His Christmas Present (3 page)

But he wasn’t looking at her like that now.
Though he seemed calm, his shock was evident. He was staring at her as if she
held a baby Martian.

Sean and Gaby moved to either side of them
so they stood in a square. “All right, love?” Sean asked warily.

She ignored him. He’d engineered this. She wanted
to punch his lights out.

Dion ran his gaze down her, then back to
the baby in her arms before returning to her face. He looked at her, but when
he spoke, he directed the words to Sean and his wife. “You two didn’t tell me
you’d recently had another baby.”

His deep, rich voice sent a shiver down her
spine as she remembered him murmuring sexy demands to her in that hotel room,
things she’d never thought she’d do with a man, let alone
him
. But his
heated stare challenged them all to accept or deny his statement, and she
forced the memory away.

Gaby looked worried, Sean wary. Dion’s
glare showed her that, clearly, he’d done the math.

Her mouth went dry. She’d thought this
moment might come, but she’d also thought she would be able to prepare herself.
Still, she couldn’t do anything about it now. She had to face the loud and
potentially overwhelming music.

Thanks, big brother.

“Harry isn’t Sean’s,” she said, surprised
to find her voice stronger than she’d thought it would be. “He’s my son.”

She met Dion’s hazel eyes. Pity swept
through her. This was a shock for her, but it must be an even bigger shock for
him. “And yours,” she said. She paused before adding in a quieter voice, “I’m
sorry you had to find out like this.”

Everyone fell silent.

They stayed silent for a full twenty
seconds, during which time Dion’s eyes turned from icy to hurt, and eventually to
flat, emotionless mirrors, causing her heart to crumple in on itself like a
dying star.

Then he turned and walked out.

Sean stared at her for a moment before going
after him.

Megan went over to the carry seat, placed Harry
in it and clipped him in. Her hands shook when she tried to push the clips
together—partly from shock, partly from anger—but she managed it after a couple
of goes. She raised the handle, and Harry focussed on the mobile above his head,
reaching up to touch it, oblivious and content.

She was conscious of Gaby watching her,
obviously clueless as to what to say. Her sister-in-law was also her best
friend, but at that moment Megan couldn’t look at her.

Sean came back in. “He’s gone for a walk
down to the marina.” He shoved his hands in his pockets. “He said he’ll be back
later.”

Megan straightened, glared at her brother
and clenched her fists. It took all her self-control not to swing at him. “What
the fuck did you think you were doing bringing him here like that?”

Sean glared back. “You have to talk to
him.”

“Sorry, who died and made you king of the
world?”

“Megan…” Sean looked pained. “He rang me to
say he was coming to New Zealand for a holiday. I had to ask him to stay—it
would have looked odd if I hadn’t. We were best mates.”

“You should have told me he’d be here.” She
gritted her teeth. “You’re lucky I didn’t pass out on the spot.”

“If I had told you, would you have met with
him?”

Frustrated, furious tears filled her eyes.
She clenched her hands so tightly her nails bit into her palms. “That’s not the
point. It wasn’t your decision to make.”

Gaby walked forward, clearly distraught.
“Honey, you’ve had such a difficult time. We know you didn’t want to contact
Dion because you didn’t think he’d want to know about Harry, but we thought it
would be good for you to have help from the father.”

“And what help, exactly, do you think he’ll
be? Did you think he’d declare his love for me, tell me he was glad I got pregnant?
Propose and swear he’ll never leave my side?”

“No,” Sean said. But she knew her brother
well enough to guess he’d hoped that would happen.

“You’re a fucking idiot,” she snapped. “Grow
up.” Anger mixed with shame and disappointment. They were only trying to help,
but what a stupid way to go about it. How on earth had they thought springing
such a surprise on both her and Dion would ever end well?

Her throat began to tighten again. She had
to get out. It was pointless staying anyway—Dion would need time to process the
shocking news she’d just delivered, and to think what to say to her. The poor
guy. He didn’t deserve this. He hadn’t expected such a big Christmas present on
arriving in New Zealand.

She walked over and picked up her son in
his carry seat.

“Where are you going?” Sean moved to stand
in front of her.

“He doesn’t want to talk to me.” She tried
to keep her voice calm. “I assume he’s come straight from the airport, in which
case he’s been travelling for a whole day, and I’m sure he’s tired and
jet-lagged. I’ll call in tomorrow, if he wants to talk. Now, I’m going home.”

She walked around him and out of the door
to her car, clipped Harry’s seat in with the seatbelt and got in, ignoring Sean
and Gaby. Then she drove away.

Only as she crested the rise to the main
road did she let the tears fall.

At low tide the marina was quiet, only a
few people pottering around in the distance on the piers that jutted into the
deep blue water of the harbour.

Dion sat on the wooden bench overlooking
the bay, glad of the peace. His heart thundered and his head ached, plus he had
a weird, spacey feeling that might have been part jet lag, part complete and
utter shock.

He had a son.

Fucking hell, I’m a father.

Leaning forward, he rested his elbows on
his knees and clasped his hands, struggling to control his panic. Thoughts
whirled around his head, and a hundred different emotions knotted his stomach.

What had Sean been thinking, letting him
find out like that? Why hadn’t he warned him?

And more importantly, why had Megan never
told him she’d fallen pregnant?

Perhaps it wasn’t his. She could just be
saying that. They’d used condoms for Christ’s sake. He knew they weren’t a
hundred percent reliable, but even so… And she’d dated Cody for years—couldn’t
it be his child? Perhaps she and Sean had planned this together because she
needed money or something, and Cody had refused to cough up.

Even as the thought filtered through his
brain, he knew he was fooling himself. He almost winced with shame that he’d
thought either of them would do such a thing to him. The look on Megan’s face
when he’d walked into the room told him she’d had no idea he was going to be
there. And she’d broken up with Cody several months before she’d met Dion in
Prague. In spite of the fact that they’d had a one-night stand, she didn’t sleep
around. She’d told him Cody had been her first and only boyfriend, and Dion
believed her. In fact she’d only slept with him, Dion, because their attraction
had been the culmination of a long relationship that had smouldered for years
before finally erupting with volcanic heat they’d been powerless to avoid.

And yes, they’d used condoms, but he
remembered vividly that the time they’d spent together had been incredibly
passionate and…energetic. It wouldn’t totally shock him to find out one of the
condoms had split during their enthusiastic lovemaking.

No, she’d told him the baby was his, and he
had to trust her and deal with it.

He sank his hands into his hair. What the
hell did he know about fatherhood? It was something as alien to him as this
sub-tropical country. He didn’t want the responsibility. Certainly not at the moment,
with all the other problems he had to contend with.

True, it didn’t appear as if Megan needed anything
from him. Maybe she didn’t want him to play a part in the baby’s life at all.

Hurt filtered through him at that thought.
She’d deliberately kept the baby a secret from him. She didn’t want him in the
boy’s life.

He gritted his teeth, angry at the
unfairness of the situation and his conflicting emotions. In spite of the fact
that he didn’t want this, he felt resentful that he hadn’t been involved. She’d
made the decisions alone—to have the child, as well as not to tell him about it.
None of this had been his doing, and the injustice of that made his chest
tighten. Yet again, his fate had been forced on him.

His fingers tightened into fists in his hair.
At that moment he hated her with a passion, and he gasped at the fierceness of
the emotion.

Then, like a soap bubble, the intense
feeling rose and dissipated, leaving him tired and depressed. He’d been looking
forward to catching up with her, and—although he hadn’t admitted it to himself—maybe
even revisiting the affair they’d had in Prague. A brief holiday fling would
have suited him just right—all the fun without any of the commitment. Thinking
about it, he’d been arrogant and stupid to think he could just waltz back into
her life and expect things to be unchanged. What a fool he’d been.

He’d thought often about the time they’d
had in Europe together—those precious hours that had somehow been a time out of
time, as if the two of them had been captured in a snow globe, shielded
temporarily from the problems of the real world.

But the magic had all been created by the
city and the snowy, Christmassy atmosphere. It couldn’t have been Megan who made
it so special.

He closed his eyes.
Please
, he
prayed.
Don’t let it have been Megan.
Because if it
had
been her,
it was possible he’d screwed up the best chance of happiness he was likely to
get.

Christmas Past

This is a huge
mistake
.

Megan stood on the
fourteenth-century Charles Bridge that arched over the River Vltava in Prague
and stared at the fairy tale skyline in despair. Snow fell on her hair and
face, but something other than the bitterly cold weather had frozen her feet to
the floor. Panic had clamped a tight hold around her throat and every muscle in
her body had knotted until she couldn’t move.

Stupid
, she thought miserably, her heart racing.
I’ve
been so stupid.
How had she thought she’d be able to cope on her own in a
strange city, eleven thousand miles away from the safety and security of home?

It had seemed like
such a good idea at the time. A chance to get away, to clear her mind. What was
the phrase?
A change is as good as a rest
.
Plus, of course, it
had been a knee-jerk reaction to breaking up with Cody. They’d booked the holiday
in celebration of their engagement back in September. It hadn’t bothered her at
the time that the large deposit she’d paid out of her own bank account was
non-refundable—they’d been dating for three years, so why would it have entered
her head that they might break up before Christmas?

In the weeks
following their separation, she’d accepted that the holiday was a write-off. After
all, she’d booked the romantic long weekend for two—which included tours around
the beautiful city, a candlelit dinner every evening and a four poster bed to
sleep in—before her new status as a single woman had come to light.

But as the weeks
passed and her misery and pain turned to anger and defiance, she started to
think
why not?
Why shouldn’t she have a holiday? She hardly ever treated
herself. She’d paid the deposit, she had plenty of savings and Lord knew she
deserved the break. So what if it was supposed to be for two people? She’d
spend her time getting to know the city, eat all the lovely food and sleep in
the huge bed, and Cody and his bimbo could go screw themselves.

In theory it had
seemed like a great idea. Now, in a strange city with nothing but a map and a
camera to keep her company, she felt alone, pathetic, miserable, and furious at
herself for being all those things. And it wasn’t even as if she were any normal
person who could trail around behind the other tourists and make do—because
when she got nervous, she got panicky, and when she got panicky her body let
her down. The stupid thing was that the fear of having an attack in public tended
to bring on a frickin’ attack, and worrying how she’d cope only made it worse.

She should have
been on the coach to Karlstejn Castle, but although she’d met the tour guide
and walked along to the others in the waiting area, she hadn’t been able to
bring herself to join the queue for the coach. Why did she find queues so
difficult? She’d never been able to work it out, but it was apparently a common
problem for agoraphobes. Something to do with being in crowds and feeling
unable to escape the situation, although deep down she knew she could walk away
at any moment.

The phobia had
never made sense to her—it was nothing to do with a fear of open spaces like
most people thought, and she couldn’t relate it to an incident that had
happened to her in childhood or anything. It felt more like being haunted by a
malevolent spirit bent on taking her over, which delighted in possessing her at
the most inconvenient times.