For my wonderful readers, who give me licence to dream.
You’re always at the forefront of my mind,
and this is for you.
Contents
Extract
‘THIS IS A private beach...’
Rosie had to raise her voice to reach the big, brutal-looking man lowering the anchor on his sleek black launch off shore. He’d stilled, so she was sure he’d heard her, but for some reason he’d chosen to ignore her. Waving her arms made no impact at all.
‘Damned invaders,’ Rosie’s late elderly employer, Doña Anna, would have said as she waved her walking stick at any sailors bold enough to drop anchor near her private island. ‘You can’t swim here! This is my island!’ Standing belligerently, with her crab-like hands planted firmly on her bony hips, Doña Anna would continue to berate visitors—whom Rosie had always thought couldn’t do much harm if all they wanted to do was enjoy the crystalline waters and sugar-sand beach for an hour or so—until they took the hint that they weren’t welcome and left for kinder waters.
Rosie tensed as the man stared straight at her. With maybe fifty yards between them, his penetrating assessment stabbed her like an arrow.
Her body reacted in the craziest way, softening and yearning as the force of his personality washed over her. The effect was as powerful as if they were standing toe to toe.
She was instantly in ‘fight or flight’ mode. Her brain sharpened to make that call. Only what they’d called her pure, damned stubbornness at the orphanage was keeping her rooted to the spot. She might not have had the best of starts in life, but she wasn’t a victim and never would be.
And a promise was a promise, Rosie vowed. Her promise to Doña Anna, that she would keep the island safe, was sacrosanct. However intimidating the man seemed, until she knew what he wanted, he wasn’t getting any further than the shore.
The man had other ideas.
Her heart thundered as he sprang lightly onto the bow rail, preparing to dive into the sea. Keeping the island safe would take more than good intentions, she suspected. He was twice her size and built like a gladiator.
His dive made barely a ripple in the water. Surfacing, he powered towards the shore. There was something hard and ruthless about him that stole away her earlier confidence, replacing it with apprehension. Crew of a mother yacht generally wore some sort of uniform with the name of their boat emblazoned on it. He wore no identifying clothing. Stripped to the waist in cut-off shorts, he was maybe thirty...older than she was, anyway.
Rosie was in her early twenties. She couldn’t even be sure of her date of birth. There was no record of it. A fire at the orphanage had destroyed all evidence of her history shortly after she arrived. Her life experience was limited to the strange, isolated world inside an institution, and now a small island off the southern tip of Spain.
She’d been lucky enough to be offered a job on Isla Del Rey by a charity that ran a scheme for disadvantaged young people. The post involved working on a trial basis as a companion/housekeeper for an elderly lady who had driven six previous companion/housekeepers away. On the face of it, not the most promising opportunity, but Rosie would have jumped at anything to escape the oppressive surroundings of the institution, and the island had seemed to offer sanctuary from the harsh realities of the outside world.
That
