Read Midsummer Magic for Free Online

hello.
    ‘Harry, great to see you, mate!’ he said giving him a thump on the back and feeling absurdly affectionate towards his oldest friend.
    ‘You, too!’ said Harry punching him in the ribs.
    ‘Josie, you look lovely as ever,’ he said, giving her a hug and a huge kiss on the lips.
    ‘Flatterer,’ said Josie, neatly escaping from his grasp.
    ‘And who have we here?’ Ant noted with pleasure a very fetching pair of legs encased in a pair of skinny jeans, emerging from the back of the Civic.
    ‘Ant, meet my friend, Diana,’ said Josie with a smile. ‘Diana, this is Ant.’
    Ant nearly dropped his coffee in shock, as he followed the legs up (via the jeans and busty top) to a ginger (she said auburn) head of hair and pretty face, with those emerald-green eyes he remembered with clarity even though they’d last met eight years ago.
    ‘You!’ they said simultaneously.

Chapter Two
    Diana was shaking as she got back into the car. She’d have recognised him anywhere, the arrogant tilt of his chin, the fair hair swept back off his face, revealing deep brown eyes that had once been tender, but then cruel.
Teflon Tone
? Harry’s mysterious best friend Ant and best-man-to-be. Teflon Tone? How could they be the same person? How was that even possible? Since Josie and Harry had been together, Ant had been mentioned frequently, but he had only recently returned from his travels. Of late, she’d seen less of Josie then she would have liked, so she’d been aware that Ant was back on the scene, but had never met him. She couldn’t believe this was happening to her. Teflon Tone. The guy who’d ruined her life. And she had to spend a whole weekend with him.
    ‘So what’s the deal with you and Ant, then?’ Josie turned round in the car to face her friend. ‘How do you know each other?’
    ‘We don’t,’ mumbled Diana. ‘Not anymore.’
    ‘Come on,’ teased Josie, ‘I saw that reaction. There must be a story there.’
    ‘Well, there isn’t,’ said Diana shortly. ‘Can we just drop it now, please.’
    ‘Oh,’ said Josie, in surprise. ‘Okay.’
    She settled back into the front and started making small talk with Harry, while Diana stared out of the window and remembered …
    She’d been twenty-two when she met Tony eight years earlier, and happily whiling away a winter working as a chalet rep in Switzerland. At a loose end after university, Ant had taken a temporary job working for her firm, while he worked out what to do with his life. She’d noticed him the first time he’d walked into the bar, it was impossible not to: good-looking, tall, fair, charming as he was. Her instant reaction had been that he wasn’t for her, particularly as he seemed such a flirt, but there’d been something about him from the start. And then she’d fallen in so deep, she couldn’t get out easily, and it was too late to escape the broken heart that had ensued. Eight years she’d spent trying to forget him. Eight years, and now she had to spend the whole weekend with him.
    Diana sighed. That was the past, this was the present. She was here for Josie and Harry, she’d just have to try and ignore Tony/Ant/whatever his name was. Because this was Josie and Harry’s weekend and she didn’t want to ruin it for them.
    Diana had envied their relationship from the start. A couple truly suited to one another, truly at ease, truly in love. She could never imagine that happening to her. She was far too difficult and spiky, as all the boyfriends she’d ever had had told her. There were reasons for that of course. Having once given her heart irrevocably, and been hurt so badly she thought she might never recover, Diana had sworn never to let herself be so vulnerable again. So she cultivated her tough exterior, sought out short-term relationships she knew would go nowhere, and resolved to stay single and in control for the rest of her life.
    Which was all very well, but the downside was she was sometimes lonely. A fact she barely