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.’
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