‘Shopping?’
She scanned me top to bottom. Once, twice . . . It was not a subtle scan. ‘Not sure about you, but last time I found myself at a tropical resort, black jeans and brown T-shirts weren’t exactly what everyone was wearing.’ I looked down at my clothes. ‘You’re going to need some sundresses, something casual and tropical, and a bikini.’
‘I have swimsuits.’
‘They’re black,’ she said flatly.
‘Well, I’m in mourning over my husband leaving me at the altar in front of five hundred wedding guests,’ I teased.
‘If your husband’s just left you at the altar, even more reason to wear the sexiest bikini ever, and take lots of photos of yourself and post them to social media to show him what he’s missing out on.’
‘I don’t have social media!’
‘But Lily Swanson does.’
‘Who’s that?’
‘The woman who was jilted at the altar. You’re going to need a name.’
I huffed. She was right about that. In fact, she was right about the clothes too. I just wished Lily had had the foresight to see what an idiot her fiancé was before she’d ordered an ice sculpture and a five-tier cake with sparklers. What a waste of money!
I tried to open my suitcase, but the zipper got stuck. It was as if the suitcase felt the same way as I did about what was about to go inside it and was protesting. I turned and looked at the tropical explosion spread across my bed, blinking against the blinding bright colours. Tight strappy tops, too-short skirts, sandals with fruit on them, those two evening dresses that Philly had insisted I buy, and worst of all, the tiny bits of Lycra fabric masquerading as bikinis. My nose wrinkled as I dangled one of them from my finger. I needed a wax if I was going to wear this without scaring people away.
Sharaz had better appreciate my commitment to this job, because this afternoon had been hell. Philly had dragged me through three shops insisting that I ‘embrace the vacation vibes’, whatever the hell that meant. I had never embraced a vibe in my life, let alone one that involved floral prints and – what had the woman at the shop called it? – spaghetti straps. I turned and looked at myself in the mirror. I wasn’t sure these clothes were going to go with what stared back at me. I’d always been bigger than every other girl I knew growing up, taller, more muscular, and it was only when I started playing rugby in college that I finally found some peers with the same kind of body as mine. For a moment there I’d thought I might go professional, but that would have meant only focusing on that, and I wasn’t prepared to give up my ju-jitsu. I’d always loved sports. But not just any sports.I loved the sports that required you to throw your body around, put it through its paces and push it as far as it could go. Sports that left you aching, bruised, breathless but feeling totally alive. I looked down at the stringy orange thing in my hands once more and sighed. I’d been so looking forward to this job, until I realised it required dressing like a human pina colada.
CHAPTER 5
I slipped the seat belt on and looked around. I must say, first class really made the prospect of a four-hour flight so much better. As soon as the plane took off, I pulled out my iPad. Philly always put together a dossier for me for each job, downloading every article, social media post and piece of intel she could find.
As I started reading, my spy senses immediately began to tingle. Red flags. Everywhere. The biggest one? That missing Picasso. Never retrieved, yet conveniently insured. Victor Langdon must’ve got a massive payout from that little ‘theft’. A staged robbery was easier to pull off than you’d think. And then there were all those shiny diamonds. In my experience, most people selling diamonds on that kind of scale were either sourcing them illegally or using them to launder money. Probably both.
I tried to concentrate, but the sudden sound of a wailing baby was making it impossible. Crying babies had never elicited a maternal instinct in me. As a child, I hadn’t played with dolls; I’d been too busy solving mysteries. I’d preferred hidden clues, paper trails, puzzles. I suppose that was what led me to study criminology and then to go on to the police academy. I’d wanted to become a powerful female detective, like the ones from my favouriteTVshows.
I’d had this romanticised notion that I would become a South African version of aCIAoperative orFBIagent, tracking down serial killers with crazyMOs and great names, like . . . the Cuticle Collector, a killer who trimmed their victims’ cuticles and collectedthem in jars. But the whole police detective fantasy didn’t exactly turn out as planned.
I shuffled uncomfortably in my seat as an image of Cam popped into my head. Why was it that the people you loathed the most happened to be the hottest? And Cam was certainly hot, not to mention amazing in bed too. Prior to that one night with him, I’d always believed that multiple orgasms had been a myth. They were not. That man had reduced me to a simpering puddle of dopamine overload. Maybe that was why I’d allowed myself to be so vulnerable with him; it was surely the only reason I’d found myself lying in the arms of my biggest rival at the police academy experiencing feelings I normallyneverallowed myself to feel.
Cam had always been my stiffest competition at college. One day I would win something, and the next day he would. We bounced back and forth from first in the class to second so many times, fellow pupils and instructors started taking bets on who was going to triumph in a particular activity. And come final year, we were both vying for the top spot. Whoever won, whichever cadet came top of the class, got a golden ticket. First pick of precincts, shifts and specialisations. A better training officer, all in all, someone on a faster and much smoother track to becoming what we so desperately wanted to become, detectives. So when the final exercise of the year came up, I was more than determined to win. Especially because it meant beating Cam, and I hated losing, particularly to him.
The exercise in question was a gauntlet-type thing. A maze designed to simulate high-pressure real-world situations, complete with hostile suspects, random hazards and surprise emergencies. No one knew what it would look like, so you were flying blind. Relying on your instincts and training alone. In the end, Cam crossed the finish line first, and I walked out with second place and a bitterness that ran deep.
But that night, because I’d been called out so many times over the years for not being a team player, I decided I was going to do the noble thing. I’d shown up at his door, struggling to even think thewords let alone force them past my reluctant lips.Well done, you deserve it. Probably the hardest phrase I was ever going to attempt to utter out loud in my entire life. But the minute he opened the door, all the tension from the past two years at the academy snapped. One second I was trying to shake his hand; the next my hands were all over his body. That had been at exactly 2.20 a.m. I still remember the precise time, because for the next six hours I don’t think I’d ever been happier; that is until it all abruptly ended at 8.20. Because it was at that moment that I found the tiny piece of paper that changed everything. Changed the course of my entire life and career, and further cemented in my heart what I already knew about men and relationships.
The baby cried again, and this was followed by a very audible disgruntled huffing sound from the seat across the aisle. I looked over to the man sitting there and we shared a small conspiratorial eye-roll, followed by a disapproving head-shake that said,Urgh, babies!I had to admit, the man was rather gorgeous. He had the most piercing blue eyes, which unfortunately made me start thinking of Cam’s eyes again. The eyes I’d stared into as he’d picked me up like I was a leaf, pinned me against the wall and fucked me into oblivion. I tried to shake that image out of my head. Dwelling on Cam always led to dark places.
The pilot’s voice came crackling through the intercom telling us we had just started our descent. I looked out the window, and the glistening blue sight beneath me took my breath away. The most brilliant turquoise sea I’d ever seen, dotted with tiny islands. If I wasn’t on a job, I thought, I might actually enjoy myself here. When was the last time I’d been on vacation? The answer was: not in many, many years. I’d been so busy building my business that things like vacations and weekends off had fallen by the wayside.
I put my iPad away and readied myself for landing. It was smooth, but as soon as I stepped off the plane, I was hit in the face by a wall of humidity. It was like being slapped by a wet towel. I tugged at my collar, mentally cursing the blazer I’d chosen to wear.
CHAPTER 6
My final destination was the famous North Island, a secluded and completely private island boasting one of the world’s most luxurious resorts, according to Condé Nast – Philly had put that article in the file too. She’d also been kind enough to leave a little note for me insisting that I let my hair down. Quite literally; I’d only ever worn it in a scraped-back ponytail.Have some fun!she’d written. I scoffed. This was a business trip after all.
Because the Seychelles was a massive archipelago, made up of over a hundred islands, I would need to take a seaplane to the resort. I stood on the dock with my bags and looked around, all the while feeling how the humidity had started to wreak havoc on my hair. Just nature’s way of reminding me to keep it scraped back, because this was the kind of weather that made my natural curls explode. I hated my curls. Not only did they tangle, but they also made me look like some whimsical storybook character – like I should be skipping through meadows of flowers, befriending squirrels and singing about the hills. Besides, in my line of work it was better to have your hair tied back if you were crawling through a sewer.
A whole forty minutes later, we were still waiting for the pilot to arrive. Nothing seemed to happen in a rush here. Eventually a man strolled towards us wearing no shoes, Bermuda shorts with pink hibiscus on them and a questionable white vest that saidChillacross the front. I gave him the once-over. I wasn’t scared of being on a small plane, or any flying craft for that matter. I’d jumped out of many a small flying contraption. When I’d taken on a job in Franceonce, I’d had to rappel out of a helicopter and jump into the back yard of a chateau in order to get a photo of a French aristocrat and his mistress. So I wasn’t afraid of things that flew through the air.
But having a barefoot, Bermuda-short-wearing pilot who looked like he was about to light up on the beach was slightly concerning. My only consolation was that if it seemed like we were about to crash, I knew how to fly the plane. Despite all that, though, it did take off in the manner that it should. And with only eight people on board, I noticed him immediately: the man with the blue eyes.
