his team’s time on a course he wasn’t prepared to do himself.

He hadn’t pretended he could do every job in his mammoth company—and he hadn’t needed to—but he’d figured he should be able to walk into any meeting, at any Fyfe office in the world, and not feel as if his staff were talking in a foreign language.

He still had a long way to go when it came to his new venture.

It bothered him that he didn’t know enough about joists and sub-floors and ceiling-fixing and roofing and I-beams and...

In fact, his entire prior experience in the building industry involved demoing the bathroom of the London flat he’d owned with Steph prior to its—outsourced—renovation, a disproportionate interest in power tools for a man who didn’t have a shed—or a back garden to put one in—and many good intentions to attend a tiling/carpentry/plastering workshop one day.

He’d always been interested in tools and building things. He’d just funnelled it in a technological direction. Steph had encouraged him to take some time off—to do a weekend course, to paint their home rather than having professional decorators return three separate times to get the flawless finish he’d demanded. But that was the problem with being a work-obsessed perfectionist—he hadn’t been about to take time off from Fyfe.

Nothing had been worth that. Certainly not a bit of DIY.

‘Not me,’ Steph had told him more than once. ‘Not even me.’

Seb drained the last of his coffee, his fingernails digging ever so slightly into the takeaway cup’s corrugated cardboard outer shell. He stared at nothing—at the sky, at the passing traffic—and finally at the stencilled company name on the side of the battered skip, letting his gaze lose focus.

He’d read somewhere—or heard, maybe, on a podcast or something—that grief hit you like a wave. At first the waves just kept on pounding. Pounding you down and down, with barely a breath of air before you were sucked back under again. But then, over time, the gaps between the waves would grow. They would still hit just as hard—and be just as shocking—but in between you could begin to breathe. To exist again.

Sometimes you even got better at handling the waves, at bracing yourself and swimming back up to the surface. Not every wave though. Some would always sneak up on you and drown you as brutally as the first.

Every memory of Steph...every reminder of his many mistakes...what he could have done...should have done... It wasn’t getting easier.

Seb had discovered that the waves didn’t stop coming. He had just got better at swimming.

Footsteps drew his attention back to his surroundings. He looked up to see Mila striding along the footpath, her gaze on the screen of her phone. Her eyes flicked upwards as she approached, and the moment her gaze locked on his it skittered away again.

It was just like yesterday: that same unexpected and suddenly closed expression. He had absolutely no idea why.

But then her gaze swung back, as if she was really looking at him now, and her long strides came to a halt in front of him.

‘I didn’t see you there,’ she said.

He had a feeling if she had she would have exited via the rear of her shop. The realisation frustrated him. Why was she keeping her distance?

But now she was studying him carefully, as if attempting to translate what the sum total of his face and posture actually meant.

He pushed away from the wall and rolled his shoulders back, uncomfortable with whatever Mila might have thought she’d seen.

‘Are you okay?’

He nodded sharply, not quite meeting her eyes. ‘Of course.’

‘You don’t look okay,’ she said—which shouldn’t have surprised him. Mila wasn’t one to accept anything at surface value.

She took a step closer, trying to catch his gaze.

He knew he was just being stupid now, but for some reason he just couldn’t quite look at her—the knife-edged echo of Steph’s remembered words was still yet to be washed out to sea.

She reached out, resting her fingers just above his wrist. Her hand was cool against his sun-warmed skin.

‘Last night,’ she said, as he focused on the deep red shade of her nail polish, ‘do you know what I did? I found that photobook Steph made after our trip to Bali when we were about twenty. Remember? Our first holiday without our parents. We thought we were so grown-up.’

He nodded. They’d gone with a group of his and Steph’s friends from uni. Mila had just dropped out of her umpteenth course, but that had been back when she and Steph had done everything together. There’d never been any question—of course Mila would go with them.

‘Do you remember that guy I met? From Melbourne?’ She laughed. ‘Oh, God. What a loser.’ She shook her head. ‘Anyway, last night I wanted to see Steph—see her happy—with you and...uh...me, of course.’

Her words had become a little faster, and he was finally able to drag his gaze to hers. She must be wearing boots with a heel, as she looked taller than he’d expected—actually, simply closer to him than he’d expected.

‘It made me smile,’ she said. ‘And cry.’

Her hand was still on his arm, but she’d shifted her fingers to grip harder—as if she was desperately holding on.

‘What I’m trying to say,’ she said, her big blue eyes earnest and unwavering, ‘is that I get it. These moments. Minutes. Hours.’

‘Days...’

But he stopped himself saying the rest: weeks, months... Because he’d realised it wasn’t true. Not now.

Mila realised it too—he could tell. They stood there on the street, staring at each other with a strange mix of sadness for the beautiful, smart, funny, flawed Stephanie they so missed and relief that their lives continued onwards.

‘Are you okay?’ Mila asked again.

He nodded. The ocean had stilled. The wave of grief and guilt and loss had receded.

She still gripped his arm. They both seemed to realise it at the same time. Her touch felt different now. No longer cool or simply comforting. Her fingers loosened, but didn’t fall away. She didn’t step back—but then neither did he.

Her gaze seemed to flicker slightly, darting about his face to land nowhere in particular.

When they’d been about fifteen, Mila had successfully dragged Steph into her Goth phase. Seb couldn’t remember what the actual point of it all had been, but he did remember a lot of depressing music and heavy eyeliner.

‘You have incredible eyes,’ he said, without thinking.

Those incredible eyes widened—and they were incredible...he’d always thought so—and Mila took an abrupt step back, snatched her hand away.

‘What?’

He instantly missed her touch—enough that it bothered him. Although he couldn’t have explained why.

‘I was thinking of all that eye make-up you used to wear towards the end of high school. I hated it. You look perfect just like this.’

Mila’s cheeks might have pinkened—it was hard to tell in the sunlight—but her eyes had definitely narrowed. ‘I didn’t ask for your approval of my make-up choices.’

He’d stuffed up. There it was—that shuttered, defensive expression.

‘That wasn’t what I meant. I—’

‘Look, I really have to go.’ She’d already taken a handful of steps along the footpath.

‘See you at tennis?’ he said. They’d organised it via text for the following evening.

Mila didn’t look back. ‘Yes,’ she said, sounding about as excited as if he’d reminded her of a dental appointment.

Sebastian tossed his empty coffee cup in the skip, then headed back to the building site. He might not need to be here daily to speak to the project manager, but he could find other ways to make himself useful—ideally in usefulness that involved swinging a sledgehammer.


CHAPTER FOUR (#ulink_3d8df9ba-c357-5d4c-8202-a4017ea29e34)

THE VERY LAST glimmers of sun were fading as Mila pulled into the Nedlands Tennis Club car park. A moment after she’d hooked her tennis bag over her shoulder floodlights came on, illuminating the navy blue hard courts and their border of forest-green.

The car park was nearly empty.An elderly-looking sedan with probationary ‘P’ plates most likely belonged to one of the teenage girls warming up very seriously for a doubles match, while the top-of-the-range blood-red sports utility had to belong to one of the two guys around Mila’s age who were laughing as they very casually lobbed a ball back and forth.

Judging by the fluorescent workwear tossed in the tray of the ute, Mila could almost guarantee those guys were wealthy FIFO workers: men—generally—who flew in to work at one of Western Australia’s isolated mines in the Pilbara for weeks at a time, living in ‘dongas’—basic, transportable single rooms—and then flying out for a week or more off, back home in Perth. It was a brutal, but extremely well-paid lifestyle—providing blue collar workers with incomes unheard of before the mining boom.

Mila could never have done it. She’d visited the Molyneux-owned mines many times in her youth, and while she could appreciate the ancient, spectacular beauty of the Pilbara, the complete isolation somehow got to her. Out there you were over one thousand five hundred kilometres from Perth, and not much closer to anything else.

Ivy loved it—she’d married her new husband there, after all. And April did, too, regularly ‘glamping’ with her husband in remote Outback locations and posting dreamy, impossibly perfect photos on social media. But Mila always felt that she must be missing some essential Molyneux genes. The mining gene, or the iron ore gene, or even the red dust and boab tree gene.

Because Mila was never going to follow in her big sisters’ footsteps. Regardless of her uninterest in her education for all of her childhood and the early part of her twenties, it just wasn’t who she was. The industry and the land—that was everything to the Molyneux empire... Mila just didn’t fit.

Seb still hadn’t arrived, so Mila leant back against the driver’s side of her modest little hatchback, the door still warm from the day’s glorious spring sun. The two probable FIFO guys had become more serious, and their banter and laughter was now only between points. She vaguely watched the ball ping between them without really following what was going on.

Mila had long believed that there was a lot more of her father in her than her mother. She even looked like Blaine Spencer—except without the blond hair. She definitely—or so she’d been told—had her father’s intense blue eyes. ‘Eyes that’ll make the world fall in love with him’—that was what a film reviewer had said, in the ancient newspaper cutting that Mila had found in a book years after he’d walked out on them when she was only a toddler.

She’d burnt that review—at an angry sixteen—when her father had once again let her down. Not that it mattered. She could still recall every word.

A car slid into the parking spot directly beside her—a sleek, low, luxury vehicle in the darkest shade of grey. Seb climbed out, turning as he shut the car door to rest his forearms on its roof.

He grinned as he looked at Mila across the gleaming paintwork. ‘Ready to be run off your feet?’ he asked.

The lights in the car park were dim, leaving his face in both light and shadow. Even so, Mila could feel his gaze on her like a physical touch. She shivered as his gaze flicked downwards, taking in her outfit of pale pink tank top and black shorts, and then down again to her white ankle socks and sneakers.

Did his gaze slow on her legs?

She squeezed her eyes shut for a moment. Nope. It did not.

Just as he’d definitely meant nothing when he’d said incredible and perfect yesterday.

Mila forced a laugh. ‘Last time I checked I still lead in our head-to-head.’

His laugh was genuine as he reached into his car for his tennis bag. He tossed it over his shoulder as he walked around the car to her. ‘That doesn’t sound right to me.’

He was dressed casually, all in black: long baggy running shorts and a fitted T-shirt in some type of sporty material. It revealed all sorts of somehow unexpectedly generous muscles: biceps and triceps and trapeziums...

The genius of her idea was now clearly questionable.

‘Trust me—’ Her voice sounded high and unlike her own. She cleared her throat. ‘Trust me—you know how good I am with numbers.’

He shrugged and smiled again, and the instant warmth that little quirk of his lips triggered was unbelievably frustrating.

Mila strode towards the courts, opening the door within the tall cyclone fence and barely waiting for Seb to step through before walking briskly to the court they’d hired.

To be honest, she didn’t remember the exact head-to-head score between them. When they’d started lessons together in primary school Mila had been the stronger player. She probably still was—it was just that eventually Seb had become actually stronger than her. And significantly taller.

At some point she’d known exactly how many sets she’d won against Seb—she’d kept a tally all the way through high school and into uni, enjoying their semi-regular matches because, if she was truthful, it had been the one thing she’d done just with Seb. For Steph had been many things, but definitely not an athlete.

But somewhere along the line Mila had forgotten her hard-earned leading score against Seb. Now, as she dropped her bag at the side of the net, and then fished out her water, racquet and a skinny can of new tennis balls, she searched her memory for a hint—but there was nothing. She might be leading by one or a hundred—she had no idea.

Like so much that had once been important to her when it came to Sebastian and Stephanie, over time she’d allowed it to become less important. And eventually to fade completely away.

Seb stood on the opposite side of the net, his racquet extended, the strings flat, ready for Mila to place a couple of tennis balls on its surface.

He raised an eyebrow. ‘You all right?’ he asked.

She nodded firmly. ‘Yes,’ she said—and she was, she realised. ‘But I was thinking...let’s wipe our scores. Start with a clean slate.’

She couldn’t change the past—and, while it might be complicated, she did have this second chance with Seb.

His smile was wide. ‘I like the sound of that,’ he said.

Mila dropped the tennis balls onto his racquet, then stuffed two in her pockets as she headed for the baseline.

‘Although,’ he called out as she pivoted to face him, ‘it’s pretty sad that you can’t just admit I was winning.’

And Mila laughed as she smacked a forehand in his direction to start their warm-up.

Maybe this wasn’t such a terrible idea, after all.

* * *

This had been a terrible idea.

‘Three-love,’ Mila announced gleefully as they changed ends. Her eyes sparkled beneath the floodlights as they crossed paths at the net.

From now on all efforts related to repairing his friendship with Mila would definitely require more clothing.

How had he ever forgotten those legs? They went on and on...

Well, no, he hadn’t forgotten them. He was human, after all. He hadn’t married Stephanie and then instantly become blind to beautiful women. Certainly not to Mila. But before it had been an objective realisation: Mila Molyneux has rather nice legs. Kind of like: The sky is blue. I don’t like raw tomato. My mum cooks the world’s best spaghetti and meatballs. That type of thing.

Certainly nothing more.

Certainly not this...this visceral reaction to the curve of thigh and calf. This tightening in his belly...this heat to his skin. As sudden and as unexpected as a punch to his stomach.

It was his serve. He took a deep breath as he bounced the ball a handful of times before rocking back onto his heel as he tossed the ball high into the night sky.

Thwack.

Ace. Good.

‘Fifteen-love.’

But was it sudden? This reaction?

He hadn’t let himself analyse what he’d said yesterday, or questioned his choice of words. He’d told himself he’d just been speaking the truth when he’d told Mila her eyes were incredible. That she was perfect.

Hadn’t he always thought so? Objectively, of course. So why verbalise those facts now? Especially when she’d been standing so close to him. Close enough that it had only been after she’d walked away that he’d realised his heart-rate was decelerating, that his body had registered more than simple comfort in her proximity.

Thwack.

The ball landed so far past the service line that Mila didn’t bother calling it. Instead she grinned, catching his eye as she took a couple of steps forward, ready for a less powerful second serve.

Thwack.

He’d hit it even harder than his first serve, his tennis tactics being the furthest thing from his mind.

‘Out!’ Mila said, as it landed a ball-width too wide of the centreline.

She still hit it back, and he blocked it with his racquet, bouncing it a few times before shoving the ball in his pocket.

‘Fifteen-all.’

Mila held up her hand before he went to serve again, to indicate that he should wait. He watched as she fussed with her hair, pushing it behind her ears and sliding in the clips that kept it out of her eyes. There was absolutely nothing provocative about what she was doing—if he ignored the pull of her singlet against her skin as she raised her arms. And the shape of her waist and breasts that the thin material so relentlessly clung to.

Which, despite his best efforts, he could not.

He turned away abruptly, and for the first time in his life smashing his racquet into the unforgiving surface of the court seemed an excellent option. He could almost feel it—the satisfaction of channelling his body into destroying something rather than generating seriously inappropriate thoughts about Mila.

His friend. His friend.

Stephanie’s best friend.

No, he wasn’t going to ruin his racquet—just as he would never allow himself to ruin things with Mila. He would not and he could not.

Not much was clear to him any more except two things: his new business and his need to have Mila back in his life. Platonically. Because even if Mila saw him as more than the once awkward, occasionally pimply teenage nerd who had lived next door—which seemed unlikely—a relationship was not an option anyway.

With Mila or with anyone.

He stepped back to the baseline.

Thwack.

Ace.

‘Thirty-fifteen.’

There had been women since Stephanie. Two, to be exact. Meaningless, nothingness. Found in a fog of grief in London bars without even the decency to remember their names. He’d woken up alone and even emptier—so he’d stopped.

It had been months since the last. Almost a year.

Thwack. Thwack. Thwack.

Winner—down the line.

‘Forty-fifteen.’

So he’d failed at casual sex and he’d clearly failed at marriage. He could barely remember the last time he’d slept with Stephanie—he’d always been working away, or late. Too late. And when he had been home there had still been distance between them. He’d fobbed Steph off when she’d attempted to address it. He couldn’t remember how many times.

He did remember the shape of her body as she’d slept alone in their bed, her back towards his side. Always.

He’d refused to make time for Steph and he’d stubbornly ignored—or at best minimised—her concerns about their relationship. The lack of communication. The lack of intimacy. Their effectively separate lives.

The concerns of the woman he was supposed to love.

What sort of man did that make him?

A man who hurt the people he loved. A man who shouldn’t do relationships. A man who’d driven his wife to make catastrophic choices.

Thwack. Thwack. Thwack. Thwack.

Mila had chased his cross-court forehand down and thrown up a high lob. He ran to the net, waiting for the ball to fall and for the opportunity to smash that ball into oblivion. He had his racquet up, ready.

Up, up, up...

Down, down, down...

And then, powered by every single uncomfortable, unpleasant, unwanted emotion inside him...thwack.

It was the perfect smash—right in the corner on the baseline. Mila had no chance to reach it but she tried anyway, stretching her legs and arms and her racquet to their absolute limit.

Then somehow all those outstretched limbs tripped and tangled, and with a terrible hard thump Mila tumbled to the ground, skidding a little on the court’s unforgiving surface.

Sebastian was in motion before she’d come to a stop, his feet pounding as he ran to her.

Mila had levered herself so she was sitting. She held up her palms, all red and scratched.

‘Ow,’ she said simply, with half a smile.

Seb dropped down beside her. ‘Are you okay?’ It took everything he had not to gather her in his arms. He worriedly ran his gaze over her, searching for any sign of injury.

Mila stretched out both her legs experimentally, then wiggled her ankles in a circle.

‘All seems to be in order,’ she said, looking up at him.

‘Not quite,’ he said, and it was impossible to stop himself from reaching out and turning her arm gently, so Mila could see the shallow scratches that tracked their way along the length of her arm. Tiny pinpricks of blood decorated the ugly red lines.

‘That looks worse than it feels.’

‘You are one tough cookie, Mila Molyneux,’ he said.

She smiled—just a little. ‘Sometimes.’

Like yesterday, their eyes met. And once again Seb found himself lost in her incredible blue eyes. This time there was no pretending he was being objective, that he was admiring Mila simply as his strong, beautiful friend.

No, the way he felt right now had more in common with his fourteen-year-old self. Like then, his hormones were wreaking havoc on his body, his brain firmly relegated in the pecking order.

He’d forgotten. Forgotten what it was like to look at Mila this way, to see her this way—to want her this way. It had been so long.

But how was she looking at him? Not with the disgust he’d expected, that he deserved for ogling his friend. More like—

A loud whoop from the neighbouring court ended the moment before it had fully formed. Seb looked up. The two young guys had finished their match, and the shorter of the two was completing a victory lap around the net.

Meanwhile Mila had climbed to her feet.

‘Three-one,’ she said firmly, with not a hint of whatever he might have just seen in her eyes. ‘My serve.’


CHAPTER FIVE (#ulink_7b982bc5-c819-5298-ac19-6f1f7fa3ee86)

MILA’S PHONE VIBRATED quietly beneath the shop counter as she carefully wrapped a customer’s purchase in tissue paper.

The older gentleman had bought a quite extravagant salad bowl, with an asymmetrical rim and splashes of luminous cerulean glaze. For his granddaughter, he’d said, who had just moved out of home along with a mountain of the family’s hand-me-down everything. ‘I want her to have a few special things that are just hers alone.’

After he’d left, Mila retrieved her phone and propped her hip against the counter. It had been a busy Friday, with a flurry of customers searching for the perfect gift for the weekend. She still had half an hour before Sheri arrived to take over the shop while Mila taught her afternoon classes—and so half an hour before she’d get to eat, as her rumbling tummy reminded her.

Lunch?

The text was from Seb, as she’d expected.

Sure. Pedro’s?

Text messages from Seb had become routine in the two weeks since their... Mila didn’t even know how to describe it.

Strained? Tense? Awkward?

Charged.

Yes, that was probably the correct word to describe their tennis match.

Fortunately Sebastian seemed equally as determined as she was to pretend nothing charged had happened, and instead had determinedly progressed his quest to repair their friendship.

That, it would seem, involved regular deliveries of her favourite coffee—double-shot large flat white—and just a few days ago had escalated to a lunch date.

They’d had lunch at a noisy, crowded, trendy Brazilian café—Pedro’s—a short walk from her shop and his building site, and the impossibility of deep conversation or privacy had seemed to suit them both just fine.

Not that Seb showed any hint that there was anything more to their friendship than...well, friendship. And a pretty superficial friendship, if Mila was honest. They weren’t quite spending their time discussing the weather...but it wasn’t much more, either.

At times there was the tiniest suggestion of their old friendship—they’d laugh at each other’s slightly off-kilter jokes, or share a look or a smile the way that only very old friends could. But those moments were rare. Mostly there was a subtle tension between them. As if they had more of those close moments either one of them might read more into it. As if maybe their friendly looks would morph into something like what had happened when she’d fallen playing tennis. When she’d seen something in Seb’s gaze that had made her insides melt and her skin heat.

And as by unspoken consensus that hadn’t been a good thing, a slightly tense and superficial friendship was what they had.

Which was good, of course. It meant that once Seb had processed his tumult of grief and guilt and loss their rehashed friendship would drift again. There would be no more tension and no more confusing, conflicting—definitely unwanted—emotions.

And her life would go back to normal.

Her phone rang, vibrating in her hand as it was still on silent. It wasn’t a number she recognised.

‘Hello?’

‘Mila Molyneux?’ asked a female voice with a heavy American accent.

Mila’s stomach instantly went south. She knew exactly who this was.

‘Speaking,’ she told her father’s personal assistant.

For a moment—a long moment—she considered hanging up. It was exactly what her sisters would do. But then Blaine Spencer wouldn’t bother calling them, would he? He knew which daughter put up with his lies and broken promises.

‘Just put my dad on,’ said Mila.

This one. This gutless, hopeful, stupid daughter.

‘La-la!’

‘Mila,’ she corrected, as she did every time. ‘I’m not three, Dad.’

The age she’d been when he’d left.

‘You still are to me, darling girl!’

Every muscle in her body tightened just that little bit more.

‘Any chance you could call me yourself, one time?’ she asked, not bothering to hide her frustration. ‘You know—find my name in your contacts, push the call button. It’s not difficult.’

‘Now, don’t be like that, Mila, you know how hard I work.’

There it was: The Justification. Mila always capitalised it in her mind.

Why didn’t you call for ?

But you said you’d come to .

And then The Justification.

You know how hard I work.

Or its many variations.

You can’t just pass up opportunities in this industry.

Work has been crazy!

This director is a hard-ass. I’m working fourteen-hour days...

But always: You know I love you, right?

Right.

‘So you’ve been working hard for the past three months, then?’

She’d done the calculations. In fact, this was pretty good for him. Normally his calls were biannual. Maybe that was why she hadn’t hung up on him.

‘I have, indeed,’ he said, either missing or ignoring Mila’s sarcasm.

To be honest, Mila didn’t know him well enough to say which. Maybe that was the problem—she clung to the possibility that he was just thoughtless, not a selfish waste of a father who knew exactly how much pain he caused.

‘I’ve just landed in Sydney for the premiere of my latest.’

He always expected Mila to know everything about him.

‘Latest what, Dad?’

‘Movie,’ he said, all incredulous.

Mila rolled her eyes.

‘Tsunami. The director’s from Perth, so the Australian premiere is over there tomorrow night. I’m doing a few cast interviews in Sydney today, then hopping on a plane tonight. You won’t believe it, but I’m booked on a late flight because Serena has no concept of how far away bloody Perth is...’

Blaine Spencer just kept on talking, but Mila wasn’t paying attention any more. ‘Wait—Dad. You’re coming here?’

‘Seriously, I wouldn’t be surprised if she’d booked us a hotel in Melbourne instead of Perth. All the capital cities are the same to her—’ He finally registered that Mila had spoken. ‘Yes,’ he said, as if seeing his daughter for the first time in six years was something totally normal to drop obliquely into conversation. ‘Just for the night,’ he clarified, because bothering to extend his stay to visit with his daughter would never occur to him.

‘Okay...’ Mila said—just to say something.

‘If you want to catch up you’ll have to come to the premiere,’ he said. ‘I’m doing radio interviews tomorrow morning and then I’ll have to sleep most of the day. You know I can never sleep on a plane.’

She didn’t. She didn’t know him at all.

‘So if I can’t make it to the premiere I won’t see you?’

‘No. Sorry, darling. Can’t stay this time.’

Here it comes.

‘Pre-production has already started on my next. Got to get to work!’

It took Mila another long moment to respond. All the words she wanted to say—to spew at him—teetered on her tongue.

There was nothing unusual about this phone call. The last-minute nature of his invitation, the way he’d somehow shifted the responsibility for them seeing each other onto her, his total lack of awareness or consideration for her own plans for the weekend. Or for her life, really.

No, nothing unusual.

If—somehow—Blaine got Ivy’s phone number, or April’s, and either woman allowed the conversation to continue beyond the time it took to hang up on him, Mila knew how her sisters would respond to what was hardly an invitation.

With a no. A very clear, very definite, I’d-rather-scrub-the-toilet-than-waste-my-time-on-you no.

They would each be furious with Mila for even considering seeing him. For even answering this phone call.

The little tinkling sound of the doorbell drew Mila’s attention away from her father for a moment.

It was Seb. Of course.

He gestured that he’d wait outside, but Mila held up a hand so he’d stay. This wouldn’t take long.

‘Just get Serena to email me the details,’ she said.

‘So you’ll come?’

And there it was. The reason why she had always been going to go to her father’s premiere. That slightest of suggestions that maybe her dad had been worried she’d refuse to see him. The hint that he was genuine about this—that he really did want to see his youngest daughter.

After all, why else would he invite her?

Ugh, she should know better.

But she just couldn’t stop herself:

‘I’ll see you tomorrow,’ Mila began, but her dad had already handed his phone back to his assistant. Such typical casual thoughtlessness made her shake her head, but smile despite herself.

‘Who was that?’ Seb asked as he approached the counter.

Behind them, Mila heard the familiar creak and bang of the workshop’s back door that heralded Sheri’s arrival.

‘Dad,’ Mila said simply. She’d considered lying to Seb—broken families and deadbeat parents were certainly not de rigueur for their superficial conversations of late. But then—it was Seb.





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