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mind.
    â€˜Out!’ Mila said, as it landed a ball-width too wide of the centreline.
    She still hit it back, and he blocked it with his racquet, bouncing it a few times before shoving the ball in his pocket.
    â€˜Fifteen-all.’
    Mila held up her hand before he went to serve again, to indicate that he should wait. He watched as she fussed with her hair, pushing it behind her ears and sliding in the clips that kept it out of her eyes. There was absolutely nothing provocative about what she was doing—if he ignored the pull of her singlet against her skin as she raised her arms. And the shape of her waist and breasts that the thin material so relentlessly clung to.
    Which, despite his best efforts, he could not.
    He turned away abruptly, and for the first time in his life smashing his racquet into the unforgiving surface of the court seemed an excellent option. He could almost feel it—the satisfaction of channelling his body into destroying something rather than generating seriously inappropriate thoughts about Mila.
    His friend. His friend .
    Stephanie’s best friend.
    No, he wasn’t going to ruin his racquet—just as he would never allow himself to ruin things with Mila. He would not and he could not.
    Not much was clear to him any more except two things: his new business and his need to have Mila back in his life. Platonically. Because even if Mila saw him as more than the once awkward, occasionally pimply teenage nerd who had lived next door—which seemed unlikely—a relationship was not an option anyway.
    With Mila or with anyone.
    He stepped back to the baseline.
    Thwack .
    Ace.
    â€˜Thirty-fifteen.’
    There had been women since Stephanie. Two, to be exact. Meaningless, nothingness. Found in a fog of grief in London bars without even the decency to remember their names. He’d woken up alone and even emptier—so he’d stopped.
    It had been months since the last. Almost a year.
    Thwack. Thwack. Thwack.
    Winner—down the line.
    â€˜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.
    â€˜Ow,’ she said simply, with half a