Free Merry Christmas (Mills & Boon Vintage 90s Modern) by Emma Darcy

than he cared to examine. He wanted her. Not in his dreams, but in his flesh and blood life. She held the promise of things that demanded exploration.
    “Thank you.”
    Her smile was radiant, bathing him in a pulsing glow of happiness. “Call me Nick,” he commanded on a sudden rush of blood to the head. He didn’t want distance between them. He wanted... God! It was almost impossible to clamp down on his rioting feelings but he managed some semblance of it, smiling back at her and asking, “May I call you Meredith?”
    The sparkling light in her eyes momentarily receded, as though sucked back to some dark place in her soul. It burst on him again so quickly, the slight falter was erased and Nick was showered with pleasure.
    “Yes. Please do.”
    The soft lilt of her voice sang through him, stroking chords and striking harmonies that filled him with a glorious sense of well-being. The sense of starting out on a path that had always been waiting for them was overwhelming.
    Kimberly reclaimed her attention, working out the details of tomorrow’s visit. Nick didn’t care what was arranged. Something special had started between him and Meredith Palmer. He knew it in his bones. The determination to pursue it as far as it could go was burning in his heart. Tomorrow was the next step.
    Meredith...maybe when he’d called her by her full name she’d momentarily remembered the guy who’d called her Merry, but she’d come back to him with a burst of positive signals. Nick was fiercely glad that her one great love had walked out of her life and never returned, elated that he had this chance at something unbelievably unique in his experience.
    Surely she could put that man behind her now. Thirteen years had passed. Though she hadn’t forgotten him. But Kimberly had hit the nail on the head. How could he have forgotten her? The man had to be a shallow fool, probably breaking hearts wherever he went on his very convenient trip overseas.
    Nick reflected, with some irony, that he’d been twenty-two himself, thirteen years ago. And he’d gone off overseas at the same time, having won a grant for further studies at Harvard University in the U.S.
    Strange, the little coincidences in life...the man who’d left her...and the man with her now. Had the two of them met? he wondered. Had he been shown a photograph of Merry?
    He couldn’t recall any such incident.
    It didn’t really matter.
    The woman of his dreams was with him in reality. He didn’t care what had happened before. The future was his to make.

CHAPTER EIGHT
    M EREDITH took three deep breaths in a vain attempt to calm her nervous excitement before ringing the doorbell to Nick Hamilton’s apartment. Its Blues Point location, with views over the harbour, made it prime real estate, way beyond her income bracket. She was about to step into a world of wealth and class and it was difficult not to be daunted by it.
    She reminded herself it had always been Nick’s background, though she hadn’t realised it until she’d gone looking for him at the address he’d given her. Denise and Colin Graham had lived in a magnificent home at Pittwater in those days. It was one of the reasons she’d given up her baby to them, wanting her daughter to have all the privileges she couldn’t provide, the same privileges her father had.
    Nevertheless, wealth and class couldn’t provide mother love and that was what Kimberly wanted now. There was a need to be filled and Meredith was determined to fill it as far as Nick Hamilton would allow. Surely this Sunday brunch had to mean he was willing for them to establish an ongoing relationship.
    Ever since they’d parted yesterday she’d been hugging his “You’re welcome” comment to her heart.
    Welcome. in his life, too? Was he attracted to her again? Maybe it was too much to hope for. Dangerous, too, if it got in the way of forging a future with Kimberly.
    Caution had to be exercised. He’d unbent enough to invite her to call him Nick,