Jamie Pope - Mine At Midnight

Is this their happy ending?

After her plans for a storybook wedding are derailed by a shocking discovery days before the big event, Ava Bradley retreats to a tranquil beach cottage. Days of intense soul-searching turn into nights of passionate yearning when she clashes with her infuriatingly arrogant and incredibly sexy Hideaway Island neighbor. Derek Patrick is tempting her, not just as a lover but as a soul mate, and it’s a connection unlike anything she’s ever experienced before.

The up-by-his-bootstraps entrepreneur is proud to be mayor of the beautiful, secluded tropical island. Derek doesn’t need some social-climbing diva messing with his hard-earned serenity. Yet Ava keeps surprising him. When their no-strings affair leaves them both hungry for more, Derek is tempted to take their island affair to the next level. But Ava doesn’t intend to make her permanent home there...until a natural disaster threatens Derek’s beloved island, making them realize what matters most—a love too precious to lose.

“I know I shouldn’t have walked into your house and started cleaning, but I knocked and you didn’t answer. I just meant to straighten up a little but I got carried away.”

He just cocked his head to the side and looked at her.

“I was feeling restless,” she explained.

“I can tell.” He took off his gloves, tossed them onto the counter and came toward her. “You just can’t come into a man’s home and be bent over in his refrigerator without some consequences.”

“Consequences?” She swallowed hard. “How about a thank-you, you big jerk? Your house is a disaster and I’ve been working my fingers to the bone to make it habitable.”

“Oh, poor princess. Had to do some actual work and now she’s all worn-out.” He placed his big hot hands around her waist and she couldn’t think clearly.

“Shut up, Derek.”

“Okay.” He placed his mouth over hers and gave her a shockingly sexual kiss, and what was even more shocking was that she let him. She wrapped her arms around him and kissed him back. It wasn’t something she could control anymore.

Dear Reader,

In Mine at Midnight, you’ll meet Ava and Derek, two strong-willed people who want nothing to do with each other or falling in love. Join them on beautiful Hideaway as they figure out who they are and discover that they can’t live without each other.

Jamie

Mine at Midnight

Jamie Pope

www.millsandboon.co.uk

JAMIE POPEfirst fell in love with romance when her mother placed a novel in her hands at the age of thirteen. She became addicted to love stories and has been writing them ever since. When she’s not writing her next book, you can find her shopping for shoes or binge watching shows on Netflix.

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To Jason,

I’m dedicating this book to you just because I like you.

Contents

Cover

Back Cover Text

Introduction

Dear Reader

Title Page

About the Author

Dedication

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Extract

Copyright

Chapter 1

Ava Bradley wasn’t often nervous. Her twin brother often said that she had cold water running through her veins, that she was an ice princess. But today, as she stood in the living room of her charming seaside cottage, she felt anything but cold. Her heart was racing. Pounding so hard she wondered if it was going to burst out of her chest.

An enormous black garment bag had just been hand delivered to her by the designer after more than a thousand hours of work had been put into what was inside.

It was his masterpiece, as he called it.

Ava called it her wedding dress.

Her $25,000, crystal-encrusted, frothy confection of a wedding gown.

Most brides would be nervous, excited to receive their completed gowns.

It symbolized closing the door completely on one life and starting another.

But Ava didn’t feel excitement. She felt more like throwing up.

This was her second wedding gown. She had purchased a simple but elegant one originally, which she had found in a shop right on Hideaway Island. It had been love at first sight. The ivory gown was vintage inspired, something a young bride might have worn in the 1940s, but that wasn’t the dress she was going to wear when she walked down the aisle.

Her fiancé wanted her to wear something...better, he called it. Something luxurious and extravagant. It seemed like such an incredible amount of money. They could feed Miami’s homeless for years with that amount of cash, but her fiancé wanted her to have it, so she had it. It was like that with everything. The car she drove had to be top of the line. The handbag she carried had to be so exclusive that most people were on a waiting list for a year just to be able to buy it. He was extremely wealthy and powerful, and he wanted his woman to reflect that.

“I only want the best, sweetheart,” he purred in his Belgian accent. “That’s why I picked you.”

No, simple wouldn’t do for Maxime Vermeulen. He was forty-four years old. Never married. He told her that he planned to be married only once, and that’s why this wedding had to be the event of the century. Every time she had voiced her concerns about how much money they were spending, he would tell her that he had to spend it because she was perfect for him. And that she was beautiful and smart and lovely and all the things every woman wanted to hear from the man she was going to spend the rest of her life with.

A perfect wedding, for my perfect bride.

Ava had agreed to all of the pomp and circumstance to make him happy, although she had grown up in a working-class family in Maryland. Her father worked in a factory. Her mother had worked two jobs when things were tight. Yes, her older brother had made it big in the major league, but never in a million years did Ava dream that she would land someone like Max. Someone who had always had so much and had no idea what it was like to fly in a plane that he didn’t own. She’d met him by chance while she was working. She’d been a buyer for an exclusive chain of boutiques and had literally bumped into him walking out of a meeting. He’d dazzled her with his easy charm and devastating good looks.

He was good to her. He spoiled her silly and proudly showed her off to his friends. It was why she made sacrifices for him.

Small ones like quitting her job. And giving up her home and a tiny bit of her freedom. Max insisted that the wives of rich men didn’t have jobs. He told her that he would look like a fool if he let her continue to live in her modest townhome instead of a penthouse apartment in an exclusive section of Miami. And the thought of her grocery shopping or even doing something as simple as making their bed nearly sent him into a series of fits.