The Billionaire from Her Past (10 page)

Seb had asked her at the beach markets how she would protect herself. Well, when it came to Seb and her decision to see him last night her plan had been simple.

It would only be one night.

I just want tonight.

One night she could handle. One night would not create expectations of a future and those delusions she was so apt to create.

And so she was safe, within her self-determined, one-night-only time box. Ivy had told her about time boxes, although she suspected they were rather different for mining project management. And in her time box Mila had been able to kiss Seb again, to discover his body, to sleep with him. Despite all the reasons why she shouldn't.

And it had been amazing. Incredible. Better than she could have imagined. So good that she couldn't regret it. She just couldn't.

But now that it was morning, and she had reached the end of her time box, reality was starting to descend even if regret did not. And the most obvious reality—the most important—was that she'd just slept with her best friend's husband.

Oh, she knew that wasn't strictly true any longer. She even knew that Steph would be the last person to expect Mila to stand by a teenage promise from beyond the grave. And, truth be told, Mila didn't
truly
feel guilty, as such.

But she did feel intensely aware, right now, of Steph. Suddenly Steph's loss felt raw. Raw in a way it hadn't for many months.

Mila turned beneath the water, bowing her head forward as her throat tightened. Water gushed over her hair, pushing it forward and into her eyes, but she didn't care. Silent tears mingled amongst the spray.

Seb's feet came into her watery view, just outside the shower. She lifted her gaze, then ran her fingers through her hair, pushing it back from her forehead.

‘You okay?' he asked.

He'd been about to join her—his nakedness made that obvious. The last time Mila had seen Seb completely naked—in the daylight—would be twenty or more years ago. Amongst twirling sprinkler heads and shrieks of laughter.

Now he looked utterly different. And not the way she'd expected Seb to grow up. This Seb had all the extra muscles of a man with a physical job, not the lanky geekiness of the adult Seb she remembered. His shoulders were broad, his pectorals and stomach muscles defined, his legs powerful.

He was gorgeous—that was a fact. Strong. The tradesman's tan—where his olive skin abruptly became paler in the shape of a T-shirt and work shorts—did not even slightly distract from his perfection.

‘Mila?'

She shook her head.

‘You're not okay?' he asked. He stepped closer, as if to join her—or to check on her. Who knew?

‘No, no,' she said firmly. ‘I'm fine. Just getting out, though. It's all yours.'

He blinked, clearly confused.

Mila stepped aside, leaving the water running so he could step immediately beneath its warmth. She kept her distance, knowing that if she touched him she wouldn't be leaving the shower.

She felt his eyes on her as she grabbed a fluffy white towel and dried herself. For the first time she was aware of
her
nakedness. Was he reflecting, as well, on how her body had changed now that she was all grown-up? Or was he thinking of the other girl who'd run shrieking through those sprinklers all those years ago? Whose grown-up body he'd been far more familiar with. That he would've known almost as well as his own.

Suddenly it was all too much.

Her grief. Steph. Her time box. Seb.

Her procrastination was definitely over. She needed to leave. Not to be there any more.

I need to go
.

So she did.

In his kitchen, she scrawled a note on the back of a takeaway menu. Seb hadn't noticed her retreat. Or maybe he was just more
au fait
with how one should behave the morning after.

It didn't matter—what he thought, what we would have said if she'd given him the chance to say goodbye.

Why would it? She'd been crystal-clear:
I just want tonight.

And the night was over.

CHAPTER TEN

E
ACH
WEEK
S
EB
caught up with his parents for dinner.

Usually it was at a nice restaurant—his mum was a bit of a foodie, and took a lot of joy in sharing her favourite meals with her ‘favourite child'. He was also her
only
child, although that didn't really lessen the sentiment. In the months he'd been back in Perth he'd yet to eat dinner at his parents' place. He'd barely visited, actually. Deliberately. And this hadn't gone unnoticed by his always shrewd parents.

They never said anything—they were good like that—but his mum would invite him over occasionally. Never with any pressure, never with any questions as to why he consistently declined—but she'd still ask him. As if prodding a bruise:
Does this still hurt too much, darling?

As luck would have it, this week his mum, Monique, had invited him over for Sunday dinner. And she hadn't been at all successful in hiding her surprise when he'd accepted.

Seb parked his car in front of the four-car garage located just to the side of his parents' mammoth home. It had been his mum and dad's dream home when it had been built—Seb still remembered the excitement of the day they'd moved in, when his parents had run around exploring the rooms as excited as the pre-school-age Seb had been.

Over the years the house had been modernised, its exterior rendered to hide all that once fashionable feature brick, and Seb's old bedroom converted to a guest room many moons ago. But it would always feel like home to Seb—the place intrinsically linked with so many of his childhood memories.

He'd had the best pool in the street, for example—complete with a slide and a small diving board—which had just been
the coolest thing ever
. It had been a hub for his friends—and the backdrop to many of Mila, Steph and Seb's adventures.

They'd played Marco Polo, they'd hosted pool parties, and they'd even shared a bottle of peach schnapps in the small pool house, aged fifteen and sixteen. That hadn't ended well—with sore heads and furious parents.

But it was his memories with Steph—just Steph—that made it so hard for Seb to visit this place.

Laughing together in his bedroom as they'd studied—with parent-prescribed door open, of course. Steph joining his family for dinner, charming his parents. That one night after Steph's Year Twelve ball in the pool house...

Seb climbed out of his car, slamming the door harder than he'd intended. It was dusk, and huge jacaranda trees were throwing long shadows across the Fyfe mansion. Twin jacarandas also stood outside the mansion to the left: the mansion that had once belonged to Steph's parents. Not any more, though. They'd sold up shortly after the funeral. Now a millionaire mobile app entrepreneur lived there, his mum had said. Complete with the sunshine-yellow Lamborghini parked in the drive.

While he understood why her parents had moved, it didn't seem possible that it was no longer ‘
Steph's place
'. He'd always thought of it that way, even when they'd been living together in London.

He'd loved Steph. Really loved her. Once they'd been inseparable: that annoyingly happy couple that never argued. But as things had begun to fracture in their relationship Seb had wondered if maybe they'd married too young. They'd grown up together—but maybe they'd still had some growing up to do after they'd become husband and wife. Maybe if they hadn't both got caught up in their London dreams—if marriage hadn't conveniently provided Seb with the visa that Steph had by default through her mum's British heritage...

Maybe, maybe, maybe. Maybe they shouldn't have got married.

No
.

Seb couldn't wish away his marriage. He couldn't regret what they'd had. Once it had been special.

But he
could
regret his single-minded refusal to address the cracks—and later canyons—that had appeared between them.

He'd failed Stephanie. Driven her away, and driven her to—

‘Honey?'

His mother stood at the top of the limestone steps before the grand front door, a short distance away. Seb realised he hadn't moved, had simply been standing beside his car, staring blankly out at the street he'd grown up on.

‘Mum!' he said with a big smile, striding towards her.

She watched him carefully, not bothering to conceal her ‘worried parent' expression.

‘I'm okay,' Seb said, pre-empting her question as he sprang up the oversized steps. ‘Really.'

He followed his mum indoors. She talked about dinner as she led him down the hallway: she'd cooked something new, with salmon and something fancy that possibly sounded French.

His dad was in the kitchen, his hip propped against the large granite-topped island, a beer in his hand. The huge space faced a dining and living area of similar scale, and beyond that were large picture windows overlooking the glass-fenced pool and a spacious grassed area beyond.

‘You finally made it,' his dad said.

‘Kevin,'
his mum said. ‘Don't be so insensitive.'

He shrugged. ‘It's an observation—nothing more.'

Seb nodded. Once he would have been equally matter-of-fact. He'd learnt a lot about life's shades of grey in the past eighteen months.

‘I thought there might be too many memories here,' he said. He might as well be matter-of-fact about that too.

‘Are there?' his mum asked. She retrieved a bottle of wine from the fridge and held it up—a second unspoken question.

‘Yes, to the wine,' he said, ‘and I'm not sure about the memories. Not yet.' So far the house didn't feel at all as he'd expected.

Conversation moved on as Seb's dad set the table and Seb and his mother stood together by the stove as the salmon sizzled and spat. They talked about Seb's new business, about his parents' travel plans, the baby news of someone Seb had once gone to school with who Monique had bumped into at the supermarket...

Why had he come here? Why tonight, after he'd avoided it for so long?

Earlier, beside his car, Steph had been all he'd been able to think about. He'd expected to step inside the front door and for the emotion to be overwhelming: for the walls and floors to release his memories, for that familiar wave of grief to drown him again.

But it hadn't happened.

It had been five days since he'd seen Mila—since she'd silently exited his apartment without even a goodbye. Instead she'd left the briefest of notes.

We can't be friends any more.

That had been it.

It hadn't been unexpected—after all, that had been her response after their kiss. And their night together had been so much more. More...
everything
.

But at the time he'd hoped that
‘I just want tonight'
meant that the next morning they'd return to their regular friendship.

Or maybe that was just what he'd told himself to justify something he'd known was a truly terrible idea.

But—regardless—Seb still thought Mila's decision made no sense. Even less so now than after their kiss. Before, she'd argued that his attempts to reinvigorate their friendship were pointless because they'd both—according to Mila—neglected it for far too long. But surely the past few weeks had proved her theory wrong?

His attempts to contact her to discover the real problem had proved fruitless. She'd simply repeated her note, with slight variations, in her text messages, or simply not answered his calls at all.

It was frustrating.

But mostly it hurt like hell.

He missed Mila.

So for five days he'd worked like a man possessed—both in the Heliotrope offices and on site. Although not at the shop beside Mila's—instinctively he knew that now was not the time to push her. After nearly twenty-five years of friendship he at least knew that.

What he
didn't
know was how he felt about that night, aside from the fact it had led to Mila's removal from his life. He wasn't allowing himself to think about it—and his extreme work habits had allowed him to achieve that goal.

His priority was somehow getting Mila back in his life. That was all that mattered.

He looked down at his plate. He'd cleared it of every morsel, but had no recollection of actually eating it.

‘Dessert?' his mum asked.

He nodded.

So why come here tonight? To this house chock full of memories of Steph
and
of Mila? With every minute he was here—and with every disjointed thought that careened through his brain—it became clearer to him that it was not a coincidence.

He'd been wary of this place for so long. Wary of the pain he was so sure it would trigger. But he'd been wrong. In this house he felt comforted by history. By memories of giggling games of hide and seek and bowls of salty popcorn in front of the VCR.

Was that it? After five days without Mila he wanted to be near her—no matter how obliquely?

No. Not even close.

Finally he realised this had nothing to do with Mila.

This had everything to do with Steph.

Slowly he tuned back in to the conversation. His mum served up a still steaming apple pie, placing perfect little scoops of vanilla bean ice cream beside each piece.

‘Did you see it?' his mum asked.

Belatedly Seb realised she was talking to him.

‘Pardon me?'

‘The photo in that magazine. You know—the one that comes in the weekend paper.' She paused as she pressed the lid back onto the ice cream carton. ‘The photo of you and Mila Molyneux. At a film premiere.'

‘I didn't know you were seeing her,' said his dad. ‘I've always liked her—a straight talker, that girl.'

‘She does something crafty now,' his mum said, all conversationally. ‘Pots, is it?'

Seb shoved back his seat, needing to stand up. ‘I'm not seeing her,' he said.

But once he was standing he had no further plan. Just for something to do, he grabbed his empty wine glass and put it in the dishwasher.

Ah.
This
was it. This feeling when his parents mentioned Mila. That little leap in his pulse, the instant flashback to memories he'd not allowed himself to reflect upon.

That
was why he wanted to come here tonight. That was why he'd wanted to feel close to Steph...

Because Mila wasn't like the women he'd slept with in London.

Mila wasn't the first woman he'd slept with after Steph, but she was the first who mattered.

He didn't feel guilty—as if he'd cheated on Steph or anything. But it did feel significant. As significant as the day he'd stopped wearing his wedding band.

Does this mean I'm really moving on, Steph?

And was that also why he'd embargoed his own memories of that night? Had he hoped, somehow, that Mila
had
been like the others? Out of some form of misplaced loyalty to Steph?

Possibly. But that was stupid.

Had he hoped that because then it would be easy? Then he could easily argue to Mila that it had just been a bit of meaningless fun and there was no reason why their friendship couldn't go straight back to the way it had been.

She was the first one who mattered
. What did that even mean?

Seb had walked back to the table now and he ate his pie mindlessly, watching his ice cream become a puddle.

After dessert he stood up again. This time he ended up at the window. Outside it was now dark, the tall trees that lined the rear fence merging into the black sky.

‘Honey, is there anything you want to talk about?'

His mum's voice was gentle, her tone reassuring.

Seb ran his hands through his hair. ‘No.'

This definitely wasn't something he wanted to share with his parents: his brain full of Steph and Mila and messy confusion. He didn't want to share it with anybody. He wasn't good at talking about this stuff.

After Steph's death he'd had his PA back at Fyfe Technology find him a counsellor to talk to—it had seemed the sensible thing to do. What he would have organised for any member of his staff.

Besides, he'd hardly had other options. With Steph's death had come an ugly truth: not only had he not truly known his wife any more, but he was surrounded by a crowd of people who either worked for him or were nothing but the most superficial of acquaintances. His work had become his wife, his friend, his family.

He'd had nobody to talk to—except maybe his parents. And, as desperate as they'd been to help, he just hadn't been capable of revealing how pathetic he was, how little he'd known about the woman he'd once loved.

There'd been Mila, too—with her regular and then more intermittent emails and social media messages. She'd been the only one who'd persisted for more than a few weeks—she tried for months until he'd eventually driven her away with his calculated rudeness.

But he just hadn't been able to talk to her—not then.

He'd been broken, grief-stricken.

Ashamed.

So he'd gone to the counsellor his PA had booked. He'd sat in the waiting room. And then left without seeing her.

In the end, talking had seemed impossible. So he'd remained alone and silent.

Eventually—and it had come gradually, with no epiphany or any particular day he could remember—he hadn't wanted to be alone any more. So he'd sold Fyfe, despite its success, because of all it had represented and reminded him of. His flaws, his mistakes, those wasted years.

And he'd come home to be close to those who still truly cared for him. His parents. Mila.

One night
could not
be the end of his friendship with Mila.

It could
not
.

He pushed open the sliding door and stepped out onto the deck. A few metres away was the glass pool fence, twinkling in the light reflected from the house. It was cool, but still, outside.