‘Some husbands bought their wives flowers, others bought jewellery. Mine? He returned the things he stole.’ I should have known better. Hot guys didn’t hit on big girls without an agenda. They didn’t approach them in bars and talk their way into your bed. They also didn’t make you feel beautiful and proud of your curves. But I was going through a dry spell—actually, I’d kind of been going through a dry spell all my life—and dry spells sucked. Of course I slept with him. I was such a fool. I believed his lines. Fell for his easy smile; the man swept me off my feet, rocked my world, then robbed me blind. I really needed a three date rule. Angry and embarrassed, I engaged the help of my best friend to track the thief down and make him return what he took. But when I found him, he wasn’t alone.... What does a girl do when she finds not one thief, but an entire family? She marries into it, of course.

Before Sam, I was the most boring, awkward and level-headed person you've ever met. I was my best friend's side-kick, the supporting actress to another person's life. And I was OK like that. I was lonely. But I was OK. Then I met Sam. Our eyes locked and BANG my heart started beating. As my blood warmed and pumped around my body, everything changed. Before that moment, I had been as dead inside as the stiffs I applied make-up to in the mortuary. Now I was alive, experiencing things for the first time, enamoured with a man I knew to be a criminal. Instead of running and remaining the good Catholic girl I was, I married him. Now I have to live with the consequences of that decision.

I didn’t have an easy life. Waiting tables for a function centre was about as good as life got for me. There were no tips—unless telling me I had a great arse could be considered a tip—but it was enough for me to live on, barely. Everything else I needed, I took. And I was never caught, except that one time when these brothers and some weird chick busted me for stealing their car. It was their fault I took it. They shouldn’t have left their keys where I could find them. And it was a sweet ride; I chucked a couple of donuts in that thing and it smoked up like a charm. Good times. Anyway, those guys took the car back, turned my boyfriend into a pussy and ended up making me homeless. When I saw that same car again in the function centre parking lot, I couldn’t resist. I pulled out my keys and started scratching. C… U… busted. I should’ve known it was a bad idea, but I never was one to listen to my conscience. Suddenly I was locked in a room while a family of five ridiculously hot brothers argued over what to do with me. Their mother wanted me dead, but they were insisting that stealing and vandalism weren’t necessarily grounds for a beheading. I was on their side. I quite liked my head—even though it seemed like I’d just gotten myself in way over it. But do you know what was crazy? The brother I’d stolen from, the one who’d caught me defacing his car, was now watching me like a lion watches a big juicy steak. Hmm, maybe I could spin this in my favour after all….

I’m a tomboy through and through. But when the man of my dreams walks through my door, I want to be all woman. But that’s not how I roll…. Skirts and dresses, makeup and perfume. Things I knew nothing about. With my red hair and lanky body, I was just one of the guys. The ‘cool’ girl they hung out with but rarely dated seriously. Not that I had time for relationships anymore. Ever since my grandad passed, I’d been working day and night to try and salvage the failing locksmith business he’d spent his lifetime building. Then he walked in. Abbot Cartwright. Childhood friend. Collector of many women. I hadn’t seen him since he was thirteen. He grew up good. He also liked to play games. Games I was willing to be a part of, at first. Then things started getting serious—and illegal... I had feelings and morals. Abbot didn’t have either. He needed my expertise, and I needed his commitment. Seemed neither of us was going to get one without the other. And I was getting too old to play games.

My job had a very specific I found people who didn’t want to be found and delivered them to whoever employed me. After that, well, I tried not to think about what happened while I spent my money on things that made me happy. Resorts, men…I lived life by the seat of my pants because I never knew where I’d be the next week, or who I’d be looking for. When the head of a lesser-known criminal family hired me to find her son, I wasn’t sure what I was walking into. I had his photo, so I knew the man was hot with a capital H. But I expected the usual agitated scumbag I normally went after. Not some guy running a fishing charter and looking like he didn’t have a care in the world. I might have been curious. I might have gotten a little too close. I might have done a lot of things I shouldn’t have. Things that could get me killed this time. But hey, life wasn’t always about making the right choices. It was about making good ones. And Toby Cartwright was a great choice.