Mila grinned as she hurried to greet her sister. Her nephew, Nate, was fast asleep in his pram on the other side of the fly screen, looking exactly as angelic as Ivy said he was not.
‘Mila? I mean it. I have about fifteen seconds.’
Mila dragged her gaze away from Nate to glance at her sister.
‘Maybe ten,’ Ivy clarified.
Quickly Mila flicked open the lock, and Ivy sprinted past her to the small powder room in the corner of the workshop used by Mila’s students.
‘You’ll understand one day,’ Ivy said as she slammed the toilet door, muttering something about eight-and-a-half-pound babies.
Mila stepped outside, then squatted in front of Nate’s pram. There wasn’t much space behind Mila’s shop—enough for Mila’s car, her bins, and a large collection of enthusiastically growing pot plants—all planted in an eclectic mix of pots and vessels that Mila had decided unfit for sale after firing.
Nate held Mila’s mail in his chubby fist, collected by Ivy from the letterbox beside the rear courtyard gate. Nate loved junk mail, and he was happily gazing at the lurid colours of a discount store brochure with intent.
She wasn’t exactly sure how old Nate was—nine months, maybe? He’d just started crawling, anyway, and talking in musical meaningless tones. He was so beautiful, with long eyelashes that brushed his cheeks and thick, curly blond hair. Both from his father, apparently—although Mila couldn’t yet see even a hint of Ivy’s hulking SAS soldier husband in delicate, picture-perfect Nate.
Ivy had taken to dropping by regularly—a result of Nate’s unwillingness to nap in his cot and, Mila thought, a latent ‘big sister’ instinct for Ivy to check up on her that had begun just after Steph had died. Originally it had taken the form of daily phone calls from Ivy’s office at Molyneux Tower, and had only metamorphosed into actual visits when Nate had come along and so adamantly refused to sleep.
Mila had always been close to both her sisters—but she hadn’t seen workaholic Ivy so often since they were kids living at home. And for that Mila figured she owed Nate one.
She leaned in closed to kiss his velvety cheek. ‘Nice work, kid.’
‘You know what I wish?’ Ivy asked a few minutes later, when they were settled with cups of tea on the old wooden church pew that edged one wall of the workshop. ‘That I could have banked all those hours of time I wasted over the years so I could have them now. Because, honestly, I don’t know how I ever thought I was busy before. This mum stuff is nuts.’
Mila raised her eyebrows. ‘You didn’t have any spare time to bank,’ she pointed out. Her big sister had always been the high-flying, high-achieving child in the family—groomed practically from birth to take over the Molyneux mining empire.
Ivy shrugged. ‘Maybe.’
Mila smiled. Ivy had never been good at acknowledging her obsession with work.
Her sister leant closer and spoke in a hushed tone. ‘This is going to sound terrible, but I’m really enjoying being back at work a few days a week. I can actually get stuff done. Yesterday I committed Molyneux Mining to a joint venture project with a British conglomerate. Today I’ve discovered that Nate no longer likes peas.’
‘Don’t worry,’ Mila said with a grin. ‘There isn’t actually a Mum Police.’
Ivy sighed. ‘Yeah, I know. There is definitely Mum Guilt, though.’
‘Hey,’ Mila said, catching Ivy’s gaze. ‘Don’t feel bad for enjoying the career you loved before Nate came along. He knows you love him.’
‘Words can’t describe how much.’ A long pause, then a wobbly bottom lip. ‘Oh, God, I’m going to blub. Now I can’t even blame breastfeeding hormones.’
Mila scooted closer to her sister so she could press her shoulder against Ivy’s as they sat together quietly with their now empty teacups.
‘Cake?’ Mila asked. ‘One of my students baked—’
The tinkling sound of the shop door being opened had Mila on her feet, giving a vague gesture towards the small fridge in the workshop kitchenette as she hurried out of the room.
‘Good morning—’ she began, then stopped. It was Seb. ‘Hi!’ she said, with a wide smile. Mila still wasn’t sure if reconnecting with Seb was a good idea—but she couldn’t deny that she was pleased to see him.
Seb lips quirked as he glanced at the forgotten teacup in her hand. ‘Busy day?’ he teased.
Mila shrugged. ‘I’ve had a flood of online orders this morning, actually, after one of my pieces was used in a feature in the latest Home + Home mag.’ She’d swallowed her pride over a year ago and accepted her sister April’s offer to feature one of her indoor planters on her hugely popular lifestyle blog. The subsequent interest from stylists and interior decorators hadn’t abated. ‘The store makes up a pretty small amount of my income,’ she continued, pointedly, ‘leaving plenty of time for guilt-free tea.’
‘That’s my favourite type of anything.’ He grinned. ‘And, really? “A pretty small amount”?’
‘Eighteen point two-three per cent. Down one point nine per cent from the previous quarter.’
‘There you go. Mila and her numbers.’
‘I had to be halfway decent at something at school, otherwise Mum would’ve completely disowned me.’ She hadn’t had much interest in anything other than maths, and had been truly terrible at pretending.
‘She probably wouldn’t have, you know.’ Ivy leant casually against the workshop doorframe, her eyes sparkling with curiosity as she glanced between Mila and Seb. ‘Probably.’
A pause, and Mila knew her sister had taken in Seb’s unfamiliar work clothes. ‘I didn’t realise you were visiting Perth. It’s good to see you.’
Under better circumstances. It went unsaid, but the fleeting reference to Stephanie still made Mila’s heart ache.
‘Not visiting,’ Seb said. ‘Back. For good.’
Those last two words he directed at Mila, and her awful, disloyal heart flipped over.
No. In the same minute her throat constricted at the memory of her friend. She was not allowed to get all fluttery about Sebastian. She crossed her arms in front of her chest, but that was completely ineffective. Instead, while Seb filled Ivy in on his new business venture, she deposited her teacup on the counter, then needlessly wiped a cloth over the vases in shades of teal and grey that were silhouetted like a skyline in her shop window.
‘Mila?’
She didn’t even look up at Seb’s voice, instead focusing her attention on a non-existent mark on a blue-green glaze.
‘I’m sorry—now isn’t really a good time,’ she said. Maybe if she appeared suitably busy he’d go away—and so would her inappropriate heart-flipping.
‘For what?’
She straightened to face him, once again crossing her arms. Aware that Ivy was watching, Mila didn’t really know what to say. What could she say? It’s not a good time for me to still be attracted to my best friend’s husband?
Accurate, but never, ever to be articulated.
At her continued silence, Seb leant a little closer. That didn’t help anything.
‘I thought you were okay with us being friends again?’
‘I am,’ she said. And she was. It wasn’t Seb’s fault she had faulty hormones—or whatever it was inside her that just would not quit when it came to Seb Fyfe.
Seb needed her right now. But she needed space. More time, maybe? To recalibrate to a world where she co-existed with Seb without