Page 67 of Reckless Hearts

“Nice day for it,” he puffs out.

“For a run or a wedding?” I ask.

“Both.” He smiles, and I’m fucking lost. Oh holy hell, there’s no escaping the fact that even after seven years, I still have an incomprehensible desire for this man.

“I didn’t know you ran,” Seb’s saying, and I snap my attention back to our conversation.

“I didn’t used to. But it turns out there are different standards on your physique when you’re a Hollywood actor compared to an Otago University law student.”

“I can imagine.” Seb’s eyes rake down me. His lips part slightly, as if he’s about to say something, then close again. He raises his eyes, a flush spreading up his neck and onto his face.

That blush. Fuck, that blush was always my undoing.

I swallow hard, looking out to the ocean.

“Tell me a scientific fact about the ocean,” I say softly.

Seb hesitates for a second before he speaks. “Did you know that the deepest part of the ocean, the Challenger Deep, is so deep that if you put Mount Everest at the bottom, its peak would still be more than a mile underwater?”

“Sounds like the perfect hiding spot for when the paparazzi get too much,” I say as I stare out at the endless horizon.

There are a few moments of silence between us.

“You never messaged me,” Seb says abruptly.

I jerk my head to look at him. He’s staring at me, and I’m pretty sure he’s trying for a nonchalant expression, but he’s missing it by a mile.

Fuck.

What can I say?

I owe Seb the truth.

“I’m sorry,” I say. “I was trying…trying to leave everything behind.”

Seb’s shoulders slump, his gaze dropping to the sand between us. His fingers fidget with the hem of his T-shirt. “I thought…I thought that showed it had meant nothing to you.”

“It meant something,” I say. “Are you kidding me, Seb? Ours was the longest relationship I’ve ever had.”

His Adam’s apple works. “It was a relationship, wasn’t it?”

“I was a twenty-one-year-old idiot, but yeah, it was. Well, it was the closest thing I’ve ever had to one.”

He lets out a breath. “It’s good to hear you say that. I thought maybe I’d imagined it all.”

“You didn’t imagine it.” I let out a shaky laugh, although there’s nothing particularly funny going on right now. “It took me a while to get over you.”

I can’t believe I’ve said that. But something about Seb has always made me comfortable revealing the real me.

He raises his gaze to meet mine. “It took me a while to get over you too,” he says softly.

We remain locked in each other’s gaze for a few heartbeats before I glance at the sand.

“What about now?” I ask. “Do you have a boyfriend now?”

“Not at the moment. I had a boyfriend while I was doing my PhD. He was in the botany department, and with me in the zoology department, it was always going to be doomed.”Seb throws me a grin. “Since I moved to Auckland, I’ve been concentrating on my research.”

“Oh, right.”