Paradise can be a killer…
A string of missing persons and possible murders…
May, an ex-military mechanic, is on her way to a job interview at Solve Security, a private security firm in Melbourne, when her car breaks down.
Westley, an English former sniper now employed at the agency, is headed to work and spots a stunning woman stranded on the side of the road beside her steaming car. He stops to help and…
She shuts him down, sends him away, offended at his archaic assumption that she can’t possibly fix a car. He couldn’t be more wrong.
May finally makes it to Solve Security, aces the interview, and is paired up with not just any agent but Mr Overly Polite, Overly Chivalrous, Overly Old-School Westley, to work on a multiple missing persons case. And the worst part—they’re to pose as newlyweds and travel to a tropical island retreat to suss out an exclusive investor party.
While her brain balks at the idea of behaving like Westley’s wife, her body welcomes the forced proximity, the possible frequent touching with her faux husband. Secretly, she finds him super sexy, especially that English accent, even though it doesn’t make rational sense. The whole situation is far from what she’d consider paradise. More like torture.
Their lives are on the line, along with the other invited guests, and time is ticking…
With danger and desire growing by the day, can May and Westley come together and discover enough admissible evidence before things turn deadly?
General Release Date: 4th November 2025
May Caledon’s car clunked and sputtered and came to an abrupt halt, steam streaming from beneath the bonnet.
Noooo! Just what she needed.
Not.
She was almost there.
She huffed and shook her head. “Great. So bloody typical.” Of all the times her car could break down, it had to happen on the way to her first serious job interview. The first position that had piqued her interest since she’d left the military.
Only a short couple of kilometers away from the location, according to her GPS. So close, yet still so far. Thank fuck for mobile phones so she could at least let Solve Security know she’d be running late.
And thank fuck she knew the intricate workings of a car. With or without electronic diagnostics. Intimately understood how to fine-tune an engine.
Hazard lights on and with car horns blaring, she threw the gear stick into neutral, jumped out and steered her current labor of love to a safer spot on the side of the busy road.
Extracting a hair tie from her purse, she wound her untamable, rebellious locks into a ponytail then popped open the hood. Once she had the prop rod in place, she hitched up her skirt and leaned over to get a closer look.
The early-morning sun, harsher than she’d expected, beat down on her, adding to the inflamed, unanticipated, infuriating circumstances.
She sighed and swept the wayward strands of hair off her sweaty forehead, the hot, merciless, northerly breeze whipping across her back.
Her classic red and black Holden Torana, affectionately called Ladybird, didn’t have any of the electrics so couldn’t tell her straight up what was wrong. It absorbed the unprecedented heat to its detriment.
The persistent hissing haze emanating from the radiator suggested a water problem. Most likely a crack or possibly a leak. Fucking great. Just what she needed. Her limited budget hadn’t catered for major car issues.
Hopefully the engine hadn’t totally overheated. Like her internal thermostat, the pressure had built, teetering close to boiling. It would only take one more inconvenience and she’d blow her last gasket.
The air vibrated with the anxious hum of people desperate to get to work, or wherever they were headed, on time. And halted by traffic. Fumes mixed with a humid mist, creating a fog that rose off the sun-soaked bitumen, and road rage horns blared at semi-frequent intervals.
Instead of playing into responses out of her control, she shifted into mindfulness meditation mode and focused on what she needed to do to ensure a successful interview.
Stop start.
Stop start.
Stop start.
Noxious exhaust gases, musty and smoky and sulfur tinged, permeated the environment, making her nose crinkle and melded with her already high stress.
Frizzy, curling strands of hair stuck to her face. She tried to blow them off, but they flopped back into place, plastering to her hot, perspiring, pollutant-exposed skin.
Unable to do a thing about her ruined hair, she’d have to wait to have a good scrub in the shower after the interview…if she ever made it.
Although tempted to check the radiator, she wouldn’t risk removing the cap until the car cooled down. Yes, she wanted to maximize the meeting opportunity, but not at the expense of her safety. Not unless she accepted adding the high possibility of scalding burns to her already compromised condition.
Vehicles continued to crawl on by, the stifling northerly breeze buffeting her body, the tar heating the soles of her shoes like a convection stovetop. She debated whether to walk the rest of the way to Solve Security, then return to Ladybird later.
May refused to call roadside assistance—she was a better mechanic than all of them strung together. She dug her fingers into the back of her neck. What to do? She had to make a decision, and quickly. Did she set off on foot now, or stay put and wait until she could get her car running?
From a risk-first perspective, she didn’t want to remain standing on the side of the road, or even sitting in her broken-down car for longer than needed, or else she’d increase her chances of being hit. Injured or possibly killed.
How many times had she heard news stories, how many times had accidental or sometimes purposeful deaths resulted from someone’s vehicle breaking down on a busy highway? She refused to be another statistic. Losing Ladybird would be traumatic, but a fuck-ton more preferable than losing her life.
Maybe she should stand on the median strip and wave someone down to help her push Ladybird into an even safer side street.
No.
She shook her head. No.
Not worth it.
Who knew what weirdo might pull over?
Her current irritated, annoyed mood reduced her tolerance to fending off questionable-character advances. With her short fuse shortening by the second, she might lash out on a well-meaning male and be arrested for assault.
In the event of an opposite outcome, she trusted her extensive armed-forces training to enable her to adequately and effectively defend herself, if the need arose. However, in order to best protect herself and others, she should avoid both scenarios.
A car blared its horn and shot up the emergency lane, in an attempt to overtake a slow driver, barely missing the rear of Ladybird, and screeched back into the slow flow of traffic. Heart hammering, she retreated off the road onto the median strip. Not a ploy for male attention. A self-preservation decision.
She didn’t need a guy in her life to make it worthwhile, to prove her value, to feel complete. She didn’t need him to do anything for her, other than offer his mouth and hands and cock for a good, thorough screw.
May blew out a frustrated breath. It had been too long between men.
A random, no-strings-attached fuck for fun, when she felt like it—which was most days—would do the desired trick. It ticked her sexual-relief boxes.
Nothing serious. Never anything serious. Serious turned into mundane boredom and the death of freedom. May knew from years of personal experience.
She’d tried the boyfriend thing a few times and it hadn’t worked. For a countless number of reasons. If anything, it caused her more stress and anxiety. Too much emotional crap, too much pain and baggage to trudge through. She sought a mutual, enjoyable escape.
Instead of easing, the traffic congestion increased, decelerating to a super-slow crawl, the heightened pollution making her cough. She could practically feel the black specks of smog clinging to her face and arms and semi-bare legs. Inhaled it into her lungs.
She’d wait a few more minutes, reluctantly lock Ladybird, then attempt to meander her way to Solve Security and pray she wouldn’t feature as a hit-and-run news story.
An army camouflage-print Jeep rolled up in the far lane, a bunch of fresh-faced soldiers sitting in the back. Were they new recruits? Or returning after holidays, to wherever they were deployed, to further defend their country?
The military… She sighed. She’d loved it. Maybe too much. The insular, close, cliquey community had had her back. And she’d had theirs. She’d trusted her team with her life. Even though it had taken a while for her to convince the guys of her mechanical expertise. But it was worth every second of her hard slog.
Bittersweet tears burned like flaring fire behind her eyes. It had taken her months, following a few persisting over-use injuries, to finally pull the I-need-to-go pin.
Losing one of her close team members had finally rammed home the point that no one was ever one-hundred percent safe, didn’t matter how well trained. That, plus burn-out, had started singeing the edges of her sanity. Not helpful, not healthy for her or anyone.
If she had any chance of a ‘normal’ life, a civilian existence with the possibility of children, she had to leave. Before it was too late. Opening up options provided a greater, more satisfying number of choices. Or so she tried to convince herself.
Having worked in the forces since she left secondary school—they’d provided her the education to learn her trade—her team had become her second family. Although unsure of how she’d cope, she’d taken the scary plunge, and much to her surprise, had seamlessly transitioned into her new carefree single life. Contrary to the ex-military PTSD horror stories she’d heard.
Mind you, she hadn’t tested herself in a new civilian job. Yet. But mounting financial pressure meant she needed to find something soon so she could live the free-and-easy lifestyle she envisaged.
Having a reasonable pension helped, created a comfortable buffer, however she still needed purpose, and an additional income to pay for the accelerating high-cost-of-living expenses in Melbourne.
Going out for dinner at a pub and having a couple of drinks pretty much equaled her grocery shopping bill for the week. Not maintainable. Far from sustainable. The biggest shock since she returned to Australia.
Although still seeking the odd adrenaline rush, overall, she now needed a more supportive, lower-key life. Something with the occasional thrill but more stability. Hence her application for a Solve Security agent position.
If she ever made it to the meeting.
Her car losing its shit—not a good start. Definitely the opposite of making a great first impression. An employee needed to show reliability, efficiency, effectiveness.
May reached into the driver’s side door, snatched her cell phone from the center console and searched for the Solve Security number in an email, confirming her interview date, time and venue. She copied and pasted the contact number into her mobile and pressed the call button.
It rang and rang and rang, and went to voicemail. “Hi, you’ve reached Solve Security. Please leave your name and number and a brief message, and we’ll get back to you as soon as possible.”
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