Page 21 of Prudence (Balfe Family #1)

Derek

Even with all her gorgeous hair tucked under her swim hat, Milly O’Shea was impossibly beautiful.

I felt an echo of the feelings she used to stir in me as a lovesick teenager, and it pissed me off.

I hadn’t seen her in almost two decades.

How was it fair that she could still transfix me even after all this time?

What God with a dark sense of humour had decided to curse me now?

My eyes traced the water droplets collecting at her collarbones, the rise and fall of her chest, distracting me from the words coming out of her plump, heart-shaped lips.

“What?” I asked, my voice full of gravel as I wrangled with my reaction to seeing her for the second time today. She wore a blue one piece that clung to her petite, curvy frame, her beaded nipples impossible to miss. She’d only gotten sexier with age, her body an impossible distraction.

Milly pressed her lips together, her eyelids fluttering like they used to when she was nervous. “I said, I promise I’m not stalking you.”

I arched an eyebrow at her statement, refusing to let my mouth round into a smile.

She was fucking adorable, and I hated how much power she still had over me.

My life was a shitshow right now, and I didn’t need the addition of the first woman I’d ever loved moving back into town.

When my sister had told me Milly had come home, I’d made the decision there and then to avoid her.

I had too much on my plate without being reminded of the most painful rejection of my life.

“Hard to believe,” I said at last, and her pretty lashes fluttered at my response.

“Oh, come on. You honestly don’t think that—”

Before she could finish the sentence, I strode away.

I wasn’t trying to be an arsehole, but I just couldn’t allow myself to stand there and make conversation with her.

If I spent more than a few brief moments in Milly’s company, all those old feelings would begin to resurface even more, and as I said, I didn’t have the time.

It was important that I focused on myself and my kids and nothing else.

And yes, I knew she wasn’t stalking me. She’d clearly gone out of her way to find a pool outside of town for the very purpose of avoiding me.

What she didn’t factor in was that I was also avoiding people, namely my friends and family whose overbearing concern for my recent behaviour change was weighing on me.

So, I didn’t use the pool at the hotel and instead came here.

I felt a strange tightness in my chest to know that Milly still swam. It was something we used to do together, and the fact that she was here had me feeling a pinch of nostalgia.

See? This was the problem. When it came to Milly O’Shea, it was impossible to keep from being sucked into her orbit. I’d never been able to resist her pull, and she was a weakness I didn’t need when I was already struggling just to get through each day.

My ex-wife, Paloma, had left last month to go on tour for a year with the famous pop singer, Rosanna Dove.

My son, Pablo, wasn’t too fussed about her leaving, ever the unflappable sixteen year old boy.

Unfortunately, her absence was badly affecting my daughter, Gigi.

Paloma was a violinist, and she’d used to go on tour all the time back before we’d had kids and settled down.

At the time, it had been what she’d wanted.

Being a travelling musician had been a struggle, and she’d been tired of the low pay, dealing with bad managers and even worse venue owners.

She’d been ready for a change, and even though I’d been willing to work fewer hours to help take care of the kids, she wouldn’t hear of it.

She’d wanted to be a stay-at-home mother, but then over time, things had changed.

She’d missed the excitement of being on the road, the thrill of performing.

We’d also grown apart in our relationship, and in the end, she’d suggested a divorce.

I’d agreed it was the right choice for both of us, and we’d ended up sharing custody while Paloma restarted her music career.

Fast forward a few years and she’d gotten this life-changing offer to play with Rosanna Dove.

She’d snatched it with both hands, and I didn’t blame her. It was the opportunity of a lifetime, and though she loved Gigi and Pablo, she loved her career, too. She deserved the chance to fulfil her dreams.

My son and daughter were sixteen and fourteen, respectively, and I was happy to have full custody of them while Paloma toured.

Since our daughter had taken Paloma’s decision to leave so hard, she felt like she was being abandoned, and it had plunged her into depression.

Not too long ago, she’d taken a bunch of over-the-counter pain medication, and I’d gotten there just in time to rush her to the hospital.

She still refused to explain to me whether she’d simply been trying to dull her pain or if it were something much worse.

I could hardly bring myself to contemplate the latter, and I’d started taking her to see a psychologist on a weekly basis.

I’d been hopeful that the sessions would help, but Gigi was still as withdrawn as ever.

I was floundering for a way to help her and just felt so fucking useless.

On top of this, my dad was planning to retire in a couple months and had asked me to take over running the hotel franchise.

It was something I’d worked towards my entire career—something I’d looked forward to even—but now that the transition was imminent and Dad was preparing to hand over the reins, I was panicking.

What if I fucked up and ran the hotels into the ground?

What if everything my dad had built over the last forty years crumbled under my leadership?

I’d started to suffer panic attacks and had lost the ability to function as efficiently as I used to.

Dad had noticed and told me we could hold off on making it official until I felt ready.

But I wasn’t sure when that would happen.

I’d always been confident in my abilities, but suddenly, I was adrift.

The fear of letting my father and everyone else down was debilitating.

On the advice of a friend, I’d visited my GP and told him everything I was experiencing.

My hope had been that there was some miracle pill that could cure what I was going through, whether it was depression or anxiety or something else.

No such luck. My doctor had deduced that I was going through something similar to a mid-life crisis, and the upheaval going on in my life was causing anxiety, which was in turn making me resort to something known as “withdrawal from process.”

According to him, I was so overwhelmed by situations outside of my control that I was withdrawing from things I used to take in my stride.

I’d stopped taking as much care with my appearance, didn’t exercise like I used to and was constantly avoiding going to my parents’ house for family dinners or meeting up with friends.

I was grouchy, drinking too much and generally unpleasant to be around.

Outside of working and taking care of my kids, I kept to myself.

Mam’s birthday party was supposed to be a step in the right direction, an attempt to start attending family gatherings again.

But then I saw Milly, and it made me feel like walking right back out the door.

My doctor had me on a regime of weekly mindfulness classes and monthly sessions with a counsellor.

He also recommended I avoid alcohol and try to eat as healthily as possible while focusing on getting a good amount of sleep.

I’d started swimming and running again, and it was improving my moods somewhat.

All in all, I was making headway, though not drinking had been tough, and I’d slipped a few times.

Two days after my run in with Milly at the pool, I arrived home from work to a sound I hadn’t heard in months: my daughter’s laughter.

I stood in the entryway to the apartment, my keys clutched in my hand as something released within me.

I hadn’t even realised how much tension I’d been holding until that very moment.

Hearing Gigi laugh in such a joyous way filled me with a kind of relief I hadn’t known I’d needed.

Walking into the kitchen, I found Pablo sitting at the counter eating a sandwich and scrolling on his phone.

My son was getting taller by the day, his thick mop of dark hair a shaggy mess and his oversized hoodie looking like it could use a run through the washing machine.

Pablo was nothing like me at sixteen. I’d been an outdoorsy lad who’d loved to run and work out and go to parties.

Pablo much preferred to hang out with his small group of friends and have gaming marathons in his bedroom.

Well, that was one thing we had in common because I’d loved gaming as a teenager, too.

“Gigi has a new friend over,” Pablo said, barely lifting his gaze from his phone.

“Oh?” I asked as I opened the fridge and checked what there was to throw together for dinner, though clearly my son had beaten me to it with his sandwich.

I needed to start meal prepping or something because my kids were always hungry and resorting to making their own dinners by the time I got home from work.

“Some new girl from school. She’s crazy about Purple Beatrice, too.”