Page 1 of One Forbidden Night In Paradise (Hot Winter Escapes)

CHAPTER ONE

JEMIMAFRIDAYSTEPPEDoff the plane at L. F. Wade International Airport in Bermuda into air that was as warm and soft as sun-dried bedsheets.

It was only seven hours and seventeen minutes since she’d left Heathrow Airport, but it felt as if she had arrived not just in a different country but on a different planet. Gone was the abrasive, cold grey London sky and in its place was a cloudless canopy of perfect aquamarine. Better still, the sun was shining.

But it wasn’t just the sky that was lighter and brighter. Everyone making their way across the runway to the arrivals terminal was dressed in pastel colours, and they were smiling.

Her heart gave a wobble. She was a little low on smiles right now. She’d had to extend her overdraft again. Her PhD on ‘accidental’ reefs had lost its way and, to top it all, last week she came home to find her boyfriend, Nick, in bed with another woman.

She was still more than a little apprehensive about this, her first solo holiday. But despite her nervousness she had to admit that it wasn’t a completely crazy idea to get away from the scene of the crime and go somewhere the sun was shining and people smiled without a reason. Maybe she might even find a reason to smile, she thought as she made her way to passport control. That holiday fling her sister Holly was so certain would happen.

Although given her track record with men it seemed highly improbable.

It felt like a hundred years since Holly and Ed had suggested that she take a holiday but in fact it was two days. At first she had been too stunned to react, but as it sank in, she was appalled.

‘I can’t just up sticks and fly to the other side of the world,’ she’d protested when her siblings had turned up at her cottage with a takeaway and tub of ice cream...

‘Why not? And Bermuda isn’t the other side of the world. It’s only seven hours away. That’s about the same time it would take to get to Inverness.’ Ed had flopped down on the sofa, then frowned. ‘Did that bastard take the TV?’

‘What?’She had glanced across the room at the holes in the wall where Nick had unscrewed the TV bracket. It wasn’t just the TV that had disappeared. Other things were missing too. Nick’s ratty bathrobe no longer hung from the bedroom door and she didn’t keep tripping over his guitars. And there was a hollowed-out ache inside in her chest, although she could still feel her heart beating, which surprised her as the rest of her felt numb with shock and shame.

Her ribs seemed suddenly too tight.

Had she thought Nick was different from the other men she had dated? In appearance maybe, but pretty much the first time they met she knew he was a mess. He was in a band but got paid in pints and he slept on other people’s sofas. Only instead of running a mile she had started seeing him.

Holly and Ed had been appalled, of course, then resigned. He was, they agreed, exactly her type. Handsome, damaged, and destined to break her heart. But even though she knew they were right, she had wanted him. Or rather she had wanted to do what she had failed to do for her father. To fix him, to save him from himself.

Her breath caught in her throat as she pictured her father stumbling out of the pub, staring at her blearily as if she were a stranger and not his fifteen-year-old daughter. But you couldn’t fix someone who didn’t want to be fixed. It had taken a long time for that message to sink in, and finally she was done trying.

Done with tortured, unfixable men.

Done with men, full stop.

‘Don’t change the subject,’ she had said, more to stop her brother railing against Nick’s perfidious behaviour than because she wanted to discuss the twins’ hare-brained scheme. Ed had already been eloquent on the matter and she didn’t need to be reminded again of her ex’s flaws or her stupidity in ignoring them. ‘And it’s obvious why not. I’m supposed to be finishing my PhD, not gallivanting off on holiday. Look, it’s a lovely idea and I love you both for thinking of it, but I can’t possibly—’

‘But that’s the thing—you can’t not. You see, it’s not an idea...’ Holly had given her a sheepish grin. ‘It’s a fact. We booked the flight.’

‘And sorted out the accommodation,’ Ed had added. ‘You leave the day after tomorrow and, yes, I know it’s short notice—’ he had raised his hand up like a traffic policeman to stop the flow of her objections ‘—and, yes, we should have talked to you first but we knew if we gave you time to think you’d never do it.’

Holly had grabbed her hand and pulled her onto the sofa. ‘I know you’re worried about your PhD but you’ve been working on it for ten months now. Ten days isn’t going to make a difference one way or another. Besides, you’ve always wanted to go to Bermuda and it’s the perfect place to work.’

‘If I’m going to work then I don’t need to fly to Bermuda. Besides, they probably don’t even have the Internet.’

Sensing weakness, Holly had grinned. ‘Of course they do, Jem. I checked. And as you already know, they have over four hundred wrecks off the coast. So if you find some sexy sailor to take you out on his boat you can write it off as fieldwork.’

‘And,’ her brother had chipped in, ‘you haven’t had a holiday in years. Everyone needs a holiday, Jem, even you.’

A holiday.

The word had tasted like sherbet on her tongue and as expected she’d capitulated. When the twins stuck together they were almost impossible to unstick, and although the idea of travelling on her own to a distant and mysterious island made her pulse beat out of time, a part of her had felt almost relieved that she would be somewhere other than the cottage.

‘Please, Jem. You need this. Just promise me that you’ll go all in.’ Reaching out, Holly had touched the blonde hair scraped into an unforgiving bun at the back of her head. ‘Promise me that you’ll let this down for once. And wear your contacts.’

‘Okay, okay, I promise I’ll let my hair down.’

‘And have some fun.’ Holly’s blue eyes had gleamed. ‘Have a fling. You’re not just swapping homes, you’re swapping lives.’

‘You don’t know anything about her. She could be a social outcast.’

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