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  But it was Norman.

  "No? You don't get jealous? What do you do when your girl looks at another man?"

  "Grin and wink at the guy while my arm's around her. He'll never be me and never have what I do, but that's cool. Not everyone's as awesome as me. Let me show you, babe."

  She gasped at his audacity, the sheer arrogance of the man...but even the typed words made her more aroused than Norman ever had. Aroused at a man who used a stock photo for a profile picture. "Show me what you really look like first."

  "What do you mean? The site's rules say no face, cock or arse pictures, so I stuck my six-pack on there. You don't like muscles, babe?"

  "They don't look real. Show me what you really look like." She slowly exhaled, knowing she'd effectively ended the conversation. Lucky Jason's six-pack was as fictional as his sexual prowess. Big bad wolf eating her, indeed.

  She left the laptop and headed to the kitchen to dry the dishes. Lucky Jason wasn't so lucky tonight, but then neither was she.

  Phuong returned to the laptop when she'd put away the last beer glass. To her surprise, a blurry picture of a man's muscled tummy beside the edge of a keyboard sat on the screen. "Satisfied?" said the message above it.

  "No," she replied. "You could've pulled that photo off the internet, too. Give me proof of life. Take a picture with today's newspaper."

  "We don't get newspapers out here. I live on a deserted island. Tell me your real name and I'll write it across my abs for you."

  If he mangled her name or called her Fiona like Norman, she'd delete every damn message and never speak to him again. "It's Phuong."

  Seconds ticked by without a response. Phuong glanced at the clock on the oven. If she didn't go to bed soon, she wouldn't get enough sleep before Norman insisted she make breakfast for him.

  She glanced back and was greeted by another blurry picture, but this one had the letters P-H-U wavering across his skin. She held her breath as another picture appeared, this time bearing a wonky O, a back-to-front N and a tailed G that ended by guiding her eye to the treasure trail vanishing into the waistband of his shorts. Then a final shot with all six letters.

  Before she could type a response, he added a line of text: "How do you pronounce it?"

  "Rhymes with thong, only with an F." Wonders never ceased. A second point to Lucky Jason – one for actually having a six-pack, and one for caring about getting her name right.

  "I want to see you wearing one so I can take it off with my teeth."

  That made him an American, Phuong guessed, sighing. Lucky Jason was too good to be true. He couldn't give her Aussie citizenship, so she'd be stuck with Norman.

  "Just don't bite my feet. I'm looking for an Australian man who knows thongs come in pairs and who'll wear them with me as we go for a walk on the beach. Is there one of those on your deserted island? Don't think so."

  She switched her computer off and put it away, wishing for just a moment she'd waited for someone like Jason instead of settling for neurotic Norman. Squeezing into the apartment's only bed beside Norman, she dreamed of something better. Someone better. Hoping that one day, she'd be free to choose.

  TEN

  Her day had to get better. It had to. Oh, in God's name, what was that racket?

  The long, loud note of someone pressing the shit out of their horn made Xan stick her head out of the office. A guest had almost reversed his hire car into the drinks truck. Instead of attempting to manoeuvre around the truck, or waiting for the driver to finish his delivery, the idiot punched his car horn again and started swearing at the driver to move.

  Xan scanned the parking lot, but the foul-mouthed guest was the only person there.

  She found the truck driver in the kitchen, lifting boxes onto the counter for Adele. Every time his biceps flexed, Adele cooed over them.

  "What's happening out there?" the delivery guy asked.

  "Someone nearly crashed into your truck and for some reason this upset him, so he's blaming you for it." Xan shrugged. "Let him wait. The only cars that can't get out of that parking lot are the staff ones you're parked in front of, and we won't need them until Adele finishes work in an hour."

  Adele flashed a grateful smile.

  "Only an hour to go? Same as me," the driver drawled, eyeing Adele.

  Xan returned to the office and month-end reports. This would go so much faster if Emily hadn't messed up the data entry on all the invoices. Tomorrow, she'd have to sit the girl down and explain it again. But right now, the fastest way to fix this was to redo it all herself. One invoice at a time.

  If only she'd gotten that resort job. It'd been three weeks since her interview and she hadn't heard anything, though they'd said she'd know within a week. That meant a rejection letter, she was sure of it. They'd probably found some Aussie who'd grown up bilingual, speaking Chinese or whatever they needed their tour guide to talk in. If she'd known she'd need Chinese, she'd have dropped French and picked up the new language in a heartbeat, way back in high school. Even the memory of her French teacher's expression as Xan mauled the woman's native tongue was enough to make her wish she'd had another option.

  Invoices. Xan forced herself to think of invoices and not what might have been. Her bad luck now would surely lead to an awesome opportunity soon enough. Something always came up.

  Six corrections later, her phone buzzed. Xan didn't recognise the number, aside from knowing it was a Broome landline, so she answered cautiously, "Hi, this is Xan."

  "Ms Lane? It's Max Meier, the manager here at the Romance Island Resort. Sorry it's taken so much time to get back to you, but it's taken this long to clarify matters with the Department of Immigration. They can't extend a visa like yours, but they can transition it into a skilled migrant visa with a view to..." He continued, but Xan only half listened to jargon, numbers and a boring story about bureaucracy.

  What did it matter? He'd evidently given the job to someone else. If this was his rambling way of justifying it, she'd have preferred the stock-standard rejection letter in the post, thank you. It was far more satisfying to shred the letter into little pieces than to listen politely to someone deliver the same message until she could bite out a false but cheerful farewell.

  A string of words caught her attention. "Wait – what?"

  "I said we can only offer you the job if you're willing to commit to at least a full year, with the possibility of extending your contract over the next three years after that." Meier sucked in a breath. "But if you cease working with us, you'll have two weeks to leave the country and the resort will pay for your flights."

  He wasn't rejecting her? But a year...or even four of them...she'd have to talk to her parents. Not to mention Jerome. If she lived here that long, maybe she'd never want to leave.

  Of course, the resort job could suck donkey's balls and maybe she'd want to leave after a week. Unlikely, but possible. If that happened, she'd be back on a plane to the UK earlier than she'd intended. But the resort would pay for it...

  "Ms Lane?"

  "Sorry." The possibilities kept multiplying before her eyes. "I'm at work at the moment, so I can't really discuss this here. Can you send those contracts through so I can take a look at them? I should be able to give you an answer tomorrow."

  "There's the visa documents, too. Quite a lot of paperwork. We'd need all of it filled in as soon as possible, as the visa application takes some time and you can't start work until it's approved."

  Which bit of 'I'm at work and can't discuss this' did he not understand? Xan wasn't sure she wanted to work for a demanding boss who ignored any kind of professional ethics. Plus, if she didn't get along with him, the moment she quit, she'd be shipped back to the UK on the next plane – end of adventure.

  Movement caught her eye and Xan couldn't help staring as a man wearing nothing but a towel that barely met around his hips strode across the courtyard toward her. She had to get off the phone now. Drooling was imminent.

  "I understand. I'll get back to you tomorr
ow." Before Meier could say anything else, she ended the call.

  "Yes? Can I help you?" Xan addressed the six-pack rapidly approaching before lifting her gaze over his defined chest to his thunderous expression.

  "I found this in the shower," he grumbled, opening one fist.

  Xan caught a glimpse of green before the frog made a flying leap for freedom. Taut-and-Towelled launched himself into the air after the miscreant, throwing both arms up to catch it. The towel flew apart like the wings of an angel, displaying everything he had to offer his future bride. Xan didn't need a camera to remember this – the image of his flying wedding tackle was burned into her retinas. The rest of him wasn't half-bad, either. And he caught frogs naked – quite an achievement, though one he didn't seem particularly proud of.

  Flying Frog Man dove for his towel and wrapped it around his hips once more, mumbling something as he hurried back to the bathroom.

  And that was why Xan had chosen to work in a backpackers hostel. Every day had new surprises in store. Even she hadn't guessed that today would include the best flying tackle she'd ever seen and a job offer. What else would the day hold?

  Her chiming computer brought her thoughts back to the present. Sighing, Xan returned to the monthly accounts. The sooner she was finished, the sooner she could open the email from Meier that had just popped up in her inbox.

  Xan wasn't sure whether to buy celebratory champagne or bugger-the-whole-bloody-world bourbon on her way home. Maybe both. She'd decide what to drink once she'd read Meier's email. It's not like alcohol went to waste at her place. Today might not be a bourbon day, but tomorrow might deserve a double.

  ELEVEN

  If she'd been a bourbon drinker, Phuong would have downed a whole bottle happily. As it was, they only had beer and it wasn't exactly a breakfast food.

  Phuong had managed to stay away from her messages for thirty-five hours, until Norman had insisted on pancakes for breakfast.

  "You're useless in the kitchen. These are nothing like my mum used to make. These aren't fit for dogs!" Norman shook the offending pancake in her face before dropping it in the bin. It didn't matter that every other identical pancake she'd made had been eaten with grunts of what she'd assumed were approval. Today, they weren't good enough. "You better not mess up dinner, or I'll throw you out of the house and find someone better!"

  He closed the door behind him and ground the key in the deadlock, effectively imprisoning her in the third-floor apartment.

  Tears sprang to her eyes at the thought that she'd endured a month of this torture without a thing to show for it. Still she was no closer to getting her citizenship or finishing her degree. Phuong grabbed her laptop and gripped the keyboard as she waited for it to power up. This time, she didn't even glance at Norman's messages – her eyes darted to the new message waiting from Lucky Jason. Whispering a prayer, she clicked on it.

  She gasped at the gallery of photos Jason had sent her. A weird angled shot, showing his abs and his shorts in the blurred foreground as the picture focussed on his thong-clad feet on the sand. In the second picture, he held out a pair of pink ladies' thongs with a long, sandy beach in the background. Phuong scrolled down, only to discover he'd taken the shoes to half a dozen picturesque spots and photographed each one. A jetty, a tiny beach beneath rust-coloured cliffs, palm trees caressing white sand, his feet knee deep in water, with what looked like baby sharks swimming around his legs, with a final shot of the sunset framed between the same pair of women's footwear.

  He'd only written one line to go with them: "I'm looking for a woman who can fill these shoes."

  She laughed at the Cinderella reference, knowing that no self-respecting fairy godmother would grant a girl rubber-soled thongs. Jason and his talk of fairy tales.

  "Where on Earth do you live?" Phuong fired back, wiping her tears away. Jason lived in paradise. He'd surely have his pick of beautiful women there.

  But there was no response. He wasn't online, or he wasn't listening.

  Phuong decided to work off her frustration by doing the things she hated most. She scrubbed the bathroom, cleaned the toilet, mopped all the tiles and vacuumed every bit of the floor, checking her laptop as she passed, hoping for an answer that never came.

  She vacuumed mummified fly corpses out of the sliding door tracks and window frames, emptied the kitchen cabinets, wiped them down and replaced everything.

  Jason had vanished off the face of the Earth, if he even existed.

  Phuong loaded a piece of pork into the roasting pan, obeying the instructions on the packaging as she set the temperature and timer. Whatever she did to the meat, it wouldn't satisfy Norman, but he'd at least be mercifully silent for the few minutes he had his mouth full.

  Grabbing a handful of sugar snap peas from the fridge, she sat in front of her laptop as she crunched through her snack. As if he'd sensed her presence, a new message from Jason popped up on the screen.

  Eight words: "Romance Island Resort. The loneliest island on Earth."

  A resort? Phuong snorted. He'd have women hanging off him at every turn. If there was such a place. A quick search revealed that the island did exist and some of the pictures on the resort's website resembled those Jason had sent her.

  "What's wrong with you that you can't get a date on Romance Island?" she typed. There. Now it'd come out. Maybe his face was horribly disfigured and no one could look at him. Maybe he'd suffered a horrific accident so he couldn't see, hear or speak.

  "I can get a date or a one night stand or a holiday romance from almost any woman who sets foot on the island. They can't resist me. But love, commitment? No one wants that any more. They just want what I can do for them and they're gone, taking a piece of my heart with them."

  "That's not true," she began, then hesitated. She wasn't looking for love or long-term commitment – just what an Australian man could give her to further her career. Was she so different? It's not like she'd looked for love from Norman. She wanted to be free of him as soon as possible. Erasing her first line, she replaced it with: "You must have known some really horrible, mercenary women."

  As if by magic, she'd unleashed the floodgates. Jason's responses flowed thick and fast, relating years of pain at casual relationships that never lasted. Women who weren't enough for him, who wanted to drain him dry and leave him a lifeless husk.

  Like Norman was doing to her.

  The scrape of booted feet on the doormat sent Phuong into a panic – she'd lost track of the time and Norman was home already. She hadn't even prepared the vegetables. Slamming her laptop shut, she stowed it in the bag and hurried to the kitchen. Norman could never know she'd been talking to another man – he'd go ballistic and try to take her laptop away from her.

  She couldn't allow that to happen. Jason was the only thing keeping her sane. And maybe, just maybe, she could help him, too.

  TWELVE

  Xan skimmed through the documents as she ate her dinner alone at home that evening. The Chinese takeaway did the best roast pork and she'd decided to treat herself tonight.

  The more she read, the more she became convinced that she'd been offered her dream job. Nevertheless, she couldn't accept it without speaking to her family and, more importantly, Jerome. He hadn't replied to her emails in a while, and she'd been so busy with work that she'd been too tired to call him most nights. But this was important – she'd track him down by dawn, if it killed her.

  Who to call first? Her parents would be easy – they supported her in everything she did – but she didn't want to tell them about the new job if Jerome didn't want her to take it. Better that they never knew about it at all.

  She tried Jerome, but got no answer, so she left him a short voicemail asking him to call her as soon as he received her message, or tell her when to call back.

  Fine. Her parents it would be, then.

  "Finally!" Mum huffed before even bothering with a 'hello'. "I thought you'd forgotten all about us. Having so much fun in Australia that you forgot about the
people who love and care for you here at home?"

  Despite herself, Xan laughed. "Yeah, Mum. Doing the monthly accounts for a backpacker hostel in between rescuing the tourists from the resident wildlife is so thrilling, I've started applying for other jobs to save myself."

  "Wildlife? What kind of wildlife?" Her mother turned pale. "Tell me you're not catching snakes and other dangerous things, turning into something like that crazy crocodile man. He died, you know."

  "No, Mum, I haven't caught a single crocodile, though I heard one might have moved into the mangroves near Streeter's Jetty in town. I heard it from one of the tour guides who saw the tracks. More likely kids with dirt bikes, but you never know. I'm sure I've told you about the frogs in the bathrooms at the backpackers." Xan didn't have to force a smile. Flying Frog Man was her favourite guest this week, hands down.

  "What kind of hotel has frogs in the bathroom? It sounds like a dive, Xanthe, honey. With all your qualifications and things, surely you can get a better job in a place without vermin."

  Mum gave her the best openings. "Actually, I received a job offer this morning. A luxury resort on its own island just north of here wants me to work for them, organising activities for their celebrity guests and stuff. It looks really good, but they want me to stay longer than I'd planned. Definitely past Christmas. Maybe even longer than that."

  "Really?" Mum peered at the screen, as if trying to search Xan's expression through the thousands of miles separating them. "Are you sure that's what you want? We love you and we'd love to have you home for Christmas, of course, but it seems like you've already given up so much for your trip. A good job at the school where your father teaches, your lovely flat, and that boyfriend of yours. Is living in Australia really worth giving up all of that?"

  The flat hadn't been lovely at all – it had been tiny, with walls so thin you heard what the neighbours were watching on TV or, worse, what noises they made in bed. Teaching English was hardly her dream job and Jerome...she hadn't given him up at all. They were engaged and the wedding would happen when she got back.