CHAPTER ONE
‘WHICH ONE OF them is faking it, do you think?’ Isla Sinclair wondered breezily, as she eyed the honeymooning couple frolicking together on the Chilean beach.
Her stepsister Leonora—former stepsister, if Isla was going to be strictly accurate—put down her summer cocktail and turned gracefully to look.
‘Don’t let what Brad-the-Cad did turn you into some hardened cynic, Isla.’ Leo smiled softly. ‘Maybe they’re actually in love?’
‘And you’re such a hopeless romantic.’ Isla grinned, making a conscious effort to thrust any unwelcome memories of her ex-fiancé out of her head. ‘You know as well as I do that someone is always faking it. If they’re really lucky, then they’re enjoying a mutually advantageous marriage, like my mother and your father had.’
Or at least it had been mutually advantageous for a blissful five years, ending perfectly amicably thirteen years ago, when Isla and Leo had been nineteen.
Onwards and upwards. Certainly that was a lesson Isla had learned at the knee of her beautiful, charming mother who had bounced her, cooed to her and whispered to her just what had to be done in order to negotiate for her next, richer, even more well-connected husband.
Marianna Sinclair-Raleigh-Burton had always seen marriage more like a business negotiation, with each party agreeing in advance what the other would bring to the table.
‘I can just hear your mother now.’ Leo shook her head affectionately. ‘Why complicate things by pretending to be in love, girls? Far better to be up-front. That way, there are no nasty surprises.’
‘Ugh!’ Isla mimicked one of her mother’s comical, yet simultaneously elegant shudders. ‘Perish the thought.’
Leo laughed, a tinkly kind of sound that Isla had always thought was the prettiest laugh she’d ever heard.
‘You sound just like her, Isla.’
‘I can live with that. Where is my mother anyway?’
‘She said she was going to have a lie-down.’ Leo pulled a wry face. ‘But what are the chances she’s found herself a new suitor?’
‘Well, firstly, she’s a new divorcee, again.’ Isla ticked the points off on her fingers. ‘Secondly, she insisted on coming out here and turning it into a holiday, even though I told her that I had come out early for some quiet, to get my head around my new role as ship’s doctor in two days. And thirdly, she booked us into the most expensive hotel in this part of the region—possibly in the whole of Chile. So if she hasn’t already eyed up a new husband for herself then I’d be surprised.’
‘Better her looking for herself than trying to set one of us two up,’ Leo groaned, though there was no rancour in her tone.
Both girls knew that, for all her faults, Marianna was the closest thing Leo had ever had to a mother, even all these years after their respective parents’ divorce. And in Isla’s eyes too, Marianna was the most loving, generous mother she thought a girl could ever have.
Still, that didn’t stop her from rolling her eyes good-naturedly now. ‘Quite. But I won’t hold my breath.’
‘Me neither.’ Leo turned to eye the honeymoon couple again. ‘Maybe they really are in love.’
‘Maybe.’
>
With a sigh, Isla let her eyes drift back to them. They certainly looked like they were loving life.
It just wasn’t the life that Isla had ever wanted for herself.
‘Anyway, I fancy checking out a few little stores I saw on the walk down here.’ Leo finished her drink and pushed it to the side. ‘Do you want to come?’
Isla hesitated for a moment. ‘No, actually, if you don’t mind I think I’d like to go for a walk along the beach. Once I’m on board, it might be a while before I get a chance to set foot on land again.’
‘Makes sense.’ Leo slipped off the stool and hooked her summery purse over her head. ‘See you back at the hotel?’
‘Yeah, about an hour?’
‘An hour.’ Leo nodded, heading daintily out of the bar and, unsurprisingly, in the direction of the honeymooners.
Typically romantic Leo. Isla smiled to herself.
But she definitely wasn’t here for love, or even for a holiday romance—the idea of either was enough to make her shudder—she was here for work. Better than that, she was here for the job of her life, the job she’d dreamed of doing ever since she’d been a kid—junior doctor on a cruise ship.
The Jewel of Hestia.
Perhaps not the incredible Queen Cassiopeia, the flagship of the Port-Star Cruise Line fleet that was anchored out at sea right now, but a good one all the same. One that would allow her to do the work she loved combined with travelling around the world.
What could be more perfect?