The Billionaire from Her Past (14 page)

Seb had said he didn't want to hide what they had. Deep down, Mila didn't either.

What did that mean?

‘Define
us
,' she repeated.

He looked uncomfortable, shifting his weight from foot to foot. But in typical Seb fashion his gaze didn't falter, even as she could practically see the cogs in his brain whirring at full speed.

‘I thought you were happy with this—with our...' He paused. ‘With us.'

Our relationship
. That was what he couldn't say.

That bothered her. And it really bothered her that it did.

‘I thought I was,' she said. ‘I thought we were both on the same page. It appears we're not.'

Seb shoved his hands into the pockets of his jeans. ‘Can we just forget the past twenty minutes ever happened?'

‘No.'

‘Didn't you want to forget it had ever happened just five minutes ago?'

She shrugged. ‘I changed my mind.'

There was a long silence. Seb just looked at her—
really
looked at her—as if trying to work out what she was thinking.

Which would be difficult, as she didn't really know herself.

This was too contradictory. Too confusing.

‘Mila?'

She'd been quiet too long. They both had. The silence was heavy with too much... Just too much. Too much thinking, too much everything.

‘I
really
want to forget this ever happened, Mila,' Seb was saying. His lips quirked upwards. ‘This is the most fun I've had in...as long as I can remember. Years.'

‘Me too,' she said. She couldn't pretend otherwise.

She realised she was tangling her fingers together and pulled her hands apart, laying her palms flat against her hips.

‘You know,' Mila said, ‘we weren't supposed to see each other every day.'

‘What do you mean?'

Mila glanced down at her scarlet-painted toes and her tan sandal straps. ‘This isn't what I expected.'

‘This isn't what I expected, either,' said Seb. But he didn't elaborate.

‘I think I need a definition, Seb. I need to know what
this
is.'

Mila knew this was all wrong—that this went against everything she'd been telling herself—but she was completely unable to stop it.

All along she'd been telling Seb that she didn't want to lie to herself. That she didn't want to pretend. But wasn't that exactly what she was doing? In the guise of keeping her distance? Of protecting herself?

She lifted her gaze, meeting his. Waiting.

‘What
are
we, Seb?' she prompted.

‘We're good,' he said, his voice a little rough. ‘We're right. Things feel right when I'm with you.'

‘And?' she prompted. They were nice words, but they didn't actually mean anything.

He was looking at her so intensely, looking right inside her.

‘That's it,' he said. ‘That's all I can offer.'

Nothing had changed.

Two weeks of laughing and pottery lessons, dinner and romantic mornings in bed...all irrelevant. They were still exactly where they'd started. Where they'd always been going: nowhere.

She'd known that. But it hadn't mattered. Now, for all her personal pep talks, she wanted more.

Now, she had a choice.

She could walk away—as she'd been trying to do ever since Seb had walked back into her life. It was the obvious decision. The intelligent one. If she had any chance of retaining control over her heart—and the pain that might be inflicted upon it—that was exactly what she should do.

Or she could stay. Which was the wrong decision. The nonsensical one. The one that had her all tangled up and clinging to hopes and dreams that would never materialise. That would lead, inevitably, to rejection. Because Seb would move on—just as Ben had. He would reject her—just as her father had.

But of course it was too late. Because the idea of not seeing Seb again—or even not seeing Seb
tomorrow
—made her heart ache.

She wasn't strong enough to walk away.

She hated that.

‘Mila?'

Calmly, she picked up the bowl of glaze again and settled herself back on her stool. She looked up at Seb and smiled. And it was genuine—even after all that just looking at him made her heart sing. It was infuriating, but it was also reality.

‘Should we get back to glazing your pot?'

She could see the disquiet in his gaze. Reality had intruded. Mila could no longer pretend that what they had was anything but temporary.

Seb had never wavered from thinking it was. That was obvious. And she'd made her choice. For however long this lasted.

But Seb had a choice, too. The perfect bubble surrounding their idyllic not-a-relationship had been destroyed with awkward questions and incomplete answers. Was this still what Seb wanted? Would he walk away? The way Mila couldn't?

The legs of Seb's stool scraped loudly on the floor as he dragged it beside Mila's.

‘Teach me everything you know about glazes,' he said.

Mila laughed out loud. ‘That could take a while.'

And so—for now, at least—it seemed Seb had made his choice, too.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

M
ILA
STOOD
IN
front of Seb's bathroom mirror. She'd stayed over last night. They'd made their own pizza and talked about their days. It had all seemed pretty normal—really no different from any other evening over the past few weeks.

Except Seb hadn't stayed over at
her
place the night before—the night of their disastrous discussion in her workshop. She hadn't invited him to stay, and he hadn't asked. At the time, some space had seemed like a good idea.

By the next morning she'd missed him. They'd organised to meet up after work—she'd told him she'd make up a batch of pizza dough and bring it over. When he'd called he'd sounded completely normal. She'd sounded normal too, she thought.

She hadn't really
felt
normal, though.

And there was a tension between them now. A tension she really didn't like.

Except when they touched. Or kissed. Or made love. Then—well, then there was still tension. But it was the delicious kind. The kind that made the preceding tension worth ignoring, or at the very least worth forgetting about.

But later—like now, as Mila got ready for work—there was nothing to distract her. To make her forget. Instead it was just obvious that everything had changed.

Seb stepped into the bathroom, his length reflected in the mirror. His gaze caught hers momentarily. He was working on site today, so was in his work clothes, his feet still bare.

His gaze didn't reveal much. Although there wasn't really anything to hide. It was crystal-clear what was going on.

No longer could they blithely carry on as they had before. Now they both knew they wanted different things.

Mila had reflected, of course, on how exactly she'd wanted Seb to answer her question. How she'd wanted Seb to define them.

There was really only one possible answer: she'd wanted Seb to say that she was his girlfriend.

It wasn't something she'd consciously considered. Up until the point when she'd asked Seb she hadn't allowed herself to think like that. Even now the concept felt slightly strange...that she could—theoretically—be Seb's
girlfriend
. It was a foreign label after a lifetime of friendship. But it was also the logical label—because she'd known the moment Ivy had walked in and seen them together that she wanted something more. Even as she had attempted to hide their relationship from her sister, she'd also wanted to flaunt it. And it was that contradiction that had fuelled her frustration, fuelled her need to demand from Seb answers he'd been unprepared to give.

But she couldn't regret asking her questions. No matter how badly Seb's response had hurt her.

With those questions she'd gained knowledge, and with that knowledge, choices. She might not have taken the opportunity to walk away from Seb then, but the option remained.

When it came to the men in her life, in recent memory she hadn't had a heck of a lot of control. It had been
their
choices that had impacted on
her
—while she'd had no choices at all.

So she
would
walk away from Seb—when she was ready. The uncomfortable tension between them meant it would probably be sooner rather than later, and that realisation was a sharp blow to her heart.

Mila brushed her teeth, as did Seb.

He applied sunscreen with a tropical coconut scent to his face, neck and arms as she did her make-up. Their eyes met again in the mirror as Mila applied her mascara.

And just like that the tension shifted. No longer awkward, but luxurious. Warm.
Hot
.

Mila re-capped her mascara calmly, placing it on the marble vanity. Then she turned to face Seb.

His gaze travelled all over her—caressing her legs, hips, waist, breasts...lips.

Mila smiled, then stood on her bare tiptoes to press her mouth against his. And that was that. The kiss was as intense and sexy and amazing and emotional as every kiss they'd ever had.

And later—with reapplied make-up and slightly rumpled clothing—when Mila walked out of the apartment building to her car she knew why she hadn't walked away.

Because not everything had changed between them. The connection between them that pulled them together so intensely had not deviated. It hadn't since that first kiss on the beach.

And that connection was so strong, and so unique—at least to Mila—she wasn't quite prepared to let go of it just yet.

* * *

A heatwave hit Perth the next day.

Seb stood on the side of the pool, his toes curling over the stone edging.

The diving board was long gone, tossed out during one of his parents' renovations. He missed it right now. He missed the way it would bend beneath his weight. He missed the slightly rough surface beneath the soles of his feet. He missed the satisfying
boing
noise it had made as he'd jumped.

Always one, two, three...
splash!

But now he remained on the edge of the pool, perfectly dry in his board shorts, enjoying the oppressive blanketing heat against his skin. Even enjoying the way his sweat beaded and dribbled down between his shoulder blades and along the slight trough of his spine.

He'd always liked this—this getting deliciously hot and uncomfortable, knowing that the relief of the water was within his reach. The anticipation was half the fun.

Mila, of course, had always jumped right in. She'd walk through the gate, dump her towel on any available surface and leap into the water straight away. Every time. Every
single
time.

Seb bent his knees and pushed off from the edge of the pool, diving sleekly into the water.

It was so ridiculously hot the water wasn't really even that cold. But it still felt glorious against his skin, washing away the sweat and the heat in an instant.

He surfaced at the far side, where it was shallow enough for him to stand. He turned, propping his back against the warm paving, and looked back across the pool. At the end was the pool house. Empty now, with his parents away on a cruise, the bi-fold doors all closed up.

It was the middle of the afternoon. All day he'd felt restless. The heat, he'd thought—although that had made no sense within his air-conditioned office.

In the end he'd rescheduled his afternoon meetings, deciding some physical exertion might be what he needed. But now he was here he acknowledged it wasn't as simple as finding an outlet for his unease.

If he was honest, the restlessness wasn't even new. It had been hovering for days.

Three days, actually.

Since that afternoon at the workshop.

Seb sank beneath the water, then pushed strongly off the wall with his feet, swimming an expansive breaststroke, under water, to the other side.

Nothing had changed between himself and Mila. At least, not on the surface.

They still saw each other daily. Still shared the same bed.

But things had changed.

Of course they had.

That afternoon had exposed the naiveté of their arrangement. It was all well and good to just go with the flow, and get caught up in the thrill of being ‘not just friends'—but it couldn't last for ever. He'd always known that. But he'd been ignoring it.

What had he thought would happen?
Really?

Had he hoped that after sleeping together for a few weeks he and Mila would magically morph back into ‘just friends' again? As if they'd simply needed to get it out of their system?

How stupid. How impossible.

He'd told himself he'd been honest and up-front with Mila. She knew his position on relationships. He'd been crystal-clear.

And he'd been honest that afternoon in the workshop. He'd been unwilling to define their relationship, but he'd told her how he'd felt, how she made him feel.

So he could tell himself that he'd done the right thing. That he was still a good guy.

But he wasn't.

Because when Mila had asked him to define their relationship she'd been telling him that she wanted more. He'd known that—of course he had.

And that had been his cue. His cue to end this—to walk away before it became even more complicated. Before he hurt her even more. And he knew he'd already caused her pain. He'd seen it in her eyes that afternoon.

But he hadn't walked away. In the end he hadn't been able to.

That had been as selfish as his refusal to go along with Mila's silent plea to hide their relationship from Ivy.

He'd had no right to react the way he had. But react he had, driven by an unexpected ache—disappointment, maybe?—that Mila didn't want the people she cared about to know about them. About the relationship he'd later refused to define.

And here he was—right amidst the tangle of contradictions that was Mila and Seb.

He couldn't give Mila what she wanted. But he also couldn't walk away.

How much longer could this last? How much longer could they continue to fall asleep on Mila's couch? Or to wake up in his bed together covered only in the morning sun? How long before what they had deteriorated? Before what they had became so complicated that walking away felt impossible? And staying together felt unbearable.

How long before their lives became about history and obligation and not...?

Love
.

Seb ducked under the water again. He swam as close to the bottom as he could, so that his knees and chest grazed the textured surface. When he reached the end he pushed off again, swimming another underwater lap, and then another—until his body was screaming for oxygen.

When he broke the surface he was gasping for air. He hauled himself out at the side of the pool and rolled immediately onto his back, water streaming from his body to cool the red-hot paving.

He looked up at the sun, right in the middle of the sky, blinding him so that he blinked and squinted.

This wasn't about love.

This was about finally doing the right thing by the women in his life.

He'd let Stephanie down—so badly. He wasn't going to make that mistake again. He just couldn't. He
wouldn't
.

He needed to do the right thing by Mila.

He needed to end it.

* * *

As Mila twisted the red and white sign to
‘Closed'
two familiar faces walked up to the glass shop door.

April and Ivy.

And Nate, in his pram—invisible beneath a canopy of muslins.

‘This is an intervention,' Ivy said in her big sister voice, crystal-clear through the glass.

Mila didn't really want to, but she opened the door. She'd been dodging Ivy's calls, so this was not unexpected. ‘I suppose you'd better come in,' she said.

‘We should,' April said, deliberately cheerful. ‘And, look—I brought doughnuts. Let's go upstairs.'

A few minutes later they were settled with cups of tea at Mila's dining table. Nate sat on an old hand-made quilt that had once been Mila's, sucking happily on a cracker that Ivy had produced from her handbag.

April had carefully sliced each of the different types of glazed doughnut into thirds, so they could all try each flavour. Unexpectedly, that simple, typically April gesture of kindness made Mila's eyes sting and fill with tears.

She blinked them away, annoyed with herself. What was she even upset about? But she wasn't fast enough.

‘Oh, honey,' Ivy said, scooting her chair closer so she could wrap her arm around Mila. ‘Please tell us what's going on. You had to know you couldn't get away with avoiding us for ever.'

April must have located her box of tissues, because they appeared on the table before her. Mila grabbed a couple, balling them together in her hands.

‘I don't know why I'm upset,' she said. ‘I don't have anything to be upset about.'

April raised an eyebrow. ‘You sure?'

‘Yes,' she said. Then, ‘No.'

Dammit
. She was supposed to be in control. Of what was happening with Seb. Of her emotions.

‘If it helps,' Ivy said, ‘April and I are confident that Sebastian Fyfe has not suddenly taken an interest in traditional pottery techniques. We've made an educated guess as to what's going on.'

‘I'd hoped I was more convincing the other day.'

Ivy laughed. ‘Mila, I practically had to fan myself when I walked in the door.
Nate
knew that Seb wasn't there to play with clay.'

Mila raised an eyebrow. ‘He actually
is
pretty interested in what I do.'

‘I'm sure he is,' said April, with a smile. ‘But he's more interested in
you
.'

Mila's cheeks were warm. ‘Okay...' she conceded.

‘So why the secrecy?' Ivy asked. ‘This isn't like you.'

Mila took her time selecting a doughnut piece, and then a bit longer to eat it. Even now her sisters knew something was going on with her and Seb, it was still difficult for her to articulate
what
, exactly.

‘Because we're not going out,' Mila said. ‘We're just sleeping together. Neither of us saw the point of telling anyone about something so temporary.'

‘
Is
it temporary?' asked April.

Mila nodded.

‘Is that what you want?' asked Ivy.

She shook her head.

‘Ah...' her sisters said, together.

Mila shrugged. ‘So that's it. But it's okay. I know what I'm doing.'

After a few moments Ivy said carefully, ‘And what's that?'

‘Look,' Mila said firmly. ‘You really don't have to worry about me. I'll be fine. I'm not being stupid.'

‘You're never stupid, Mila!' April said, raising her eyebrows.

Mila rolled her eyes. ‘Oh, come on—you both think I'm stupid every time I answer one of Dad's phone calls. And you both thought Ben was a massive loser, long before he cheated on me.'