The Billionaire from Her Past

by Leah Ashton

  She did wonder when this would wear off. The little rush of butterflies in her stomach whenever she saw Seb. Or when he texted her. Or when her phone rang and his name came up on the screen.

  Part of her wanted it to. Because without these tingles and this excitement—this would end. There would be no more unspoken questions about what they were really doing or how long it would last. She would no longer have to halt her traitorous imagination which was so irresponsibly extrapolating their current closeness into plans for the future. A future with many more nights and weekends with Seb.

  And that was unwise. Because there were no expectations between them.

  She knew that, and she had to remember that. She had to learn from her past mistakes.

  Seb had picked up his slightly wonky pot, and was carefully sanding away any imperfections, exactly as Mila had instructed. She leant towards him, balancing her hand on his jeans-clad thigh, and kissed his cheek. Immediately Seb placed his pot back on the table—without much care—and kissed her back on the mouth, quite thoroughly.

  ‘Now, this,’ Seb said, his voice rough against her ear, ‘is a very interesting lesson...’

  ‘Oh, good!’ Mila said, leaning back and away from him, hiding her smile. She turned back to the pots and materials in front of them. ‘It’s always so exciting when my students are enthusiastic about glazes. But first—let’s learn all about using a wax resist.’

  Seb raised his eyebrows.

  Mila picked up a small bowl filled with pale blue liquid and a foam brush. She then explained to Seb how the wax resist would prevent the glaze from gluing their pots to her kiln, and then spent some time on more decorative uses of the product.

  As she applied the liquid carefully to the base of her pot Seb dragged his stool closer to hers, the wooden legs noisy against the floor. She glanced up. Seb was now so close their shoulders bumped.

  ‘I was too far away,’ he explained, his expression deliberately innocent. ‘I think it’s important I see every detail of this process. For my pottery education.’

  Mila bit her lip so she wouldn’t smile. ‘I really admire your diligence.’

  ‘Oh,’ he said, leaning even closer, ‘I really admire your—’

  A loud knock made Mila gasp. She pushed her stool backwards, away from Seb, hard enough that it fell to the floor with a clatter.

  Seb didn’t move at all. Instead he simply looked up towards the open workshop door and through the locked security screen.

  ‘Hello, Ivy,’ he said simply.

  With a deep breath Mila made herself calmly retrieve her fallen chair, put it back where it belonged, then turn to face her sister.

  ‘Hi!’ she said, sounding respectably close to normal. ‘What a nice surprise.’

  ‘Is it?’ Ivy asked, looking confused. ‘Don’t we do this every week?’

  From his pram, Nate gave a happy baby shout, his hands full of Ivy’s mail—colourful flyers and envelopes with plastic windows.

  Mila shook her head, unable to believe she’d completely forgotten about Ivy and Nate’s visit.

  Stupid heart-fluttering distracting tingles.

  She strode to the door with a smile, unlocking the door to let Ivy and Nate in. ‘Of course,’ she said. ‘I’m sorry. I don’t know what I was thinking.’

  Ivy was smiling as she pushed Nate’s pram over the small doorstep. ‘I could probably make a reasonable guess.’

  Mila’s cheeks warmed, but she didn’t say a thing. Surely through the fly screen Ivy couldn’t have seen too much?

  Seb didn’t seem to care. He walked over to kiss Ivy’s cheek, then dropped down to Nate’s level to smile at him.

  ‘So,’ Ivy said, ‘taking some private pottery classes, then, Seb?’

  Seb glanced at Mila.

  She glared at him. Don’t tell Ivy.

  His forehead crinkled in confusion. ‘Yes,’ he said, standing up. ‘I am.’

  Ivy blinked. ‘Oh. Should I go, then? I don’t want to intrude on your lesson time.’

  ‘You’re not,’ Mila interjected quickly. ‘We were just finishing up.’

  ‘Really?’ Ivy said, looking at the still neat table. She knew exactly what the workshop looked like at the end of one of Mila’s classes.

  ‘It would seem so,’ Seb said.

  That wasn’t at all helpful, and Mila shot him a pointed look. Why couldn’t he just go along with this?

  Instead his gaze was flat, unreadable.

  ‘Look,’ Ivy said, glancing between Mila and Seb, ‘I am going to go.’

  ‘Don’t—’ Mila began, but Ivy cut her off.

  ‘No,’ her sister said. ‘I should definitely go.’

  Ivy backed the pram away from Seb, then pushed it towards the door. She retrieved Mila’s mail from Nate and handed it to Mila with a long, concerned look. ‘You okay?’ she asked, very softly.

  Mila just nodded, then opened the door.

  ‘I’ll call you later,’ Ivy said over her shoulder as she pushed Nate out the door.

  Nate wailed in protest as they walked through the small rear courtyard and out to the access lane.

  Quite firmly, Mila locked the security door, then shut the wooden door with a heavy thud. She didn’t think it would work, but she tried it anyway:

  ‘So,’ Mila said with a forced smile. ‘Should we get back to the wonderful world of glazing techniques?’

  ‘No,’ Seb said. ‘I don’t think we should.’

  Mila nodded. ‘I’m sorry that was a bit weird,’ she said, with a deliberately casual tone.

  ‘It was weird,’ Seb said. ‘Why?’

  Seb hadn’t moved, so they stood a good distance apart—Seb near the workbench, Mila beside the door.

  Her instinct was to move closer to him. She didn’t like being so far away, especially when he was looking at her like that—not that she could really interpret it. Disillusioned, maybe? But why?

  ‘It’s no big deal,’ Mila said, attempting a nonchalant shrug. ‘I just didn’t want Ivy to know about us.’

  She marched back towards him, dropping her mail on the workbench. Now she was closer to Seb, but he was still a few, frustrating steps away, in the middle of the workshop. She picked up a bowl of glaze, stirring it unnecessarily.

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘What’s there to tell?’ Mila said. The glaze was a murky blue colour—a shade that would magically metamorphose into an incredible vibrant purple in the kiln.

  Seb crossed his arms. ‘I was unaware that I was your dirty little secret.’

  Mila paused in her stirring to catch his gaze. ‘Now, that is a little dramatic,’ she said.

  ‘I don’t know,’ Seb said. ‘You weren’t at all happy to be seen with me.’

  ‘Well,’ Mila said, ‘I wasn’t aware that you’d been telling everyone about us. What did your parents think when you told them you were sleeping with me?’

  There was a long pause. ‘I haven’t told them,’ he said eventually.

  ‘Exactly!’ Mila said. ‘So why do you care that I haven’t told my sisters?’

  ‘Because if my parents walked into a room while you and I were talking, or flirting—or kissing, even—there is no way I would run away from you.’

  It was on the tip of her tongue: I didn’t run away! But of course she had.

  ‘So in this hypothetical situation,’ Mila said, even more defensive now, ‘with you and me standing together and your parents right in front of us, what exactly would you say?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ Seb said. ‘I’d work it out at the time.’

  Mila shook her head. ‘No. You can’t be all offended and up on your high horse with me and get away with that. Tell me—I want to know what you would say. How you would describe us.’

  ‘It’s
no one’s business but ours what we do,’ Seb said. ‘We don’t need to define ourselves to anybody.’

  Mila rolled her eyes. ‘I’m really struggling to see how our positions are all that different.’

  Seb ran his hands through his hair, his frustration obvious in every tense line of his body. ‘I am aware that I’m not making the most logical argument,’ he said. Then he sighed. ‘All I know is that I really didn’t like it when you wanted to hide us from Ivy. I really didn’t.’

  She hadn’t liked it either, but she hadn’t felt she had a choice.

  Unless...

  ‘Define us,’ Mila said. Softly.

  ‘Pardon me?’

  At some point Mila had placed the bowl of glaze back on the table. Now she stepped close to Seb. ‘If you want me to tell Ivy, and April, and everybody else in my life, then let me know what to say.’ She smiled, but carefully.

  ‘I didn’t think you wanted to tell anybody?’ Seb said. ‘Isn’t that what we’re arguing about?’

  He was right, but somehow Mila had moved on from that. She didn’t care about Ivy right now, or what anyone thought.

  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

  MILA 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.