Page 61 of Milo
“Have you ever been here before?’
I shake my head. “No. We went skiing in Austria when we were kids.”
“How are you at skiing?”
I consider. “I’m pretty good, but I’m better at snowboarding.” I nudge him, thinking of the fact that he was practically skiingbefore he could walk. “Don’t worry, you won’t have to babysit me. I know you and Gideon are good, but I’ll keep up.”
He frowns and shoots a look at my brother who is sitting on his other side, his face blank as he stares out at the village. Niall turns back to me. “I don’t want you to have to keep up,” he whispers. “I’m here with you.”
I look involuntarily at the other people in the minivan – my brother, Jacinta, her friend Sam who’s a fellow model, Jacinta’s sister Daisy and Daisy’s husband, Adam. Niall shrugs and leans in and I shudder at the feel of his breath on my ear. “If it was up to me it would be just the two of us.”
I want to say that itwasup to him because it’s his house for fuck’s sake, and he must read that on my face the way he does so much because he shrugs awkwardly. “I couldn’t,” he whispers. “I just couldn’t, not after what I told him earlier about no more between me and him. And then Jacinta was sitting there so I had to ask her. Everything just snowballed.”
I look into his blue eyes shining palely in the dim light and warmth fills me along with understanding. Of course he couldn’t leave anyone out. He cares for my brother, and I wouldn’t have wanted that last conversation between them to be the end of their friendship. I squeeze his hand in silent comradeship and inhale as he lifts my hand and drops an absentminded kiss on my fingers.
I go back to staring out of the window, his hand a warm weight on my leg. In the glass, I can see a reflection of my brother and I frown. I love him dearly and would do anything for him. Apart from share Niall. I grimace and watch it ruffle my forehead in the glass. I shouldn’t be so territorial over what was supposed to be a hook-up. Niall was never going to be mine, so why does it feel like he was meant to be? Why is it so painful to imagine us parting and him moving on?
I try to remind myself that he’s not what I’m looking for, and I endeavour to bring up my image of the perfect man. However, I can’t see him properly anymore because Niall blots him out like he’s standing in front of a quiet, peaceful man and replacing him with all that he is. Sardonic and funny, quick-minded and kind. Forceful and confident, I remind myself for the billionth time, but it doesn’t seem to have the same impact anymore and I sigh.
The car slowing pulls me out of my thoughts and I look out, eager to see the chalet which Niall said was called The Little House. The car pulls up the hill and onto the drive in front of a beautiful chalet, making me smile because that name was a misnomer. It’s big and three storied but almost higgledy-piggledy looking, as if there have been many additions made to it as the time has passed. Constructed of local stone and wood, it looks incredibly welcoming with lights blazing in every window and spilling their warm light onto the drive.
The others exclaim and get out, chattering madly, and I climb out at a slower pace, stretching and looking around. The air is crisp and so cold it seems to sear my throat. I shiver and drag my coat around me. Niall comes up next to me and slings his arm around my shoulder, and I lean gratefully into his side so I can feel the furnace-level heat of his body.
“What’s the forecast for snow?” I ask. “Is it going to be good for skiing?”
He looks around, raising his face to the breeze and breathing in. “There’s snow in those clouds and on the wind,” he says decisively. “A lot of snow.”
I smile and shake my head as he looks around happily. He’s a force to be reckoned with at home, and the men who work for him adore him. He’s always ready with a joke and a smile but he’s equally prepared to muck in with anyone to help. However, seeing him here, relaxed and happy, he looks younger somehow, as if he wears a mantle of responsibility that he doesn’t allowanyone to see is heavy. I nestle closer to him. I want to help him with that, make him smile and look after him, and somehow at this moment that doesn’t seem like an insurmountable desire the way it used to when I was a teenager mooning over him.
He moves away to help with the luggage and I rush to help him, only to come up short when I find Gideon already at his side. They haul the bags together, chatting and laughing with Jacinta and the others, and for a second I feel a resurgence of that sense of inferiority. These are all wealthy and successful people with years of friendship. The friendship may have boiled down to how many positions they could shag in, but they all have an air of success compared to me, a failed picture restorer hiding away on an estate in Cornwall where the world can’t find him.
Then I mentally kick myself in the arse. I’m more than that and Niall sees it, so I make myself smile at Niall and follow everyone into the warmth of the house, inhaling the scent of pine and cinnamon that greets me.
We’re greeted by a small woman with grey hair curled neatly into the nape of her neck. She giggles as Niall sweeps her into his arms. I gape as he launches into a fast-paced conversation in German.
“Didn’t you know he was multilingual?” my brother asks, bringing the final bag in and dumping it at my feet in the wood-panelled foyer with a staircase that twists out of sight. “He speaks French, German, and Swedish.” I open my mouth to say that I knew he spoke Swedish because his mother is Swedish for Christ’s sake, but he tuts disapprovingly before I can say anything. “Maybe stop having sex long enough to get to know him, Milo. There’s more to him than a big cock.”
“Well, you’d know about that,” I say waspishly, stung because he’s right and cross because he knows so much more about Niall than I do.
He smiles slowly. “Idoknow that, Milo. Is it going to be a problem?”
“No,” I say hurriedly. We don’t need to do this in the foyer of someone’s home. “No, of course not.”
For some reason, he looks almost disappointed in me, but the expression falls from his face too quickly for me to tell.
Niall turns to us and the old woman coos and goes to hug my brother, smiling happily with the ease of familiarity. My stomach tightens, and Niall comes over to me with a frown playing on his face. “You okay?”
“I’m fine,” I say quickly.
“Okay, let me introduce Sofia to you.” He calls her over and says something in scattershot German. She smiles adoringly at him, giving me the same smile and making some of my tension drop. She turns to Niall and says something with a lilt of laughter in her voice, but I don’t take offense because her eyes are so warm. She turns away and Niall grins. “Sofia says how pretty you are. All hair and eyes.”
“That makes me sound like Dougal fromThe Magic Roundabout,” I whisper, and he laughs and hugs me close.
“Let me feel your nose just to be sure it’s wet.”
I swat his hand away, grinning in spite of myself. “Were you speaking German?”
“Yes. Do you speak any languages?”
