Heidi Rice - Mistresses - The Consequences Of Desire - Beach Bar Baby / Walk on the Wild Side / Claiming His Own

Mistresses: The Consequences of Desire

Beach Bar Baby

Heidi Rice

Walk on the Wild side

Natalie Anderson

Claiming His own

Olivia Gates

www.millsandboon.co.uk

Table of Contents

Cover

Title Page Mistresses: The Consequences of Desire Beach Bar Baby Heidi Rice Walk on the Wild side Natalie Anderson Claiming His own Olivia Gates www.millsandboon.co.uk

Beach Bar Baby Beach Bar Baby Heidi Rice

About the Author USA Today bestselling author HEIDI RICE lives in London, England. She is married with two teenage sons (which gives her rather too much of an insight into the male psyche) and also works as a film journalist. She adores her job which involves getting swept up in a world of high emotions, sensual excitement, funny feisty women, sexy tortured men and glamorous locations where laundry doesn’t exist. Once she turns off her computer, she often does chores (usually involving laundry!).

Dedication To all those people who asked me when I was going to write Ella’s story. Now you know. I hope it lives up to expectations! x

ONE

TWO

THREE

FOUR

FIVE

SIX

SEVEN

EIGHT

NINE

TEN

ELEVEN

TWELVE

EPILOGUE

Walk on the Wild Side

About the Author

Dedication

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

Claiming His Own

Back Cover Text

About the Author

Dedication

Prologue

One

Two

Three

Four

Five

Six

Seven

Eight

Nine

Ten

Copyright

Beach Bar Baby

Heidi Rice

USA Today bestselling author HEIDI RICElives in London, England. She is married with two teenage sons (which gives her rather too much of an insight into the male psyche) and also works as a film journalist. She adores her job which involves getting swept up in a world of high emotions, sensual excitement, funny feisty women, sexy tortured men and glamorous locations where laundry doesn’t exist. Once she turns off her computer, she often does chores (usually involving laundry!).

To all those people who asked me when I was going to write Ella’s story. Now you know. I hope it lives up to expectations! x

ONE

Next time you book a holiday of a lifetime, don’t choose the world’s most popular couples’ destination, you muppet.

Ella Radley adjusted her backpack and flinched as it nudged the raw skin that still stung despite spending yesterday hiding out in her deluxe ocean-view room at the Paradiso Cove Resort in Bermuda—AKA Canoodle Central.

Ella sighed—nothing like getting third-degree sunburn in the one place you couldn’t reach to remind you of your single status. Not that she needed reminding. She stared in dismay at the line of six couples, all in various stages of loved-up togetherness, on the dock ahead of her as she waited to board the motor cruiser at the Royal Naval Dockyards on Ireland Island for what the dive company’s website had promised would be ‘a two-hour snorkel tour of a lifetime’. Unfortunately, she’d booked the tour when she’d first arrived nearly a week ago, before she’d been hit on by a succession of married men and pimply pubescent boys, napalmed all the skin between her shoulder blades and generally lost the will to have anything remotely resembling a lifetime experience.

Her best friend Ruby had once told her she was far too sweet and eager and romantic for her own good. Well, she was so over that. Frankly, paradise and all its charms could get lost. She’d much rather be icing cupcakes in Touch of Frosting’s cosy café kitchen in north London—and laughing about what a nightmare her dream holiday had turned out to be with her business partner and BFF Ruby—than standing in line to take a snorkelling tour of a lifetime that would probably give her a terminal case of seasickness.

Stop being such a grump.

Ella gazed out across the harbour, trying to locate at least a small measure of her usual sunny outlook on life. Yachts and motor boats—dwarfed by the enormous cruise ship anchored across the harbour—bobbed on water so blue and sparkly it hurt her eyes. She recalled the pink sand beach they’d passed on the way in, framed by lush palms and luxury beach bungalows, which looked as if it had been ripped from the pages of a tourist brochure.

She only had one more day to fully appreciate the staggering beauty of this island paradise. Maybe booking this holiday hadn’t been the smartest thing she’d ever done, but she’d needed a distraction... The trickle of panic crawled over her skin, making her aware of the familiar clutching sensation in her belly. She pressed her palm to the thin cotton of her sundress, until it went away again. She needed this day trip—to get her out of her room before the panic overwhelmed her or, worse, she became addicted to US daytime soaps.

The line moved forward as a tall man appeared at the gangplank wearing ragged cut-offs and a black T-shirt with the dive company’s logo on it, his face shadowed by a peaked captain’s cap. Ella stopped breathing, her eyes narrowing to minimise the glare off the water, astonished to discover that the steely-haired Captain Sonny Mangold, whose weathered face beamed out from the photo on the website, appeared to be in amazing physical shape for a guy pushing sixty. Talk about a silver fox. Not that she could see his hair from this distance.

Captain Sonny began to welcome each couple aboard, his gruff American accent floating towards her on the still, muggy air, and sending peculiar shivers up Ella’s spine, even though she couldn’t make out what he was saying. The couple ahead of her, looking affluent and young and very much in love, were the last to block her view. As the captain helped them both aboard Ella stepped forward, anticipation making her throat dry. She took in the staggeringly broad shoulders and long muscular legs encased in denim cut-offs as his head dipped to tick off the list on the clipboard in his hand. Wisps of dark blond hair clung to lean cheeks and a square, stubbled jaw, confusing her even more, then his head lifted.

All thoughts of nightmare holidays, canoodling couples and silver foxes blasted right out of her brain.

Goodness, he’s stunning. And not much over thirty.

‘You’re not Captain Sonny,’ she blurted, the wake-up call to her dormant libido blasting away her usual shyness too.

‘Captain Cooper Delaney at your service.’ The rich jade of his irises twinkled, and the tanned skin round the edges of his eyes creased. His arresting gaze dipped, to check the clipboard again. ‘And you must be Miz Radley.’ The laconic voice caressed her name, while his gaze paused momentarily on its journey back to her face, rendering the bikini she had on under her sundress half its normal size.

A large, bronzed hand, sprinkled with sun-bleached hair, reached out. ‘Welcome aboard The Jezebel, Miz Radley. You travelling on your own today?’

‘Yes.’ She coughed, distressed as the answer came out on a high-pitched squeak. Heat flared across her scalp.