“Have you told him?”
“Not yet. I’ll phone him in the morning, unless you wanted to—,”
“No,” she shook her head, wrapping her arms around her torso. Instinctively, she shied away from that conversation. She wasn’t sure she could trust herself to speak to Benji and not reveal too much, especially when she knew that he’d warned Leonidas not to pursue her. She swallowed past a lump in her throat. “You do it.”
Silence crackled in the air around them. There was nothing for it. She had to be brave, to tear off the Band Aid and face the future head on.
“I should leave in the morning.”
She waited, breath held, air crackling, pulse racing. He said nothing.
“I don’t want to inconvenience you…”
“It’s not an inconvenience.”
Her heart splintered.
“But you don’t have to leave immediately.”
Hope lifted her heart, ever so slightly.
“No?”
She felt him standing right behind her, his proximity setting her heart into overdrive.
“Stay another day. Stay two.”
Everything hurt and then she really knew, beyond a shadow of a doubt, how much he’d come to mean to her. How much she loved him.
“Stay with me.”
But how could she? Knowing leaving was inevitable, that a temporary reprieve would also be a form of torture, given how much she loved him, given how much that was in defiance of the rules they’d laid out. There were too many issues, too many problems. But did any of them really matter if they were in love?
Only…how could she think that? Realising that she loved him changed nothing about Leo’s feelings. He’d done a duty. A favour for Benji.
But surely she’d come to mean more than that to him? After all, he was asking her to stay. That wasn’t about Benji and it wasn’t about her security.
Slowly, she turned to face him, only to discover that he was right there, at her back, so they stood toe to toe, eyes latched, lips almost touching.
“Why would you ask me to stay?”
His features gave nothing away, and she waited in silence, until finally, his voice deep, he said, “You don’t think you deserve a break?”
“Sympathy?”
“Is it wrong of me to feel sorry for you?”
Hurt lashed her.
“You’ve been through an ordeal, Mila. Why shouldn’t you take a couple of days to heal from that? And where better than here, or in France, with me?”
“Where better indeed?” She asked with a frown, wondering if it was really possible for her to feel so much, and him to feel nothing? “And then what?” She whispered, surprised when the words came out, but not regretting them.
“You can go back to training.” He pressed his hands to her hips, holding her close. “I know what that means to you.”
“My career means the world to me,” she agreed, but the words didn’t quite ring true for Mila. Skating was still important, but it was no longer her sun, moon and sky.
“And it can still be that in two days, yes?”