He stopped speaking and stared at her for a moment as she struggled with her fear. Leave me alone, she yelled in her head, although her mouth refused to form the words.
Then he moved closer to her. He looked down at her with warm hazel eyes. “Megan?” he said again. “It’s Dion. You remember me, don’t you?”
“D-Dion?” She blinked rapidly, her back against the bridge, clutching at the stone with cold hands.
“Dion Wallace,” he said patiently. “Sean’s friend. I used to live across the road from you in New Zealand.”
Recognition hit her. Dion. Of course. It had been a long time since she’d seen him—years and years. He looked different—plus of course he was out of context here in Eastern Europe.
He’d always been tall, but he’d filled out—he’d lost the lean, hungry look he’d sported as a teenager, and his shoulders had broadened to an impressive width. His face, though still youthful, had lost its baby fluff and a hint of manly stubble covered the strong jaw. The eyes were the same though. Kind and gentle, like the day he’d walked her home from the fair with Sean.
Warmth flooded through her, melting her frozen muscles, loosening her tongue a little. “Sorry Dion, yes of course I remember you. I’m…” She swallowed, wishing her brain would function properly. “I was going to…” She couldn’t think what to say. The same embarrassment she’d felt at the fair all those years ago washed over her while his handsome face studied her with concern, and she bit her lip, tears pricking her eyelids.
He picked up her hand and tucked it in the crook of his arm. “There’s a bench at the end of the bridge overlooking the river. Want to come and sit with me? I’d love to catch up.”
“Oh…okay.” She let him lead her along the road, past the vendors displaying their souvenirs and the stalls selling sausages and pastries.
“You should be wearing gloves,” Dion scolded. He placed his large hand in its leather glove over hers. “It’s cold here, isn’t it? Not like the Northland, eh? I bet the sun’s shining in Kerikeri at the moment. It was always so warm there. You remember that Christmas Day we spent at Matauri Bay? We used half a dozen bottles of sun lotion that day and we still went home looking like lobsters.”
He continued to talk, not waiting for an answer, his voice low and comforting. Part of her realised he was trying to calm her the way Sean had taught him all those years before—by talking about familiar things, using the tone he would have used on a frightened or injured animal, or a child.
At any other time she would have been affronted at being patronised like that and told him where to stick his sympathy, but the technique had always worked during an attack, and it worked now. Her breathing slowed, the panic abating, and she felt relieved to be with someone she knew, even though she hadn’t seen him for a long time.
They reached the end of the bridge and he turned toward the bench to one side, overlooking the river. He led her over to it and brushed the layer of snow off with a gloved hand. They sat, but he didn’t let go of her hand.
Out of the main flow of traffic and people, the noise died down, and she leaned back against the bench, aware of his arm pressed against hers. Since arriving in Prague everything had seemed dreamlike, but Dion was so real, solid and tangible.
She took a deep breath and let it out slowly, shakily. He’d stopped speaking, but he didn’t look at her. Instead, he watched the flakes settling on the stone wall in front of them. He’d obviously remembered that she hated being stared at—that the worst thing about her phobia was embarrassing herself in front of people.
Feeling a bit calmer, she risked a glance up at him. The snow settled on his dark hair and his shoulders. For the first time she took in his clothing—the long, expensive, black coat, and beneath it what looked like a quality, tailored, dark grey suit. He looked and smelled rich, classy.
He turned his head to look at her for the first time, and their gazes locked. Her breath caught in her throat, but this time desire and not panic caused her heart to pick up its pace.
She’d forgotten how gorgeous he was. She’d had a crush on him since the first day they met. He’d laughed at her painting and she’d feigned anger, but inside she’d melted when he grinned at her. Her infatuation had continued to grow through her teenage years, but she’d kept it well hidden, mostly because Sean had told her his mates were out of bounds, but also because Dion tended to treat her like an annoying younger sister, and she played up to the role, smart-mouthing him until he grew exasperated and yelled at her to go away.
That had all changed when his mother died and he came to live with them.
He was eighteen, and although his father had pressured him to go to England, her parents offered to have him stay with them until he finished his school exams. It was the best and the worst six months of her life.
Young, impressionable and bursting with hormones, she fell heavily for him, entranced by the sometimes moody, sometimes aggressive James Dean lookalike. But she assumed he didn’t return her affection, until the night of the midwinter party the June after she turned fifteen in the April.
She’d gone outside for some fresh air, feeling the need to escape the throng of people indoors for the first time that evening. Alone on the cool deck, she started singing to the Foo Fighters song they were playing inside, and when she glanced over her shoulder, Dion was standing there watching her, leaning against the doorjamb, smiling.
He didn’t say a word, but he walked over to her and, before she said anything, pulled her into his arms and kissed her.
She’d never kissed anyone before, and it blew her mind. He cupped her head with a hand and tightened his other arm around her, and his lips were firm and warm. They moved across hers with slow, soft kisses which were thrilling enough, but when his tongue brushed hers, her head nearly exploded. She gasped, her mouth opening beneath his, and he deepened the kiss, pulling her tightly to him and leaving her in no doubt how much he was enjoying the embrace.
Later, she supposed she should have been shocked and pushed him away, but at the time she returned it whole heartedly with unfettered passion. She pressed herself up against him and tightened her fingers in his hair, filled with excitement and longing as he gave a deep groan and pushed her against the wall.
But it had all come to a terrible end when her father walked out and found them. He yelled at Dion, and told her to go to her room. After the party a huge argument erupted during which her father accused Dion of taking advantage of their generous nature by trying to seduce his daughter. Dion denied it, but her father didn’t let either of them get a word in edgeways. He rang Dion’s father in the UK, and within a few days Dion had boarded a plane to England.
She didn’t get a chance to speak to him alone again. The day he left, she was allowed to say goodbye, but her father stood three feet away with his arms crossed the entire time. She cried and Dion looked distraught. He apologised and told her he’d miss her, and in spite of her father’s thunderous glare, he reached and brushed the back of his fingers against her cheek.
After he left, she wrote him a long letter telling him her feelings and explaining how much she loved him. It was seven pages long, and she poured into it all the emotion she’d bottled up for years.
Then she ripped it up.
She’d thought about asking him to be friends on Facebook, but in the end decided it would be too painful. Instead she relied on the odd bit of news from Sean to find out what he was doing. She heard when he finished university and graduated with an honours degree in English literature, which he loved. She felt sad when he went to work at his father’s paper mill, knowing he would have preferred to go into teaching, but as the years went by, he rose higher and higher through the large firm until he practically ran it for his father. Sean said he’d seen photos of him, although no wife or children featured in the pictures.
But she never spoke to him again.
The snow coated his hair thickly, but he didn’t move, his eyes following the flakes as they rested on he
r eyelashes, her lips. She licked them off automatically, and didn’t miss the way his gaze slid to her mouth.
Did he have any idea how long she’d pined for him? Half the time she thought she hated him for leaving her—the other half she yearned for him to return. Eventually, she’d come to terms with the fact that he wasn’t coming back, and she forced herself to move on. She went to university and met Cody, thought she loved him and agreed to marry him.
But staring up at Dion, her heart racing as his eyes met hers again, she finally realised she’d never really got over him. Had Cody guessed that? Was that part of the reason things hadn’t worked out between them?
Dion reached out a gloved hand and, as he had all those years ago, touched the back of his fingers against her cheek. Then, to her shock and surprise, he bent his head and kissed her.
Chapter Five
The warning bells rang in Dion’s head even as their lips touched.
What the hell was he doing? Not only had Megan had a panic attack, but he hadn’t seen her in eight years. She could be married with three kids as far as he knew. And he had the nerve to plant his lips on hers like he owned her.
Just as that time he’d kissed her at the midwinter party, she inhaled sharply, but she didn’t pull away. Her mouth curved beneath his, though, and when he lifted his head, he saw she was smiling.
“Hello, Dion,” she said, and burst out laughing.
He grinned back ruefully, although in his head he berated himself. What the hell? You idiot! You’re lucky she didn’t slap you. But the kiss had been instinctive, a gesture that said a dozen things from “Hello” to “I’ve missed you” to “It’ll be okay”, born out of a need to comfort her and a rush of pleasure at recognising her, as well as a reaction to the fact that, well, to be perfectly honest she looked fucking hot.
His gaze had been drawn to her even before he’d recognised her. In her scarlet coat, she’d stood out like a flower against the snowy vista, and her long, shiny brown hair had caught his eye. His legs had moved him automatically along the bridge to catch a glimpse of her face, and only then had he realised he knew her.
She’d changed, and yet at the same time she hadn’t. She’d lost the braces she’d had as a teenager, and her teeth were straight and white. The youthful plumpness had vanished, making her high cheekbones stand out, which somehow emphasised her beautiful green eyes. Her smooth, pale skin had flushed from the cold. She was both familiar and exotic, and his heart raced with uncharacteristic speed at a mere kiss.
Still, he shouldn’t have done it. “Sorry,” he said guiltily. “I don’t know why I did that.”
“Jeez, don’t apologise. That’s the best thing that’s happened to me for months.” Her heartfelt reply convinced him of her honesty. What did that mean? Had she been having a bad time?
She glanced around. “What are you doing here? Are you with friends? Family?”
“No, on business,” he said, smiling at her lovely Kiwi lilt. He’d missed it. “We’re taking over a large Czech paper firm and I’m here to seal the deal tomorrow. I arrived this morning and thought I’d see a few of the sights.”
She nodded, smiling. Relief filtered through him that her panic attack had passed. As soon as he’d started talking to her on the bridge, he’d realised what was happening.
“What are you doing here?” he asked. In her younger days, she’d disliked going anywhere on her own, too worried about having an attack without someone with her.
She opened her mouth to reply, hesitated and then blew out her breath in a rush. “Long story.”
“I’ve got all afternoon.”
She rolled her eyes. “Okay. Fiancé dumped me. Decided to take the already-booked romantic break on my own in a fit of rebelliousness.” She tipped her head. “Okay, maybe it wasn’t such a long story.”
He smiled at her quip, but her words also made him frown. “That sucks.”
“Yeah. Big time.”
“How long had you been engaged?”
“Nearly three years. I found him in bed with another woman.” She bit her lip.
“Oh for fuck’s sake.” Exasperation flooded him at the stupidity of his sex.
“Mm.” She hesitated, and her cheeks reddened, this time not from the cold. “I’m sorry. I don’t know why I told you that. Jeez, we’ve been talking two minutes and I’ve blabbed out my entire life story.”
He smiled. “That’s okay—it’s good to catch up. I’ve wondered a lot about you.” That was a vast understatement. The memory of the girl he’d kissed that fateful night had haunted him for eight years.
Their gazes met again, and for a moment they just studied each other. Even after all this time, something about her raised his inner thermostat. She was looking at him the way she’d looked at him at the midwinter party, with a strange mixture of desire and mischievousness that sent the blood surging to his groin. He’d changed so much from the teenager he’d been then, but he was surprised to find his feelings toward her hadn’t altered.
She shivered, and he became aware of the snowflakes falling on her hair and shoulders. He should say his goodbyes and get back to the hotel—he had paperwork to do, plus he wanted to rehearse the speech he’d prepared for the board of the Czech paper company.
But Megan’s eyes were filled with longing, and something made him say, “It’s cold out here, and I’m hungry. Would you like to have lunch somewhere?”
The businesswomen he dealt with liked to play it cool—oh I’ll have to check my diary… or oh I can probably spare you half an hour. But Megan’s face lit up with pleasure. “I’d like that,” she said immediately.
He laughed and stood, pulling her to her feet. “Come on, then. There’s a nice little restaurant just around the corner from here.”
Chapter Six
Megan’s heart lifted for the first time since she’d walked into her and Cody’s tiny apartment and found him on top of an extremely busty redhead, going at it with an enthusiasm he’d somehow never managed to summon while making love to her.
But she wouldn’t think about that now. She was tired of going over and over the scene, reliving the disbelief, the denial, the shock and the hurt. She desperately wanted to move on, but it had been so hard to put it all behind her. And although she’d thought coming to Prague would give her something else to think about, all it had done was make her extremely conscious of her single status in possibly the most romantic city in Europe.
Dion tucked her hand back in the crook of his arm, and she tried hard not to squeeze her fingers to feel his muscles beneath the thick coat. What a strange coincidence, to bump into him like that on the bridge, eight years after he’d moved across to the other side of the world. Almost as if it were fate…
She rubbed her nose with her other hand. Don’t be stupid. This was a brief moment of collision, like when the hands on a clock meet at midnight. There was nothing lasting or fateful about this. She had to take it at face value—a few hours of fun catching up with an old friend.
“What are you up to at the moment job wise?” he asked.
“Still painting,” she said.
“Any Boxer dogs?”
She laughed and told him about the canvas she’d done of the Waitangi Treaty House that she’d shown to a friend of her parents. He ran a popular restaurant on the inlet, and he’d asked if he could hang the painting in the bar. She’d agreed hesitantly—she made a decent enough living illustrating nature books, but she’d never sold one of the sketches she did in her spare time. Within the first week, she had three commissions from restaurant customers, and the following week one of the art galleries in town asked to see her collection. She showed them the half a dozen she’d done of local landscapes, and they offered her a place in their next exhibition.
“That’s fantastic,” Dion said, his eyes alight with pleasure. “I always knew you’d make it big.”
She glowed inside at his obvious happiness for her. “Well it’s a start anyway.”
“Let’s cele
brate with a glass of bubbly.”
“If you insist.” The thought of becoming a bit tipsy appealed to her. Getting drunk on her own had seemed sad, but with an old friend it didn’t seem quite so bad.
They crossed the Old Town Square, their feet scrunching on the new layer of snow. It was two days before Christmas and the shops were busy, filled with coloured lights that gave the whole place a magical ambience.
Dion led her over to a doorway with steps leading down to what turned out to be a restored medieval-style restaurant in a Gothic cellar. Log fires blazed and filled the room with a warm glow, and the waitresses wore long gowns and headdresses.
“I might have guessed,” Megan teased as they were shown to a table in front of a suit of armour. Dion had always loved anything medieval.
“I saw it advertised at the hotel and I’ve been dying to try it.” He unbuttoned his coat and let it slide from his shoulders, catching it in his hands before passing it to the waitress. “Looks good, eh?”
“Oh yes,” she said emphatically, although she was staring at him rather than at the restaurant. Wow, the man knew how to wear a suit. The cut fitted him perfectly, snug across the shoulders, tapering to his narrow waist. He unbuttoned the jacket as he sat, revealing a waistcoat underneath. Jeez. How was she going to make it through lunch without drooling on the white linen tablecloth?
To cover her stare, she added, “Although if they offer the Black Death as a starter, I’m out of here.”
He laughed, and her heart thumped a little faster. How odd—she could see the boy beneath the man, small glimpses of the Dion she’d known, but they were covered with this veneer of masculinity that hadn’t been there before. It was an enticing mix, and the thought of spending an hour or two in his company made her happier than she’d felt in a long time.
Second Chances Boxed Set: 7 Sweet & Sexy Romances in 1 Book Page 124