JOANNA NEIL had her future planned. She enjoyed her work as an infant teacher and didn’t envisage any changes to her way of life. But then she discovered Mills & Boon. She was surprised to find how absorbing and interesting they were and read them on a regular basis. The more she read, the more she had the overwhelming desire to write one. Encouraged by her family, she persevered until her first book was accepted, and after several books were published, she decided to write full time.
His Bride in Paradise
Joanna Neil
ISBN: 978-1-408-97591-6
HIS BRIDE IN PARADISE
© 2012 Joanna Neil
Published in Great Britain 2020
by Mills & Boon, an imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers 1 London Bridge Street, London, SE1 9GF
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Table of Contents
‘I CAN’T believe my luck,’ Alyssa said excitedly, cradling the phone close to her ear. ‘The house is magnificent, Carys, and it’s right next to the ocean.’
‘Mmm … that’s exactly how I imagined it,’ her cousin answered. ‘So you managed to find the place all right? How’s it all going for you?’ On the other end of the line, Carys’s voice held a note of eager anticipation.
Alyssa smiled at her enthusiastic tone. Carys lived on the mainland in Florida, some sixty or seventy miles away from here, and she was keen to know everything that was going on.
‘Oh, it was easy enough,’ Alyssa said. ‘The taxi driver dropped me off. Apparently everyone around here knows the Blakeley property.’ She adjusted the fluffy bath towel around her damp body. She’d not long come from the shower and had been sitting for a few minutes by the dressing table, blowdrying her long hair so that the mass of chestnut-coloured curls gleamed softly in the lamplight. ‘I’m doing just fine,’ she added. ‘It’s lovely here. You wouldn’t believe how beautiful it is.’
She left the dresser and went to settle down on the luxurious softness of the large divan bed, stretching out her long, slender limbs. ‘I only arrived here a couple of hours ago, so I haven’t really had time to look around, but the house is perfect. There are double glass doors everywhere, even in the bedrooms, and when you step out onto the deck you look out over the Atlantic Ocean. It’s fantastic, Carys … it’s so incredibly blue.’
A faint breeze wafted in through the open veranda doors, and glancing there from across the room Alyssa could see the branches of the palm trees swaying gently against the skyline of the setting sun. Birds called to one another, sleepy in the warm evening air. ‘I’m sitting here now, and I can hear the waves breaking on the shore.’
‘It sounds heavenly.’
‘Mmm, it is.’ Alyssa couldn’t believe her change in fortune. Within a few weeks she’d gone from enduring a bleak, desperately unhappy situation back in the UK to finding herself in this idyllic haven on a sand-fringed island in the