And I Always Will (A Prequel): The Island Escape Series, #0.5

By Stella Quinn

Meet Charlotte & Jack. They're about to break up.

Love second-chance romances? Ever wondered about that long-ago first romance that crashed and burned?

 

And I Always Will is a prequel story to second-chance romance Tropic Storm.

 

Charlotte is young and naive.  She's just moved to London and has finally freed herself from her toxic family. She heads out one evening with her friends Antonia and Sabrina and her world is changed when she meets the American guitarist playing a gig at her local pub.

 

Jack has one year to fulfil his dream to make it as a musician. If he doesn't get a recording contract, he is committed to returning to work in the family business back in the States. His dreams change the evening he lays eyes on the girl who he's going to lose his heart to.

 

Fate, however, has other plans in store for Jack and Charlotte. They just don't know it yet.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Jellyfish Press
• Release date: Feb 14, 2020
• ISBN: 9780648693536

Stella Quinn

Stella Quinn has had a love affair with books since she first discovered the alphabet. She lives in sunny Queensland now, but has lived in England, Hong Kong and Papua New Guinea. Boarding school in a Queensland country town left Stella with a love of small towns and heritage buildings (and a fear of chenille bedspreads and meatloaf!) and that is why she loves writing rural romance. Stella is a keen scrabble player, she's very partial to her four kids and anything with four furry feet, and she is a mediocre grower of orchids. An active member of Romance Writers of Australia, Stella has won their Emerald, Sapphire and Valerie Parv Awards, and finaled in their R*BY Romantic Book of the Year award. You can find and follow Stella Quinn via her website.

Book preview

And I Always Will

And I Always Will

The Island Escape Series: A Prequel Novella

Stella Quinn

Jellyfish Press

The moral right of the author has been asserted. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means, electronic, mechanical, by photocopier or scanner or upload, without the prior written consent of the author.

---

This is a work of fiction. While the locations in this book are a mixture of real and imagined, the characters are totally fictitious. Any resemblance to actual people living or dead is entirely coincidental.

---

© Copyright 2020 Stella Quinn Author

---

All rights reserved.

A Jellyfish Press Book

ISBN ebook 978 0648 6935 36

Contents

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

But wait …

TROPIC STORM - Chapter One

Stella Quinn’s Books

1

I s my eyeliner smudged? You girls should know better than to make me cry when I’m wearing eyeliner. Charlotte turned back to the speckled mirror in the narrow corridor of The Bloodhound Bar and swiped her fingers under her eyes.

Antonia and Sabrina snuggled in beside her until the three of them were reflected in the mirror together. You know, said Antonia. You don’t have to cry just because we prized you out of that dingy squat you call a home to come out with us.

Charlotte fussed at the neckline of the strapless taffeta dress she’d found at the Portobello Road markets, on sale for fifty pence. It had been the dress or a bus fare home that day. The dress had won, and then she’d had to carry it and the seven old books she’d bought all the way down Ladbroke Grove to her flat.

She gave the dress a tug upwards. If she’d known just how much skin it was going to expose, maybe she’d have caught the bus instead.

Sabrina pulled a small purse from her leather handbag and extracted one perfectly folded tissue from it. Turn to me, she said, and swabbed at the smudged eyeliner. You want to tell us why you’ve been not answering our calls for two weeks?

A crowd of Sunday afternoon revellers barrelled down the hallway behind them towards the bar. Ladeeez, one of them bellowed. Looking fine. I’m single, just in case you were wondering.

Antonia rolled her eyes in the mirror, then turned to the group. When we’re desperate, you’ll be the first to know, handsome.

I’ll be waiting …

Laughter drifted into quiet as the group of partiers moved through the inner door to the snooker room at the back of the old pub. From the floor above, came the faint sounds of feet on creaky old floorboards and instruments being tuned.

Charlotte checked to see if the ravages of the past few weeks had been successfully blotted from her face. Her father’s visit had