Once upon an island, p.1
Once Upon an Island, page 1
Once Upon an Island
Sarah Ready
Also by Sarah Ready
Stand Alone Romances:
The Fall in Love Checklist
Hero Ever After
Josh and Gemma Make a Baby
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Soul Mates in Romeo Romance Series:
Chasing Romeo
Love Not at First Sight
Romance by the Book
Love, Artifacts, and You
Married by Sunday
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Stand Alone Novella:
Love Letters
* * *
Find these books and more by Sarah Ready at:
www.sarahready.com/romance-books
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Sign up to receive bonus content, exclusive epilogues and more at: www.sarahready.com/newsletter
Pride, Prejudice, and Flip-flops
Fun-loving Isla Waterstone loves her laid-back life on Mariposa Island.
She has everything she could ever want…a great job as a journalist for the local paper, amazing friends, and pink sand beaches with stunning tropical sunsets.
The only problem with tiny tropical islands? There are more sea turtles than single men.
So when British billionaire Declan Fox and his aristocratic friend arrive, Isla’s friends know this can mean only one thing.
Marriage.
After all, it’s a truth universally acknowledged, when a single billionaire travels to a tropical island, he must be in want of a wife.
But Isla isn’t convinced. Especially because Declan is the most rude, arrogant, prideful man she’s ever met.
Or is he?
W.W. CROWN BOOKS
An imprint of Swift & Lewis Publishing LLC
www.wwcrown.com
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This book is a work of fiction. All the characters and situations in this book are fictitious. Any resemblance to situations or persons living or dead is purely coincidental. Any reference to historical events, real people, or real locations are used fictitiously.
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Copyright © 2021 by Sarah Ready
Published by W.W. Crown Books an Imprint of Swift & Lewis Publishing, LLC, Lowell, MI USA
Cover Illustration & Design: Elizabeth Turner Stokes
All rights reserved.
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No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
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Library of Congress Control Number: 2022905796
ISBN: 978-1-954007-34-5 (eBook)
ISBN: 978-1-954007-35-2 (pbk)
ISBN: 978-1-954007-37-6 (large print)
ISBN: 978-1-954007-36-9 (hbk)
Contents
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
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Epilogue
Get a Bonus Epilogue
About the Author
Also by Sarah Ready
1
It’s Valentine’s Day.
I had big plans. I was going to lay on the couch in my underwear, eat a tub of double fudge brownie ice cream, and watch Gentlemen Prefer Blondes.
That’s my annual tradition, started three years ago, after Theo and I broke up and I realized Valentine’s Day sucks when you’re single.
However, my tradition has been hijacked.
I wobble on my incredibly high, incredibly narrow wedge heels and readjust my gold sequin rose-colored sari. It’s Bollywood brunch on the beach at The Pier, an upscale beachfront restaurant that hosts extravagant themed Sunday brunches with champagne towers, free-flowing mimosas and lots of gourmet mini-bites.
Kate texted this morning. All it said was, “The Pier at eleven. Put some clothes on, you sad sack.”
Luckily, The Pier reuses themes, so I had a sari from the last eight Bollywood brunches we’ve been to. I walk down the sandy path to the beach. It’s shaded by a line of sea grapes and palms. There’s a slight breeze today, which carries the salty scent of the sea and the smell of grilled fish. I stop when I spy the white tent set up for brunch.
Oh no.
“Got it wrong, didn’t you?”
It’s Renee.
She’s best friends with me, Arya and Kate. Renee is half-Bajan, half-Trinidadian and a lawyer at one of the top international firms on the island. She works ninety hours every week and from what I can tell, she never sleeps. Every year, a young lawyer at her firm cracks under the pressure, and then Renee gets another promotion. She’s smart, Type A, and loves to argue. She’s also wearing a buttoned up white collared shirt that hits mid-thigh, white socks, a pair of black plastic sunglasses and nothing else.
“It’s the 80s Tom Cruise brunch? Not Bollywood?”
“Bollywood was last week.” She smirks at my sari.
Ugh. I wobble on my wedges. “Whatever. I’m Bollywood Nicole Kidman in Days of Thunder.”
Renee snorts.
Then we see Arya and Kate waving from a table near the champagne tower under The Pier’s white tent. The brunch is packed with people. The champagne has already started to flow and the band is playing Kokomo by the Beach Boys. I pull out a folding chair next to Kate and plop down.
Kate’s wearing the bathing suit Elisabeth Shue wore in Cocktail. She has two empty champagne glasses next to her and a plate full of half-melted chocolate truffles.
Arya is dressed in a bikini, aviator sunglasses and a pilot’s jacket. A subtle nod to Top Gun.
I’m the only one in the whole tent not paying tribute to 80s Tom Cruise.
Oh well.
“What are we talking about?” I ask.
“I broke up with Chet yesterday,” Arya says.
She takes off her sunglasses and rubs them clean on the lining of her coat. She doesn’t seem too broken up about the split.
“Why?” I ask her.
Arya is famous for breaking up for completely random reasons. For instance, she’s broken up with her last three boyfriends for the following reasons: his fingers were too long, his favorite book was Anna Karenina, and he was obsessed with flossing his teeth.
Renee sits down next to Arya and says, “It’s Valentine’s Day. Why would you break up the day before Valentine’s Day? You had a date. You like having dates.”
Arya levels Renee with a serious look. “He claimed cereal was soup.”
I think about this for a second. Then I decide I’m on Chet’s side. “Cereal is soup.”
“No. It’s not,” Arya says.
Renee leans forward, she smells an argument. “It is. Cereal has liquid and floaty bits. What else is soup but liquid and floaty bits?”
Arya’s disgusted with us. “Cereal is cold.”
“So is gazpacho,” Renee says.
We’re silent for a moment.
Then, Kate waves her hands. “It doesn’t matter. Chet made Arya cereal for a romantic dinner and called it soup. He expected some ‘romance’ in return.”
“Oh,” Renee says.
“Eww,” I say.
“Exactly.” Arya nods.
Well, that settles that.
I stare at the crowd around us and then wave over a waiter to grab a few mimosas for the table. The breeze from the sea is nice and the tent is cool from the shade, but even so, the glasses have condensation dripping down the sides. Part and parcel of living on a tropical island. It’s beautiful, but it’s hot.
“How’s work?” I ask.
Renee is the only lawyer in our group. Kate, a British ex-pat, is a luxury real estate agent and a sucker for any man that is bad for her. Arya’s parents are from India, but she grew up on the island. She works as a naturalist for the department of the environment.
“I spent all week cataloging boobies,” Arya says.
Renee smiles at her and lowers her black plastic sunglasses. “How many boobies?”
“Hundreds.”
“Were they old boobies? Young boobies?” Renee asks.
“All ages, really.” Arya shrugs.
“Were there any perky boobies?”
“No. There were no perky or saggy boobies,” Arya frowns at Renee.
Renee snorts.
This never gets old for her. Arya studies the red-footed booby population in the Caribbean. She’s a scientist and doesn’t find the humor in it. However, Renee thinks making serious, science-y Arya say the word “booby” over and over is hilarious.
“My dad called this morning,” I say, interrupting the booby conversation.
Everyone looks at me. I steal one of Kate’s melting chocolate truffle balls and shove it in my mouth.
“How’d that go?” Renee asks.
“Well, he asked what assignment I was working on, so I told him I’m writing an article on the best brunch spots on the island.”
Kate’s eyes go wide and she cri
“What did he say?” asks Kate.
“Nothing. He was silent for about thirty seconds. Then he asked about the weather.”
My dad has never been shy in his disappointment over my career trajectory. He thought I’d be holding a microphone and dodging bullets by now, not reporting on things like brunch spots and the best places to catch a beautiful sunset.
“That’s fifteen seconds shorter than the last silence,” Arya says helpfully.
She’s not wrong.
“Can we talk about how we’re all dateless, sad sacking it at the 80s Tom Cruise Valentine’s Day brunch for singles?” asks Renee. “I need some stress relief, and I’m looking at him.”
She points to a late-twenties guy with a beer gut. He’s wearing a tropical shirt and short shorts, dancing on top of a table, pretending to mix drinks like Tom Cruise in the movie Cocktail.
Renee doesn’t date, she “stress relieves” for a night or a weekend.
It’s intense.
We all turn back to the table. There’s a pretty bouquet with a bird of paradise, some pink orchids, and a heart balloon as the centerpiece.
I grab another chocolate ball.
“I have news,” Kate says.
She flags down a waiter and we all grab a glass of champagne.
I shoo away a grackle, the little black birds that opportunistically try to grab food when you’re not looking. We don’t have any food except chocolate at our table. It hops away across the pink sand.
“What’s your news?” I ask, turning back to Kate.
She grins at us and spreads her arms wide. “There’s a billionaire on the island.” She says the word “billionaire” like you’d say “holy grail.”
We stare at her for a moment.
“What does that have to do with us?” asks Renee.
“He’s single,” Kate says with a great amount of relish.
“And?” I ask.
“And in his thirties.”
I sigh. “And?”
“And one of us is going to land him,” she ends with a flourish.
I shake my head. Why did I come today? Why didn’t I ignore the text and stay lounging in my undies eating buckets of ice cream?
“He probably clips his toenails at the dinner table,” Arya says.
We all stare at her, but she just shrugs. “I have a list of all the fatal flaws my boyfriends have had. The automatic breakup flaws. That one is the worst, but it comes up surprisingly often.”
“You’re too picky,” Kate says. “This guy is the white whale of dating and marriage. If he clipped his toenails at the dinner table and then sprinkled them on my food like parmesan cheese gratings I’d still marry him. I want one of us to catch him.”
“That’s disgusting,” I say. “Also, I’m leery of white whales. Didn’t Captain Ahab die trying to catch Moby Dick? He died…trying to catch a dick. Think about that.”
But Renee has a bigger issue with Kate’s statement. “Why do you assume he’s looking for a woman? And why do you assume any of us want to get married?”
She has a point. I grab the last truffle ball. These things are delicious.
Kate gives us all a frustrated look. “It is a well-known fact that any single man with millions or billions of dollars desperately wants to get married.”
“That’s not logical,” Arya says.
Kate disagrees. “It’s completely logical. Once a man has amassed a fortune, he’s bored. Therefore he’s driven to get married, so he can then divorce, lose half his money in the divorce settlement and then have the motivation to make more money. Once he’s back on top and rich again, he’ll look for another wife to give half his money to all over again. It’s a cycle. Men like doing this.”
I stare at Kate, completely aghast. She takes a long sip of her champagne and gives us all a superior look. “Trust me, I’m British.”
I snort into my champagne glass.
Kate continues, “I saved the best news for last. He came with his friend, who also happens to be well-off. My mum called to let me know that Duchy said—”
Duchy is some duchess that Kate’s mom is bosom friends with. Kate, despite living in exile on Mariposa Island, is from a top-tier British family.
She was supposed to marry some titled guy, but instead she ran off with a professional jet-skier. Two months later she dumped the jet-skier and wanted to return to England, but her parents had already disowned her. So, she stayed on the island, became a realtor, and continued to make terrible dating decisions. Five years later, her mom talks to her on the phone, but her dad still refuses to acknowledge her existence.
“Duchy said that the billionaire Declan Fox was moving to the island, and his best friend Percy Oliver is coming along for a stay. My cousin went to Cambridge with Percy, he’s to inherit some title or other. I don’t know.” Kate waves it off as a non-issue. “The point is, one of us will land Declan, and another of us will land Percy.”
“I’m out,” Renee says. She leans back in her chair and shakes her head. “I’m not going to throw away my most productive career years on a man.”
Kate looks at me and Arya. “La-La?” she asks me. Technically, my name is Isla, but Kate likes to call me La-La. “Arya? Are you two in?”
“Why would I want to marry a billionaire? Or some stuffy aristocrat?” Arya asks.
“To avoid that matchmaker your mom keeps threatening to foist on you,” Kate says.
Arya considers this. Her parents are completely fine with her dating as many men as she likes, however, her mom is getting the grandmother itch, and she keeps threatening to hire a matchmaker. Arya’s parents met through a matchmaker, and so did her grandparents, so her mom is gung-ho about bringing Arya onto the matchmaking train.
“Right. I’m in,” Arya says.
I give Kate a pained look. “I just don’t get the point in chasing after a billionaire and his BFF.”
She levels her gaze on me. “La-La, you want to get married someday, right?”
“Sure. Of course I do.”
Granted, I haven’t dated anyone in three years, but it’s not for lack of wanting. Our little Caribbean island has a serious shortage of eligible men.
Back when I was younger, I thought I’d be married by now, maybe have a few kids. But that was when I was a bright-eyed, nubile, early-twenty-something optimist.
Now, I’d love to find the right guy to grow old with, someone kind, and good, and who accepts me exactly as I am. But that guy is surprisingly harder to find than I thought.
Kate claps her hands together. “Great. Since the four of us are going to marry someday—”
“The three of you,” Renee says.
Kate shrugs. “We can either choose to steer our boat toward toenail clipping, cereal/soup eaters, or we can navigate our boat towards billionaires. I’ve had enough dating disasters—”
“Here, here,” Arya lifts her champagne glass in a toast.
“I’m tired of steering myself toward relationships that go nowhere. When I was talking to my mum I realized that I’m going to fall in love again someday. But this time, I’m going to only allow myself to fall in love with an incredibly rich man.”
Hmmm.
I look around the brunch tent. It’s getting rowdy. The champagne’s been flowing for more than two hours, the band is now playing a tropical version of Let’s Get it On, and some of the couples are cooling off in the calm azure sea water.
