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As a surprise.

A sailing holiday around Deception Island, a small island in the South Pacific. I was determined to teach Brad to love sailing as much as I did. I’d taped our itinerary to a bottle of his favourite merlot, and I’d been going to leave it on the kitchen countertop.

But I was the one who got the surprise, wasn’t I? The truth was Brad didn’t want to go on a honeymoon with me; it wasn’t about the money. I wondered now how he had been going to live in the same house with me.

My eyes had narrowed when I spotted the handbag on the sofa and the stiletto heels lying abandoned outside the bedroom door.

The closed bedroom door.

The merlot ended up in the wheelie bin on the footpath outside his apartment.

I couldn’t help the snort I expelled

‘What was that for?’ Mum’s eyes narrowed, and I realised how saggy her eyelids were these days. She wouldn’t like that.

‘What was what for?’ I said.

‘The noise you made. That snort. Most unladylike.’

‘I don’t have time to talk, Mum. I’ve ordered a taxi.’

‘Where are you going? Where will I tell Bradley to find you?’

‘He doesn’t need to find me. It’s over, Mum.’ Heat filled my chest; bile rose up into my throat and more tears threatened. I pushed it back and let the anger consume me; I was usually such a softie and always gave in to keep the peace.

But not this time.

No, not this time, and never again.

Jane Sullivan was a new woman.

A strong woman who was never going to give in to what everyone wanted her to do or be made a fool of again.

Jane Sullivan was going to live the life she wanted.

I picked up my suitcase, opened the door and stepped out. The last thing I saw before I left our perfect life was my mother’s mouth stuck open like a fish gasping for air.

The door closed behind me with a satisfying thud, and I hurried out to the waiting taxi.

I’d booked two days in a hotel in the city to lick my wounds and then I was off on a ten-day sailing adventure in paradise.

Alone.

Chapter Two

Linc Martin left the administration office on Columbus Island in a foul mood. Deception Island was under the jurisdiction of the larger island; both islands had once been a small territory of Australia and had gained their independence in the nineteen fifties.

It might as well still be the nineteen fifties.

Frustration filled Linc as he made his way to the airport to catch the short island hop that would take him the fifty kilometres across to Deception Island.

A wife! The president had actually called him in to tell him he had found—no, chosen—a wife for him. One of his brother’s cousin’s friend’s daughters or some other convoluted relationship. A woman who was apparently a suitable wife for the police chief of Deception Island.

David Kekoa had lowered his imposing bulk into the chair behind his desk and shaken his head. ‘I am very happy with your policing work, Lincoln, but I have had some disturbing reports of you socialising a little too much with some of the female tourists on the island.’ The president steepled his fingers and looked over his glasses at Linc, his triple chins wiggling as he spoke. ‘It will not do. So, I have taken matters in hand and found you a suitable partner.’

Even at thirty-one, Linc had felt like a naughty boy called to the headmaster’s office.

‘I think that you might find that those reports are greatly exaggerated, David.’ He bit back the anger that rose quickly. This was all political; Tommy Kekoa, his deputy and the president’s nephew was always undermining him and had his eyes on the chief of police position. And there had been no unsuitable socialising; the stories were all Tommy’s fabrication. ‘While I am very grateful for your concern, David, there is no need for that.’ The lie sprang to Linc’s lips easily; he knew that David would get his own way unless it was nipped in the bud at the outset. ‘Thank you for thinking of me, but I have a girlfriend, and we are planning to get married.’