"...but I suppose that wasn't as hard as I expected..."
Xan shook herself out of her meandering thoughts as she realised her mother was still rambling.
"Is he the reason you've moved to Australia?" Mum finished plaintively.
"Is who? And I haven't moved to Australia. I'm just here on a working holiday, a bit of a break after finishing university before – "
"That half-wit ex-boyfriend of yours! He should have fought harder to make you stay, but it's his loss."
Had her mother been drinking? Surely she remembered the fancy family dinner where Xan and Jerome had announced their engagement. Xan hadn't taken the ring off since. "Mum – "
"You deserve better. Maybe you can find some rugged Australian man while you're over there. That's why you broke it off with that boy here, didn't you? You knew what he was like and didn't want a bar of it. I always knew he was bad news..."
"MUM! What are you talking about? Since when is Jerome bad news?" Xan wanted to reach through the screen and shake her mother. None of this made sense.
"Since he got little Kelly from up the road pregnant. He's going to marry her, too, when she'd old enough, so now she's proudly walking up and down the street in all weather, just so everyone can see her ring, resting on that swelling belly of hers."
Kelly? Xan racked her brain for anyone they knew by that name. There was that kid up the road she used to babysit on occasion, but she was only a teenager – barely into high school. "Which Kelly, Mum? The one I'm thinking of is only fourteen. Jerome knew her because he babysat with me a few times, or picked me up from there when it was too late to walk, but he couldn't..." He couldn't have a baby with some kid when he was meant to marry me, was what Xan wanted to say, but the words stuck in her throat.
"She's sixteen now. You've been away for a while, Xanthe. After you broke up with him, that boy must have moved on right away. He always did want a wife and kids. Guess he got both in one hit. You did good when you broke up with him. I always knew there was something off about him..."
Xan lost track of her mother's words again, but this time she didn't care. Twenty-six-year-old Jerome having a baby with Kelly, who was still a kid in school herself? He couldn't...he couldn't...the diamond ring on her finger blurred in the onslaught of tears. Tears she couldn't shed in front of her mother.
Blinking furiously, Xan made excuses and ended the call. What in hell had just happened?
It was a lie, she decided. Her mother's idea of an April Fool's joke, though it wasn't April yet. She'd check Jerome's social media profile and try calling him again.
She scrolled through her list of contacts, looking for his name, but couldn't find it. Swearing, she entered his name in the search box and waited for his profile to come up. There he was – she clicked on it and her slow connection flashed an error message. Uttering a few more swear-words, Xan refreshed the page and dialled his number on her phone.
The phone trilled in her ear as the page loaded. Most of the content wasn't showing because she had to be on his friends list to see it, the page told her. What in hell did that mean? Of course they were friends. They were getting fucking married. Unless he'd broken ties with her so sneakily she hadn't even noticed...
Jerome's profile picture popped up on the screen. There, for all the world to see, were Jerome and Kelly, kissing.
"Hullo?" Jerome's sleepy voice answered.
Xan's blood boiled. "You're a fucking wanker. And a paedophile. But mostly a wanker. I hope she kills you in your sleep when she wakes up and realises what you've done to her, you sick wanker!" She hung up.
Jerome could go screw himself before she'd ever speak to him again, let alone look at him. To hell with marriage and family and settling down.
Where were those contracts? Feverishly, Xan started filling out forms as fast as her fingers would go. Her Australian adventure just got kicked up a notch. She was going to give that resort's celebrity guests such a good time, they'd never want to leave. Just like her.
Before she opened the bourbon, Xan had one more call to make.
Meier answered on the second ring.
"Hi, it's Xan Lane. I've read the documents you sent me and I only have one question. There's a clause in the contract that says in the first six months, either you or I can terminate my employment with a day's notice for no reason at all. With my work visa, that basically means if you take a dislike to anything I do, I have zero job security and I can be deported on a moment's notice. Can that clause be removed?"
"Is that your only question, Ms Lane?" It sounded like he held his breath.
Shouldn't it be? Xan's instincts tingled, but she couldn't think of anything else she wanted to question in the contract. This was a test, surely. "Yes. If that clause is gone, and my employment is dependent on my conduct and all the normal employment criteria a permanent employee is entitled to, I'll sign it."
"Then we have a deal, Ms Lane. I'll amend the contract and have a fresh copy for you to sign when you arrive at the resort. I'll arrange for you to be flown over on the Friday before you start, so you can spend a weekend here in paradise as a guest before starting your job on the Monday morning. Now, shall we discuss your start date?"
Yes. Xan let out a breath she hadn't known she was holding and smiled. Jerome could go to hell for all she cared. She'd earned a stint in paradise and they didn't allow snakes like him through the gate.
THIRTEEN
Only half listening to Norman's gloating tale of how he'd managed to charge some woman twice what the job was worth without her noticing, Phuong reached for the olive oil, but her fingers wrapped around the neck of the peanut oil bottle. Luckily, she realised her mistake, so she quickly corrected it before Norman could see. She emptied the olive oil bottle over the potatoes and shook it to get the last drops out before adding the pan to the oven. She lowered the empty oil bottle carefully into the recycling bin so the clink didn't interrupt Norman, then jotted cooking oil on the shopping list. Good thing he insisted steak had to be fried in butter, or she'd be in trouble.
She watched the butter melt and added a fat t-bone to the pan, setting the heat to low so it would cook all the way through like Norman liked it. Or he said he liked it. Yesterday he'd insisted he wanted his steak well-done. Who knew what he liked today?
A clammy hand crept beneath her skirt and clamped around her bum-cheek, squeezing almost to the point of pain. She'd welcome a cuddle from a snake instead of a grope from Norman, and she hated snakes. Damp lips pressed to the back of her neck. Phuong suppressed a shudder as he whispered, "We should have sex to celebrate."
No, we damn well shouldn't, Phuong thought, but she resigned herself to it anyway. She reached to turn off the steak, but Norman grabbed her hand.
"I'll be hungry after this. Don't keep me waiting for my dinner." Not letting go of her hand, he led her to the bedroom.
Ten nauseating minutes later, she dashed back to the kitchen as Norman dealt with the used condom and washed up.
Too late. The steak was burned around the edges. Phuong flipped it and reached for a knife to cut away the blackened bits, but Norman had already left the bathroom and he was watching her every move. Sighing, she dropped the knife back in the drawer. Good thing she hadn't cooked any steak for herself – she'd have trouble eating anything tonight.
Maybe if she hid the burned bits under a thick layer of gravy, Norman might not notice she'd singed his steak. He wasn't exactly the most observant man. If he had been, he might have noticed her distraction over the last few weeks, as she'd spent all of her waking moments responding to Jason's messages or dreaming about being in bed with him instead of two-minute Norman. She'd given Jason her email address, so she no longer needed her laptop to talk to him – now she could access his messages on her phone. And the last one had been his most persuasive yet – he'd asked her to come to him, so he could propose to her properly and be her...what had he called it? Knight in shining armour? But only after she kissed him, turning him from a frog into a
prince again. Him and his fairy tales, so far removed from real life it made her existence even more depressing.
Whisking gravy mix and hot water in a pan, Phuong carefully added more water from the kettle. If Norman found a single lump, he'd whine about her uselessness for half an hour. Though if he did, he might miss the burned meat...and which was the lesser of two evils? Maybe if she got him a beer, he'd be even less perceptive...
Phuong gave Norman a perfunctory smile as she set his plate before him. Overcooked peas and potatoes swam in the swamp of gravy that had oozed off his enormous steak. While he surveyed her handiwork, she dashed to the kitchen for his beer.
"Are you trying to poison me?" he grunted. "Where's your dinner?"
She'd never thought of that, though she wished she had. Phuong recovered quickly. "I wanted to serve you first." She hoped her batted eyelashes distracted him enough.
She dished up a small plate of the potatoes for herself and poured a thin veneer of gravy over the top. Sitting down across from Norman, she cut a small piece of potato and placed it in her mouth. She chewed with feigned delight and forced herself to swallow the starchy vegetable even as it choked her.
Norman seemed satisfied. He tucked into his own dinner, dribbling gravy down his front with careless disregard for the work she'd have getting the stains out of his work shirt or the tablecloth. When he took his first bite of steak, he chewed a couple of times before his eyebrows knitted over his nose. Phuong's heart sank.
He spat the mouthful onto the tablecloth, leaving a splatter of gravy and spit that reached her plate. "You're the worst fucking cook in the world, Fiona. How many times do I have to tell you I like my steak medium? This one's fucking burned, look." He pointed at the blackened beef on the table.
If he hadn't insisted on fucking while she was supposed to be cooking, and told her that today he wanted it only half-cooked, then maybe she could have met his demands. Nothing she did would ever be good enough.
"I'm sorry," she said. What else could she say? She wondered if Jason would make her life a living hell like this. If any other man would.
"You should be. I give you a good fucking and you can't even make me dinner. You should go back to Thailand and working as a whore. You're not good for anything else." He gulped down a third of his beer.
I'm not from Thailand and there's nothing good about getting naked with you, she wanted to scream for the millionth time, but she stayed silent.
He emptied his beer and slammed the bottle on the table. "What are you good for?" he demanded, his voice dangerously low. "Tell me why I should let you stay and be my wife."
She knew what he wanted to hear. He wanted her to repeat the phone-sex lines he'd demanded in the endless messages on the website where they'd met. "I'm good in bed. I can go all night, any way you want to, but only for you, Norman."
He grinned. "Get me another beer."
She did.
He drank slowly, eyeing her over the lip of the bottle. "Tell me why I should fuck you and not some other Thai whore."
Phuong swallowed. Only the thought of not getting her citizenship forced the words out. "I'm better than any whore because I'm all yours. Every inch, every night, all night and no one else can have me but you. You make me so hot, Norman."
"Good girl," he slurred. The second empty beer landed on the table. "Get me another one and I'll give it to you all night, Fiona." He reached into his lap to fondle what Phuong knew was limp and little and lasted less time than any man should.
He made her wait until he'd finished six beers and all of the supposedly inedible steak before he beckoned her back to the bedroom. Only thoughts of Jason's sexy body got her through the next fifteen minutes, as Norman struggled to get it up and blamed it, as he did everything, on her.
When he finally withdrew and she thought her ordeal was over for the night, she heard him say, "Now I want a massage, whore, for making me work so hard."
"Oh, but we're out of massage oil," she lamented.
A stinging slap landed on her thigh. "Then use cooking oil, whore. Give me my fucking money's worth and massage me!"
Forcing her clenched hands to stay by her sides, Phuong left the bed and headed to the kitchen. She grabbed the only bottle of oil in the cupboard and returned to Norman. This was the last time she'd ever touch him, she swore. When he started snoring, she'd pack her things and leave him forever. Slowly, she upended the oil bottle over his back and started to rub it into his skin.
FOURTEEN
The world seemed so alien below, all red rocks and grey-green scrub that clung to the rocks as desperately as she'd clutched the idea of her future with Jerome. But just like the storms that wreaked havoc up here, Cyclone Kelly had put paid to that dream and she could have the bastard. Ha. Her own bastard baby and his wanker of a father. Poor girl. She was too young to know what she was getting into...but she had to know she was stealing another woman's boyfriend. How many times had Kelly asked to see Xan's engagement ring so she could ooh and ah over it?
Xan rubbed her finger, which still felt bare after she'd torn off the ring and sold it at the pawnbroker. She gave the money to the women's shelter in town, knowing they needed the money more than she did. The coordinator had invited her in for tea, as a token of thanks for her gift, and Xan had been too polite to refuse. For fifteen minutes, she'd sat at the long dining table, reminiscent of school dining halls back in the UK, drinking her scalding tea until footsteps behind her told her she wasn't alone. When she turned, she met the eyes of a woman who looked as lost as Xan felt.
They'd stared at each other for what felt like forever, recognising the inner void that they both shared and yet didn't share. It was a lonely, echoing emptiness inside the impenetrable shell Xan had to maintain to make sure no one saw her loss. She'd loved and then had her heart ripped out and fed to a crocodile. Yet somehow she kept on living, shame settling on her like a shroud. Shame that she'd been foolish enough to trust her heart to a man who only wanted to use it for bait to catch something as heartless as him.
Xan hadn't stayed long after that. She wasn't as finished as these women seemed to feel – she had a new job and all her life ahead of her. Without that bastard Jerome to limit her, who knew how high she could fly? And in a helicopter, no less.
Yet now she was up here, she felt so small and insignificant. This huge country with its rugged, unconquered landscape was nothing like home. Not even like the relatively civilised Cable Beach near town. The Dampier Peninsula and the Buccaneer Archipelago beyond had only a few scattered structures on them, connected by tiny ribbons of road.
"Where's the island?" Xan asked dully, scanning the drowned hills that formed the Buccaneer Archipelago.
"It's coming up on the horizon in a few minutes. Your first time out there?" Shou glanced at her and Xan nodded. "Then I'll do a proper fly-by to orient you before we land. Most staff take the carrier boat; the only times I've flown staff to and from the island are when there's an emergency."
Xan waited for him to continue, but as the silence stretched between them, she found she needed to break it. "And? What sort of emergencies?"
Shou seemed intent on the horizon. "The sort that you hope won't happen again at a resort like Romance Island. They've had far too many of them lately. That's all I can say. Look, this is a high-class resort, the sort that offers a high degree of privacy for its guests. We all keep its secrets or we don't work here any more. It's that simple. You may find out about past events if your job requires it, but it's very much a need-to-know basis where nobody really needs to know. You'll get used to it. Most of the people who come out here are those with secrets of their own – the staff and the guests. Some are running from something and the rest are hiding something. Which are you?"
Xan summoned a wan smile. "That's my secret, and you don't need to know."
"Touché." Shou extended his hand to point at a shadow on the horizon. "There's the resort. It doesn't look like much now, but wait until you see..."
The
bump on the water resolved into colours – cream, green and a milky blue, arranged in two lines, no, wait, a v-shape. No, it was...
"Bloody hell. No wonder it's called Romance Island. That can't be natural." Xan stared at the heart-shaped island with a lagoon in the middle. Jetties on either side made it look like it had been pierced by a giant Cupid's arrow. Kind of like her heart still felt, but without the love such a missile was supposed to inspire.
"It mostly is. There are a couple of others the same shape up and down the coast, but this one's the biggest and the lagoon's actually a big rock pool, one of the few places calm enough for coral to grow. It's meant to have some of the best snorkelling and diving this side of Rowley Shoals." Shou peered wistfully at the water as the helicopter moved in a tight turn around the island.
"Meant to? You mean you haven't been in yourself?" Xan asked.
Shou shrugged. "The resort's tour guide promised she'd take me, but she left in a bit of a hurry before I could take her up on the offer."
"I'm a qualified dive master. I could take you," Xan offered.
The helicopter pilot stared at her in what looked like surprise. "Really? Well, if you get time, just let me know. I'd appreciate it."
For the first time in what felt like days, Xan laughed. "I always make time for diving. When the weather's right and with a dive site on my doorstep, I won't let anything stop me from taking a daily dip. The last time I dived was Ningaloo, though, before I came to Broome, so I can't wait to get back into it."
Another long look followed before Shou said abruptly, "Hang on. Coming in to land. Welcome to Romance Island Resort. I hope you enjoy your stay."
Xan settled back in her seat, mulling over the mysteries Shou had hinted at. First were the emergencies he wouldn't discuss. What had happened at the resort that had to be kept so quiet? Was it anything to do with her predecessor, who'd left so suddenly? And what was with the strange looks? Did Shou know something about the island that she didn't?
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