Nicole: Star Crossed Lovers (A Wish for Love Series Book 2) by Mia Shales

carrying Carla's daughter piggyback on his shoulders.
    "I'm sorry I don't have any photos of Marcello.  I must ask him to send me some."
    It was almost ten o'clock when they landed in Cairns.  The Mercedes was waiting at the carport where James had parked it the day before.  Nicole found it hard to believe that it was only yesterday she had let herself be persuaded by James to alight the plane on its way to the enchanted isle.  It seemed to her that it had all happened a long time ago.  James drove quickly and the car stopped in front of her house in less than half an hour.  She expected Daniel would escort her to the door and bid her goodnight, but it appeared he had other plans.
    "Pick me up tomorrow at five in the morning," he instructed James and took her clothes in one hand and his computer bag in the other.  "Filming starts at six.  Until then I don't want to be disturbed."
    "Very well, sir," James answered calmly. 
    Nicole felt happiness wash over her.  He had no intention of leaving her.  At least not tonight.
    She ushered Daniel into the living room and lit the lamps.  He examined the room. "Was this the way your house looked when you were growing up?"
    While her parents were alive the house had been filled with heavily ornate expensive furniture.  After her father's death three years ago she sold off everything.  She painted all the rooms in white and cream, hanging fine lace curtains at all the windows.  The house was redecorated with sofas and armchairs upholstered in light fabrics and with furniture painted in shades of brown, green and blue.  The original somber and cheerless furnishings were discarded as though in that way Nicole could get rid of her melancholy memories.
    "No," she answered.  "After my mother died and my father was hospitalized I cleared out the place and redecorated."
    "You have good taste," he noted and Nicole, knowing how critical he could be, was proud of his compliment.  She had expended a great deal of thought and energy on the new look of the house.
    "How come the house was in your name?"  He was not eager to open old wounds but the questions would have to be asked sometime and it was just as well that it be now.  Then he could better understand and help break the chains that bound her to the remnants of her pain.
    "It's a long story.  Parts of it even I didn't know when I first met you.  I'll tell you all about it but first I'll get us some coffee."
    "Let me help you."
    "My mother," she began her story when they sat down, "was the only child of poor and extremely conservative parents.  She was brought up in a small isolated village, lonely and cut off from the larger society.  She never had friends her age and her yearnings for love and affection were poured out in her drawing.  Over the years she channeled all her talents into her ethereal watercolors.  When she was eighteen her parents sent her on her first trip to the city.  My mother traveled alone to Sydney to spend the summer with her aunt - her mother's sister.  It was in her aunt's house that my father saw her for the first time.  He was handsome and son of a fairly wealthy family in Brisbane.  He studied engineering with her aunt's son and was their guest during summer vacations.  For my father it was love at first sight and she was swept away by the polished charm of the serious and sensitive man.  With the aunt's encouragement the secret romance bloomed and they were wed at the end of that summer.
    My father's parents - my grandmother and grandfather - who were at first bitterly opposed to their son's hasty marriage made their peace with the couple and even agreed to support them until my father finished his studies.  I was born a year later and before very long my grandparents were charmed by the round and dimply baby.  The bond that was forged then lasted till the day they died and I used to stay with them for a month every year."
    "I'm not surprised. Anybody would fall in love with