A Marriage In The Making. Natalie Fox

       CHAPTER ONE

      KARIS watched with interest as the Estrella slid smoothly alongside the jetty, the oily throb of its engines barely audible over the swish of surf on the white sands of Fiesta’s private tropical island.

      In the shade and the leafy seclusion of a banyan tree on the edge of the beach, unobserved by anyone on board, Karis gently readjusted baby Tara on her hip as the vacationers started to alight from the yacht.

      There were the usual this week: several middle-aged, portly gentlemen in Bermuda shorts with beautiful golden-skinned blondes sashaying along the wooden jetty after them. The more leggy and beautiful the blonde, the richer the portly gentleman, it appeared.

      Karis watched them come ashore with a soft smile of amusement on her full lips. There had been a time when she had found it unbearable to watch the disembarking ritual, almost despising those people for coming here to enjoy themselves. They were usually couples and, however ill matched some might appear, they were nevertheless together, which made her feel her own loss so deeply.

      It had got easier over the months, though, and now she could watch with amusement instead of envy and irritation. She might not have a partner of her own any more but she had something those leggy blondes hadn’t. She had the love of two adorable children, a certain measure of contentment in her life now and Josh had helped her regain her self-worth, which she hadn’t possessed when she had arrived a year ago.

      And Josh—where was he? Karis turned to see him happily engaged in trying to entice a land crab out from under a clump of cactus a little way along the deserted beach, so Karis didn’t feel guilty for giving the last two passengers left on deck a little more of her curious attention.

      He was gorgeous—neither middle-aged nor portly but obviously affluent judging by the cut of his white linen trousers and midnight-blue silk shirt He was tall, with glossy black hair and dark, broody good looks, and Karis gazed at him in awe for a few seconds and then shifted her dark eyes to the lady with him. She was gorgeous too, as would be expected. Her hair was reddy gold and her flowing silk print outfit was lovely and Karis had to admit she looked rather more intelligent than the usual females who came to the island for fun and sun.

      Beautiful people the couple might appear but, alas, beautiful people they didn’t sound to Karis, who was totally mesmerised by the charismatic stranger who was speaking now in such a controlled manner to his companion.

      ‘Leave the luggage, Simone,’ he ordered firmly. ‘There are staff to take care of it and nothing can get lost.’

      ‘I’m not taking any chances,’ came back the determined reply—a cutting remark which, to his credit, her companion ignored.

      The man, with his eyes hidden by dark sunglasses, stood with his hands gripping the curving rail of the yacht, his jaw set as if in stone, and Karis guessed he was determinedly controlling his impatience and temper. He waited, silently, broodingly, while his companion curtly instructed one of the crew to haul her bags out from under the rest of the luggage now and to take it up to the plantation house and deposit it in her suite and nowhere else.

      ‘Honey child,’ drawled the good-humoured West Indian, ‘I crew this yacht and that’s as far as my duties go. You wanna packhorse you—’

      ‘Packhorse at your service, ma’am,’ came the cry from Leroy, one of Fiesta’s houseboys, as he ran barefoot along the jetty to greet them.

      Karis pressed two fingers firmly over her lips to stifle her amusement as she watched the spectacle of Leroy charming and disarming the irascible red-gold lady with his open, honest grin of welcome and his willingness to obey her any command at a moment’s notice.

      The impressive-looking man with her didn’t appear to notice what was going on, the taming of his companion. He was leaning on the rail now, in a world of his own, gazing at the small tropical island, his jawline still rigidly set, his broad shoulders tense and unyielding under the silk of his shirt as it rippled against him in the rush of a tropical breeze. Karis imagined his eyes to be glacier-blue under cover of his heavy sunglasses, because for all his obvious good looks he appeared a cold sort of person and one not particularly pleased to be here.

      Karis remembered