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To my gorgeous genius of a godson, Lachlan. Hugs and kisses from your Auntie Ally.

CONTENTS

CHAPTER ONE

SIENA CAPULETTI was going home.

And where for most people that would bring about happy thoughts of familiar faces, their own bed and their favourite pillow, the concept had poor Siena in a cold sweat.

Well, okay, so the wet clammy feeling could also have come from the fact that she had just been on the receiving end of a well-flung can of cola courtesy of a pouting kid in the aeroplane seat next to her.

But still…clammy was clammy. Uncomfortable. Hot and cold all at once. Nope. It was definitely thoughts of home making her feel that way. Home just didn’t bring about warm and fuzzy feelings in Siena.

The splotch of insidious brown beverage inching its way across her Dolce and Gabbana skirt and matching jacket—the only ‘interview outfit’ she had packed for her short trip to her provincial home town—grew larger and overtook the proportion of clean cream tweed.

‘Excellent,’ she said under her breath.

Siena craned her head past the rows of seats as she flapped her sticky outfit away from her damp body. Where was a flight attendant when she needed one? Nowhere. That’s where.

It was a sign. She wasn’t meant to be heading to Cairns on that day seated on a plane; she ought to have been suited up in her usual baby-blue skirt suit, matching pillbox hat and beige high heels, working the aisle as a Cabin Director for MaxAir rather than finding herself at the mercy of one.

But when Maximillian Sned, the eccentric septuagenarian owner of MaxAir—the funky, cosmopolitan, fun-and-games airline for which she worked—had summoned her to meet him to discuss a ‘fabulous career move’—his words—at his palatial home north of Cairns, what choice had she had? Even though, if the rumour mill was correct, and let’s face it, it usually was, his offer was going to entail a fabulous move to Cairns to stay.

Double excellent.

A hard kick to the shins brought Siena back to the less than pleasant present.

Blithely ignoring the pint-sized, cola-flinging, kick-boxing champ to her left, Siena tried to remember the meditation class she had once taken—close your eyes, take deep calming breaths and think of a happy place. A beach hut in Hawaii? A Swiss ski resort? That shoe shop on Madison Avenue she couldn’t walk into without spending a week’s pay?

But Siena was surprised to find she could barely recollect the shapes and colours and sensation of being anywhere but the inside of a plane—