The Billionaire from Her Past (5 page)

‘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

M
ILA
'
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
.

Even so, her lips formed a perfectly straight line as she waited for his reaction. Would he be angry that she still spoke to her Dad? The way that Ivy and April were?

Seb knew the whole story. He'd experienced the fall-out of typical Blaine Spencer incidents, he'd listened to many Mila rants, and once—on that terrible sixteenth birthday—let her heavy tears and Gothic eyeliner soak into his T-shirt as she'd clung to him and Steph.

So maybe she'd see pity. Pity for the woman who—at almost thirty—wasn't all that further along in her emotional development than her sixteen-year-old self. At least, not when it came to her father.

He'd be right to be angry, or to pity her. Or both.

Hell. Mila was angry with
herself
. If she was her own friend she'd definitely pity herself, too.
I mean...how pathetic! Keeping that little hopeful wretched flame burning for a dad who doesn't deserve it...

‘You ready to go?' he said instead. ‘I'm starving.'

Then he smiled. And in that smile there was understanding and acknowledgement of all Seb knew about her relationship with Blaine Spencer. But there was no judgement, no anger. Certainly no pity. Just support and a gorgeous, heavenly Sebastian Fyfe smile.

It was
exactly
what she needed.

As was a lunch, spent window shopping as they walked and ate their Brazilian
choripán
hot dogs, talking about absolutely nothing important.

Until they arrived back at the rear entrance to Mila's shop, where a handful of her students were already chattering loudly inside.

‘I'm coming with you,' he said, firmly and abruptly. ‘I have no idea where you're meeting him, or what your plans are, but I'm coming. At least until I'm sure that idiot actually turns up to see the daughter he doesn't deserve.'

Mila blinked. ‘You are?'

‘I am. Text me the details once the selfish moron's assistant sends them.'

Mila found herself laughing rather than arguing—and then Sebastian was walking away, before she had a chance to say anything anyway. Although any argument would have rung hollow. Seb had known she needed him tomorrow night, even if she hadn't.

And right now she didn't care about anything else that might or might not be complicating things between them. She was just glad Seb was here.

* * *

‘Ivy has instructed me to convey her disapproval,' April said as she opened her front door. ‘However, Nate has just vomited all over her, so she's taking him to the doctor instead of telling you personally.'

‘Is he okay?' Mila asked as she followed April down her hallway. Her sister lived with her husband in an airy, modern home close to Cottesloe Beach, with heaps of windows and moody, muted artwork on the walls.

‘Ivy thinks so. She suspects he's eaten one of the older kid's crayons at playgroup, given his vomit is blue, but she's just making sure.'

‘Gross,' Mila said.

‘I can't wait,' said April, deadpan.

She and Evan were actively trying for a baby. April even said it like that—
‘We're actively trying'
—if anyone was dense enough to ask that intensely personal question. April said it made it sound as if they were having sex hanging from a chandelier.

They actually
did
have a chandelier—a modern version—and it was under all its sparkling refracted daylight that April had laid out a selection of evening gowns on her dining table.

‘Just to be clear,' she said, ‘I disapprove as well. He'll make you cry, and he's not worth it.'

That wasn't entirely accurate. Mila hadn't wasted her tears on her father for at least a decade. But she understood what April meant.

‘I thought you'd be angrier,' Mila said.

April shrugged. ‘You were wise to tell me via text. I got to be angry at you via Evan.'

‘I'm sorry.'

‘For Evan? Or for going to see Dad?'

‘For Evan,' Mila clarified. ‘Not for Dad. I
have
to see him. I can't not.'

April tilted her head. Her long blonde hair was piled up in high bun. ‘Hmm...I've been there. You'll grow out of it.'

Mila's jaw clenched, but there was no point in arguing. Although she was less than two years younger than April, and five years younger than Ivy, they both definitely suffered from an ingrained belief that they knew best when it came to Mila's life. The fact that they both resented similar behaviour from their mother when it came to
their
lives was utterly lost on them.