Pointe of Pride

Chapter 1

There was a special place in hell reserved for the people who designed the lighting in airplane bathrooms, Carly thought, glaring at her reflection in the tiny, grubby mirror. She’d already spotted three new gray hairs since she started brushing her teeth. After a full day in transit, she felt exhausted. And thanks to this mirror and the ghastly overhead lighting, she looked it. Her freckled cheeks were pale, her skin dry and pinched. Two purple-gray smudges under her eyes made them look swollen and sunken, and gave her whole face a vaguely undead vibe. Despite her lip balm’s best efforts, it was no match for twenty-plus hours in a plane, and now her lips were chapped and flaking. And, shit, make that four new gray hairs.

Carly spat into the teeny sink and rinsed her mouth, scowling into the mirror while she swirled the water around her gums. This is true friendship, she thought, packing her toothbrush and toothpaste back into her travel toiletries case, spending a whole day sitting upright in a series of tin cans full of recycled air so I can stand up with Heather at her wedding. She was basically a lock for sainthood, she reasoned, as she opened the door carefully and slipped back out into the coach section, offering a quick, apologetic smile to the impatient-looking middle-aged man who had been seated across the aisle from her snoring loudly for the last twelve hours but was now waiting outside the door. He slipped past her, unsmiling, into the bathroom.

Of course, Carly conceded once she was settled back in her lumpy aisle seat, Heather would do the same for her—if Carly ever got married, which seemed unlikely. Heather had a habit of always showing up when Carly needed her, though. Like two years ago, when Heather’s ex had gotten Carly fired and Heather had leapt into action to get Carly’s job back. And it wasn’t like Carly was sorry to be missing three weeks of a particularly slushy February in New York to drink champagne and go to the beach and hang out with her best friend. So, maybe not sainthood, she thought, swiping through the action movies on offer and wondering if she could squeeze in one more before the plane landed. But maybe some kind of friendship medal. A plaque, at the very least. Carly must have dozed off during the opening credits, because she jolted awake when the plane touched down. The hundred people around her seemed to heave a collective sigh of relief.

As soon as the plane came to a stop, the man across the aisle from her stood up and reached for the overhead bin. Carly rolled her eyes. Why did people do that? Did they not understand how lines worked? Did they think the first person to leap out of their seat back in row 56 would somehow be allowed to leave the plane before everyone else?

Trying to ignore the fact that his khaki-clad ass was now perilously close to her face, Carly pulled her phone from her backpack and turned it on. There were two texts waiting for her:

AusTel, 6:57 AM: Welcome to Sydney. You are roaming on Australia’s largest network. Enjoy your Aussie adventure!

Heather, 6:57 AM: WELCOME TO SYDNEY! Marcus and I will be waiting for you at arrivals and we’ll have coffee. Can’t wait to see you

Carly let out a little groan of longing. Coffee sounded so good right now. So did a shower, a nap, and any meal that hadn’t been reheated into oblivion and served to her on a plastic tray. And a hug from her best friend.

She opened her emails, scrolling through twenty-two hours’ worth of messages. There were a few ads about flash sales from her favorite brands—the Capezio leotard she loved was 25 percent off this week—and stopped suddenly when she saw one from Catherine Lancaster. Subject line: Changes to New York Ballet promotion schedule.

Carly’s stomach lurched. Since Catherine had retired from her perch as a longtime principal dancer and taken the reins of the company from the recently dethroned Martin Koenig—that asshole—she’d changed very little at the company. Mr. K had retired abruptly after a long and authoritarian rule, and for the last year Catherine had been running things much as he had, albeit without Mr. K’s cold disdain or hot temper. Carly had sometimes wondered if Catherine’s recent experience as a dancer imbued her with a little more sympathy for the dozens of dancers now under her purview. Now, though, it seemed the Lancaster era was beginning in earnest. Carly’s breath was a little short as she jabbed hastily on the message.

Dear company members,

As you know, New York Ballet traditionally promotes dancers at the end of the spring season in June. However, in order to give promoted dancers more time to prepare for their new positions, this year promotions will be announced when we begin rehearsals for the spring season in March. My hope is that—

Carly didn’t read the rest of the email. She slumped back in her seat and let her phone fall into her lap, trying not to panic. Shit. Shit, shit, shit. She’d thought she had more time. Heather had scheduled her wedding so her maid of honor would be home in time to start rehearsals, and Carly had figured that when the trip was over, she’d be able to go home to New York and have a whole season to impress Catherine. But now she’d have … a week, if that? Her chances of proving to her new boss that she deserved to be promoted to soloist had just been slashed, and there was nothing she could do about it. She couldn’t very well turn around and go back to New York. She wouldn’t even consider missing Heather’s big day, not after everything she and Heather had been through together. She screwed up her face and tried to take a deep, calming breath. It didn’t work.

“Shit!” she hissed.

From the aisle, someone cleared their throat pointedly. Carly opened one eye and looked up to find the impatient man in khakis staring at her, looking affronted. Carly closed the other eye and went back to cursing internally.

She needed this promotion. She’d spent all thirteen of her years at NYB in the corps, and if being unceremoniously fired by Mr. K had taught her anything, it was that being one woman in a fifty-person corps made her disposable. She hated how that felt. As a soloist, she’d have a little more stability—to say nothing of the opportunities to teach, coach, or maybe even run a small company when her body gave out and she retired. But she was thirty-one, and there wasn’t much time left.

She managed not to curse out loud again, and when it was finally time to deplane, she pulled her bag up off the floor and rose to her feet. Both her knees cracked loudly as she stood, and Impatient Khaki Pants glared at her, now truly appalled. She gave him a bright, plastic smile and shrugged. That’s what twenty-five years of ballet sounds like, buddy, she thought. We might look like fluttering fairies on stage, but in real life our joints are wrecked, our muscles are spasming, and our toenails are peeling off. And we really like to curse.

Oh, and our careers are fucking falling apart.

Once she made it past the front of the immigration line—where the agent did a double take when he saw “ballerina” listed as her employment and looked her up and down with obvious curiosity—she found a loose luggage cart and pointed it toward the only moving carousel in the large, brightly lit arrivals hall. Hopefully, her bag would come out quickly and she could get out of here and go find Heather. And Marcus, and that promised coffee, but mostly Heather. It had been almost a year since she’d last seen her best friend, when the happy couple had come to New York for Heather’s short guest run with her former company, but it felt like a decade to Carly. They’d gone from being roommates who took class together almost every day to living on opposite sides of the globe. While Carly was happy that Heather had found a company and a man that she loved down here, being apart all the time absolutely sucked. Which she planned to tell Heather as soon as she’d given her a hug that lasted between ten and fifteen minutes.

It was only after she’d thrown most of her body weight behind the stray luggage cart that she realized it was missing one wheel. It swerved wildly, jerking hard to the right, and then the plastic bar slipped out of her grasping fingers and the cart went reeling away from her, wobbling and rattling toward—

“Look out!” Carly shrieked. Khaki Pants whipped around and threw himself out of the way just in time, but it was too late for the person behind him. The cart careened into the back of their legs and sent them sprawling onto their stomach on the smooth, shining floor of the arrivals hall, bag and papers flying.

“Shit!” Carly breathed, shrugging her backpack off her shoulders and running toward the stirring body on the ground. The cart rolled away and into a pair of trash cans bearing a list of foods travelers were forbidden to bring into Australia.

“Oh God, I’m so sorry, are you all right?” she asked, on her hands and knees next to the body, praying she hadn’t just caused an international incident. God, she’d been in this country less than half an hour and already screwed up in spectacular fashion. Classic Carly.

The body rolled over, and Carly registered for the first time that it belonged to a man. She looked into his face and felt her mouth go dry. Thick, wavy dark brown hair. Sharp, sculpted cheekbones above a long, straight nose. And deep blue eyes surrounded by the kind of full, dark eyelashes that would make Maybelline executives weep. He looked like he’d be a head taller than her when standing, and his merino wool hoodie clung to a pair of lean, muscled shoulders. Even in her state of distracted distress, she could see that he was extremely good looking.

He was also extremely angry looking. His cheeks were flushed pink with rage, and his mouth was twisted into a shocked grimace.

“Putain de—what the hell is wrong with you!” he snarled up at her. Carly flinched and straightened up to sit on her knees. “You nearly killed me!”

Carly looked him up and down, taking in the muscular thighs visible beneath his tapered black sweatpants. She couldn’t see any blood. All of his joints seemed to be bending in the right directions. Nearly killed seemed like an overstatement. Still, he did look pretty shaken up.

“I’m sorry,” she said again, “I lost control of the cart. Are you hurt?”

“No, but that’s hardly the point,” he snapped. “Be more careful next time, would you?” The pink blotches in his face were blooming red as he looked up at her disdainfully. Carly glanced around and saw that a handful of people were watching them from beside the carousel. Khaki Pants picked up his carry-on bag, which had toppled over in the chaos, and approached them. Before he could offer his help—or, more likely, his own reprimand—she waved him off.

“I said I’m sorry,” Carly said to the man on the floor. “It was an accident. It could have happened to anyone.” But of course, it had happened to her. Carly Montgomery, disaster on wheels. In this case, literally.

In response, he simply scoffed, and Carly’s neck prickled with irritation. He sat up slowly, more slowly than he needed to, in her opinion, and rubbed his knees.

“I really am sorry,” she tried again through gritted teeth. “Let me help you with your stuff.” Her knees cracked again as she got to her feet, and she walked over to his satchel. When she turned around she saw he was getting up too, and she watched as he rose tentatively and brushed the front of his sweatpants. The fall had messed up his hair, but only a little. Dimly, Carly wondered how he managed to get off a plane as perfectly coiffed as he was. She was pretty sure she looked like she’d just crawled out of a dumpster. Still, he looked disoriented, as if he were unsure his joints would hold his weight as he walked. Guilt swirled in Carly’s stomach as he took a few careful steps and crouched to collect his passport.

She made her way back to the man, who was tucking the passport safely into his pocket. When she reached him, she looked up into his face, met his eyes, and quickly averted her gaze again. God, it was like staring directly at the sun. If she was going to look at him again she’d need a paper plate with a hole in it.

“Here’s your bag,” she said to the zipper of his hoodie, and she held out the satchel. “Sorry, again. I hope you’re not too bruised.”

He reached out to take it, and her eyes followed his fingers again as they wrapped around the fabric strap, brushing briefly against her skin. She sucked in a quick, sharp breath at the contact, and at the rush of sudden heat that sparked where their hands met.

A second later, he yanked the bag out of her hand, and the strap caught a little on one of her fingers.

“Ow,” she said, shaking her fingers out. She lifted her chin, and paper plate be damned, she met his eyes accusingly. Up this close, she could see that they weren’t only blue but flecked with silver and ringed with dark, stormy gray. Thin lines had set in around them, and they only deepened as he glared down at her.

He slung the bag over his shoulder, moving with more confidence now, and Carly was relieved to see that she hadn’t hurt him. But then he spoke again.

“Sorry, I hope you’re not too bruised.”

Carly felt her jaw drop, and for a moment she was speechless. It was a rare feeling for her, and not one she enjoyed. What was this guy’s problem? At most, he’d have some bruises on the backs of his legs and where his knees hit the floor. And possibly one on his ego, which certainly seemed large enough to withstand the hit. She hadn’t broken any of his bones or, she hoped, any of his possessions. But here he was acting like she’d run him down with an eighteen-wheeler. Deliberately.

“Oh, what, like you’ve never made a mistake in your life?” she said sarcastically. He glowered down at her imperiously, and she scowled back. “Tell me, you uptight asshole, is it hard being so perfect?”

“I’m not perfect,” he growled. His voice was deep and a little hoarse, with an accent that sounded Australian but might have been British. “But my mistakes generally don’t endanger other people’s lives or limbs.”

Carly rolled her eyes. Amazing how she could fly to the other side of the world and still find the most entitled asshole in a five-hundred-mile radius. She was like a bright, flashing beacon for shitty men. And she’d had enough. She’d tried to be nice to this man, tried to smooth things over. She was doing her best. And if he wasn’t going to accept her apology, then he could, with all due respect, shove that apology up his very nice ass.

“You could just say, ‘It was an accident,’ you know! You could just say, ‘Shit happens!’ Because shit does, in fact, happen! Some of us are mere mortals who occasionally make mistakes!” She was aware that she was shouting, and that her voice was loud enough now to carry through the hall to the other passengers and the airport staff. But as usual, she couldn’t seem to stop herself. He had to know. “I didn’t realize the cart was busted, and I’m doing my best to apologize, so you don’t have to be such a dick about it!”

His eyes widened, and for a moment she thought she saw regret flicker in his obscenely blue eyes, but Carly was past caring. She was exhausted, and she hadn’t seen her best friend in almost a year, and she truly could not bear to spend another moment of this endless day in an airport. She seized her backpack, threw it over her shoulder, and stalked away. But after a few paces, she stopped. She turned around and went back to the man, who was watching her with his mouth slightly open.

“Oh, and I really am sorry,” she hissed one last time. “Sorry I didn’t hit you harder.”

She gave him one last scowl for good measure, turned on her heel, and hurried toward the baggage carousel. Heart racing, she stood tapping her sneaker on the floor and casting around for her silver gray suitcase. Mercifully, she saw the conveyor belt spit it out after a moment, and ignoring the shocked stares of her fellow passengers, she pulled it off the belt and hauled it toward the exit in one smooth motion, feeling her curly ponytail bouncing aggressively behind her. A second later, she had walked under the large G’DAY MATE! sign that hung over the sliding exit door and out into the bright Sydney sunlight.

As soon as Carly walked into the arrivals hall, she spotted Heather amid a crowd of families holding flowers and balloons. She was hard to miss when she was holding a sign that read CARLY MONTGOMERY, WORLD’S BEST MAID OF HONOR. Even better than a plaque. Carly shrieked and launched herself into Heather’s arms and hugged her as tight as she could.

“You’re getting married!” Carly squealed. “And you brought coffee! I’ve never loved you more.”

Heather laughed, handing over the to-go coffee cup, and Carly took a grateful swig before giving Marcus a quick hug. He took Carly’s suitcase, and together the three of them walked out of the airport and into the damp heat of a summer morning in Sydney.

“Show me the rock again,” Carly said, and Heather dutifully extended her left hand. Carly had seen the cluster of three enormous lab-made diamonds over FaceTime, but she needed to see it up close. She shook her head. “Phew. How do you even do port de bras with that thing on? It’s huge.”

Heather lifted her arms into high fifth as she walked. “I had to do some extra weights work with my left arm, but it was worth it,” she smirked. “Obviously I’m not wearing it on stage.”

“Because you’d blind the conductor,” Carly teased. “Or take your partner’s eye out.”

“Obviously you’re not wearing those on stage,” Heather gestured at Carly’s hands, and Carly lifted her fingers to her face and wiggled all ten neon-pink nails.

“I’ve been wearing the loudest, brightest color I could find since the day the Nutcracker run ended,” she smiled. It was her ritual: the company didn’t permit anything other than natural hair or nail colors on stage, so once the season ended, she’d paint her nails or dye her hair, something bright and forbidden that she’d have to undo before the next season began. A few years ago, she’d given herself green highlights, which had looked appalling with her red hair. These hot pink nails would have been visible even from the nosebleeds. They were perfect.

It was a forty-five minute drive in morning traffic from the airport to Freshwater, the beachside suburb where Marcus grew up, and where Heather and Marcus had been living in his childhood home for the last two years.

“You must have gotten up early,” Carly said, through another yawn. Heather swiveled around from the front seat with a bright smile. “Worth it,” she said firmly, her brown eyes sparkling under her high, messy bun. Her skin glowed like she’d been doing some serious pre-wedding skincare. Or, she was just really happy. “It’s so good to have you here.”

“I’m excited to be reunited with the infamous Carly,” Marcus said, catching Carly’s eye in the rearview mirror and grinning mischievously. In his accent, it sounded like Cahhly, like he was from Boston, or pre-gentrified Brooklyn. She met his green eyes and smiled back.

“Who says I’m infamous?”

“Are you not the woman who started a shouting match within an hour of arriving in this country?” he asked, eyebrows raised in amusement. Carly had told them the whole story on the walk to the parking lot, down to the exact shade of pink of that handsome asshole’s face as he’d dressed her down.

“I did not start that,” she replied indignantly, or as indignantly as she could manage through a third huge yawn. That milky Australian flat white Heather had brought her had been fine, but what she really needed right now was a vat of industrial-strength bodega iced coffee injected into her veins.

Marcus chuckled, glancing over his shoulder before changing lanes. “Yeah, but I bet you finished it.”

Carly could see why her best friend liked Marcus. He was funny, and kind, and he brought out the best in Heather. A tiny part of her would never forgive him for taking Heather so far away—literally the other side of the world—but she was happy for them. Even if she sometimes struggled to feel happy for them. Long-term relationships had never been Carly’s strong suit, and lately it had become difficult to watch so many of her colleagues pair off and settle down, especially when the pickings on the New York dating scene seemed to get slimmer by the day.

Well, that wasn’t her problem anymore, she thought, as she watched Marcus reach across the front seat to squeeze Heather’s hand. She’d made herself a vow after Carter stopped texting back that she was done. No more fuckboys, and no more fuckups. That was her new mantra. No more men who didn’t understand how her body worked. Which meant … no more men. And no more mistakes that endangered the career she’d worked so hard for. She would spend the next three weeks living up to the sign Heather had made—and figuring out how to get promoted, somehow. She’d figure something out. She’d managed to survive on a corps de ballet salary without taking a penny from her parents. She could figure this out on her own, too.

As the car rolled out of the gridlocked center of the city and out toward the suburbs, the streets became narrower and greener, and the traffic lightened up. The sky was pale blue and cloudless, the sun was already high, and the sidewalks were dotted with people out walking their dogs and jogging along the sidewalks. When they stopped at a traffic light, Carly watched a group of uniformed school kids traipse across the road, their giant backpacks sagging on their tiny shoulders.

“That’s Marcus’s old uniform,” Heather said. “Freshwater Primary School. It’s cute, isn’t it? They make all the kids wear them here, even in public schools. The school’s up that way.” She pointed up the hill to their left. “Our place is just down there.”

“Hope you like the flat we found you,” Marcus said, turning the car down the hill. “It’s small, but it’s close to us, not too expensive, and near the beach, which Heather said were your three top priorities.”

“Damn right,” Carly replied. She was going to spend three weeks soaking up the Australian sun and traipsing all over the city doing whatever it was a maid of honor was meant to do. She’d never done this before, but she also had no doubt Heather had already made a detailed, color-coded list of tasks for them to complete between now and the wedding. She was a little surprised Heather hadn’t already pulled it out.

A few minutes later, they arrived at a two-story brick building with a faded yellow front door. “This is it,” Marcus declared. “You’re in one of the top units.” He popped the trunk, and Carly climbed out of the back seat into the salty morning air.

The sidewalk in front of the house was scattered with petals, and Carly looked up to see a large tree arching over the low brick wall of the front yard, its twisted brown trunk sprouting glossy green leaves and velvety white and yellow flowers. Frangipani, she thought, just like the ones in the garden at her parents’ beach house on Maui. She took a deep inhale and smiled at Heather, who had taken her suitcase from Marcus and was watching her with evident satisfaction on her face.

“Not bad, huh?” She smiled. “Let’s get you upstairs so you can shower and get a fresh change of clothes. And maybe a nap?”

“Yes, please,” Carly groaned gratefully. She reached up and pulled a flower off the tree and tucked it behind her ear, the scent wrapping itself around her, filling her with contentment and excitement. Sure, her arrival had been a little bumpy, but she was here now, and the next three weeks were going to be perfect. She would make sure of it.

The rental apartment took up half the top floor, and by New York standards it was positively spacious. There was a kitchen with a breakfast bar and two stools, and the living room had a comfortable looking couch and an upholstered bay window that looked out onto the street. The bedroom was snug, but it had a huge window and a skylight. The owners had leaned hard into the beach house aesthetic, and Carly failed to find a single item of furniture that wasn’t distressed and painted white, or a decorative item that didn’t feature at least one seashell or starfish. But the bathroom looked like it had been recently renovated, and Carly almost whimpered with longing when she saw the rainwater shower head hanging over the tub. She had spent her entire career dancing through clouds of other people’s perspiration and sweating through heavy stage makeup, but she couldn’t remember ever wanting a shower more than she did right now.

Carly wheeled her suitcase into the bedroom and unzipped it, ready to grab her shampoo and bodywash. But when it fell open on the floor, she stopped cold. She stared at its contents, confused. The last thing she’d packed had been the teal halter bridesmaid’s dress she and Heather had picked out together. After a few weeks of scouring the internet, she’d found it on super sale, and it had been the last thing she’d packed before closing her suitcase. But the dress wasn’t here. In fact, none of her things were here. She grabbed the first item she could see, a black suit bag, and found several pairs of men’s shoes tucked underneath it, along with what looked like a camera bag.

“Fuuuuuck,” she breathed. “No, no, no.” She slammed the suitcase shut and examined the outside of it. It was a dark silver gray, just like her suitcase, but it was, she could see now, definitely nother suitcase. And these were not her belongings. In her humiliated rush to get out of the airport, she must have taken the wrong bag. Heart racing, she seized the baggage tag on the handle and frantically flipped it over.

NICK JACOBS, it read.

“Argh,” she groaned to the empty bedroom. “Who the hell is Nick Jacobs?”

“Nick,” Nick said into the phone, as slowly and clearly and patiently as he could.

“And how do you spell that, sir?” asked the bored-sounding man on the other end of the customer service line.

“Euh,” Nick paused as he pinched the bridge of his nose and fought down every smartass reply that came to mind. Instead, in his most polite voice, he managed to say, “The usual way? N-I-C-K?” He paced the narrow length of his hotel room, too irritated with himself to enjoy the view of the beach from the window. “His” suitcase lay open on the bed, brightly coloured women’s clothes frothing out of it. Taunting him for his unusual carelessness.

“Please hold, sir.”

Nick glared at the suitcase. How could he have forgotten to check the name tag on the bag before he grabbed it off the conveyor belt? So many bags looked alike, and he always made a point of checking. Always.

Except this time, because he’d been thrown to the ground by a runaway luggage trolley, and then upbraided by its tiny American driver. Unbidden, the memory of her flashing brown eyes, wide and angry in her freckled face, popped into his mind. She’d barely come up to his shoulder, and she’d looked as exhausted as he’d felt after his long flight from Paris. But he’d watched as she’d pulled herself ramrod straight and seemed to grow by half a metre. Then she’d opened her mouth and unloaded on him, radiating so much rage that her curly orange-red ponytail seemed to vibrate with it. Even though she had hit him.

And then she’d swept from the building, leaving him standing on bruised legs, almost speechless, like he’d been hit by a human hurricane. And he’d been so out of it he hadn’t even noticed that he’d collected the wrong suitcase until he’d showered and changed, then gone to unpack it and found none of his belongings inside.

“Stupid, stupid,” he muttered.

“Excuse me, sir?” The customer service guy was back, and Nick couldn’t blame him for sounding salty.

“Not you, sorry,” he clarified hastily. “I was talking to myself.”

“Mmhmm,” came the unconvinced reply. “Is there anything identifying or unique about the bag you took, sir?”

“Euh,” Nick started, but he couldn’t quite figure out how to answer the question. This bag was unique, all right. He’d found a greenish dress on top of a pile of clothes and strappy sandals, and beneath a pair of denim cutoffs, there, plain as day, was a Ziploc bag full of sex toys. Specifically, dildos. The real owner of this bag, whoever they were, had packed a lot of dildos. White plastic ones, half a dozen of them in varying sizes, along with a travel-size bottle of lube. He’d hastily replaced the shorts, feeling as if he had violated this mystery traveller’s privacy, but the shiny plastic of the dildo bag was still visible, catching the sunlight and drawing his eye every time he glanced towards the suitcase. He cleared his throat.

“There’s, euh, nothing identifying on the outside, and no name tag. But I think from what I saw when I opened it, it belongs to a woman.” A woman who apparently planned to have a very good time on her travels.

“Well, at this time, our protocol says we have to treat your bag as lost, so all I can do is file a report in our system and wait. Hopefully it will show up some time in the next few days. We’ll call you if anything changes.” Nick had managed to hold his panic at bay until now, but these words set his pulse racing. His cameras were in that bag, along with his suit and everything else he needed for this trip. Everything else he owned, really. He rubbed a hand over his head and squeezed his eyes shut, trying to settle his breathing.

“Okay, but isn’t there some way you can—” he stopped when the room phone rang on the bedside table.

For a moment, his heart gave a hopeful flutter. Delphine?

“Euh, thanks for your help,” he said quickly, wishing he actually meant it, and then he picked up the landline. “Hello?”

“Mr. Jacobs, this is the front desk,” said a man’s clipped voice. “There’s someone down here asking to see you. She says she has your suitcase.”

Relief swooped in Nick’s stomach. “Thank God, tell her to wait just a moment, I’ll be right—”

“She’s also asking me to inquire as to whether you have her suitcase,” the man interrupted. In the background, Nick could hear the murmur of another voice that sounded as agitated as he’d felt before the phone rang. “Gray, hardside, with a teal dress on top? No tag.”

No tag, but a bag full of dildos, Nick thought. Who flew without a luggage tag? He never got on a flight without one, and good thing, too—if he hadn’t put his hotel on his tag, this mystery traveller never would have found him.

“I’ve got it,” he confirmed. “Tell her I’ll be right down.”

He pushed the dress back into the suitcase and zipped it up, then hurried out of his room, already sweating. It had been so long since he’d been home during the summer that he’d forgotten how humid it could get, the way the hot, damp air clung to your skin from the moment you stepped outside. You could sweat through a T-shirt before 10 AM in February.

He dragged the suitcase over the dingy hallway carpet, feeling bruises starting to bloom where he’d hit the floor this morning. The Freshwater Hotel looked exactly as he remembered it looking when he’d left for Europe fifteen years ago. It was a fairly old place, and it was only a hotel in the loose, Australian sense of the word. It wasn’t a particularly flashy place to stay; the bar and restaurant downstairs were the main attractions, and the guest rooms were more of an afterthought. But it had been the only accommodation he could find that was within walking distance of the beach and in his budget.

One of these days, some big hotel chain’ll buy this place and upgrade the shit out of it, he thought, arriving in the dated lobby, with its dark wood trim and scuffed tile floor. They’d tear out the battered baseboards and replace the chintz furniture with sleek midcentury modern stuff or rattan Scandi boho decor, market the place as an exclusive beachside haven, and jack the prices up by 400 percent. Sydney real estate being what it was, it was only a matter of time.

Nick’s stomach rumbled and he checked his watch, frowning in confusion until he realized he hadn’t yet changed it from Paris time. He knew from experience that it was best not to think about what time it was in whatever city he’d just left and to focus instead on the timezone he was trying to adjust to. Which meant whatever meal his body was hungry for, it was going to get breakfast. Good thing, too, because the smell of grilling meat wafting into the lobby from the restaurant was agonizing. He’d get this bag swap done and then treat himself to a full cooked breakfast and a strong coffee. His stomach growled again in impatient approval.

Just then, he saw a petite woman sitting in a tired armchair across from the front desk. She was scrolling through her phone and tapping her sneaker impatiently against the tiles and oh, thank God there was his suitcase. He started towards her, but at that moment, as if she’d sensed him looking at her, she looked up and stared at him. Their eyes met, and all Nick could do was stare back.

Her hair was no longer in a ponytail but damp and darker and hanging down her back. And she no longer looked like she was about to ram someone with a trolley and then verbally disembowel them. But there was no mistaking: it was her.