“This,” Nate started as he pulled up in front of a large one-storey farmhouse, “is my pride and joy.”

I looked out the window of his slightly beat-up Ford Ranger and took in all that surrounded me. “Wow.” It seriously took my breath away. And it wasn’t that the house looked quaint and romantic, it was that it was situated in the centre of a massive block of land with panoramic views of world-renowned Bells Beach. “This is yours?”

“Ours now,” he said, unclicking his seatbelt and getting out of the car. “Come on. I’ll show you around.”

“I can’t get over this.” I gaped, turning in a slow circle on the dirt drive. “I expected an apartment, maybe a townhouse. Not this.” The air was fresh and clean when I inhaled. I’d been ready to pass out after travelling for more than half a day to get back from the Cook Islands. After Nate had confronted his family, he’d whisked me away and we hadn’t stopped since. But now, looking over Nate’s land in wonder, I had caught my second wind. It was sea breeze, and it licked my skin.

“Let me show you inside,” he said, taking my hand and leading me to the long veranda that spanned the front of the house.

“How much land is this?” I asked, craning my neck to take in all the green grass that surrounded us. With the sea and the setting sky as a backdrop, I felt like I was standing in a painting.

“Eighty-six acres,” he said, unlocking the front door. “The guy before me raised cattle. I still lease the paddocks out to a couple of hobbyists. Helps keep mowing to a minimum.” He shot a grin over his shoulder, then pushed the door open. “Welcome to your castle, duchess.”

Curious to see the inside, I stepped forwards only to be swept up in his arms and carried over the threshold.

“I see you learned from our last experience and opened the door first.” I smiled, pressing my lips to his as he lowered me to the floor. His mouth was beginning to feel like home.

“I’m not just a pretty face.”

“Oh, I already knew that,” I commented, dropping my eyes low on his body.

“Always in the gutter,” he muttered with a smile and a shake of his head. “Make yourself at home while I grab our bags. There are four bedrooms.” He pointed in their general direction. “The master is the first door right there. Bathroom is right next door. Kitchen is there, lounge, dining, rumpus through there… and library in there.”

My eyes lit up. “You have a library,” I whispered, my hand shooting out to pull at his shirt. “Does it have a ladder so I can re-enact that scene from Beauty and the Beast?”

He chuckled. “No, but I can make you one. I think I’d like to see that.” He kissed me briefly, then headed outside to collect our things from the back of his ute.

“Wow,” I said again, only that time to myself. All around me was a mixture of rustic farmhouse and surf-shack décor. It felt a lot like the shabby-chic look I’d loved in my own place before my husband stole it all from me.

And that was when I started to see it. Some of the furniture in the house—the repurposed sideboard, the distressed coffee table, the mismatched chairs around the kitchen table—was all mine. He’d brought some of my things into his home.

What did that mean? I wasn’t sure if I should be touched or slightly creeped out. He couldn’t have done this knowing I’d come here and see it. He must’ve done it in the months it had taken me to find him, after that first time we’d met. Had he been watching me?

I walked through the house room by room, finding a little piece of me in every one of them. I even found my books in the library. When Nate found me, I was kneeling on the floor, holding my dog-eared copy of A Streetcar Named Desire. “I’m teaching this to my year ten class at the moment,” I mused, running my fingers over the pages that were covered with my notes. “At least, I’m supposed to be…” I let the comment hang in the air. I had no idea what was happening with my job, and after telling my boss via email I was taking leave without a reason, I might not even have one to get back to.

“Thought I might find you in here,” he said softly, leaning against the door frame and crossing his arms across his chest.

“This was my copy from when I performed it at school,” I said, showing it to him. “I played Eunice.”

“You would’ve made a great Stella.” Shifting to kneel in front of me, he took the book from my hands and slid it back into the shelf where it belonged, his movements almost reverent.

“I thought I was a terrible actor.”

“You’re not so bad.”

“My things are in your house,” I stated, meeting his eyes, a little in shock.

“Yes.” He sat on the floor with a sigh, leaning against the bookcase.

“Why? Have you been planning this all along? Have you been stalking me?”

He laughed in a way that told me he thought I was being absurd. “As I’ve told you, I couldn’t stop thinking about you. After we took it, every day I found myself driving out to the storage unit and bringing things back. At first it was your books—we weren’t going to sell them, I told myself. Then it was the chairs—they didn’t match, so no one would want them. I had a reason for taking every item, but it was really just a way of being close to you, even though I didn’t ever think I’d get to have you.”

“But here we are,” I responded, twisting around so I was sitting on the floor beside him.

He ran his fingers through my hair. “Here we are,” he repeated, his voice soft and low.

“You’re a bit of a sentimental sod, aren’t you?” I teased, my concerns about any sort of creepy motive getting fuzzier by the second. He had a way about him that always seemed to put me at ease. My morality detector would go into overdrive, but then he’d explain everything away until I just wanted to hold him or be held. The gift of the gab, my aunt would call it.

“Don’t tell anyone.” He winked. “I’ve got a reputation to uphold.”

I looked around the room. “It’s kind of weird that you did this.”

“It’s kind of weird that you hunted me down and then married me, but I’m not holding it against you.” He gave me a sidelong glance accompanied with a smirk.

“I’m not holding the whole ‘you have to marry me or my family will kill you for finding our secret hideout’ thing against you either.”

He laughed at that, then took my hand, kissing the back of it. “I’m glad.”

“You don’t want to know why?”

“I already know why.”

“You do?”

He nodded. “Because you know that I did this to keep you safe. And I did it because I want you more than I want anything else in this world.”

“Do you want me enough to quit your current job?” It was probably too soon, but I had to try.

“That’s another thing I don’t really get a choice in.” Interesting. Does that mean he feels like a prisoner too? It was an intriguing thought that I found myself pondering while we sat in companionable silence.

“I think your home is beautiful,” I told him after a while, giving his hand a gentle squeeze.

He seemed to startle slightly, either tired from the travel or just in deep thought. “It’s more beautiful now that you’re in it.”

“Who would’ve thought you’d be such a romantic?”

He smiled and took my hands, pulling me up until we were both standing. “How about I make us a romantic dinner, then? I’ll bet you’re starved after barely eating the last couple of days.”

“Famished,” I responded, leaning against him. “I’m fading away.”

He slid his hands down to my arse, gave it a squeeze and grinned. “We can’t have that. I like my woman’s curves.” Then just as fast as it appeared, his grin disappeared, his brow knitting as he brushed the tips of his fingers against my cheek.

“What’s wrong?”

“I hate that a member of my family struck you. Every time I look at it, I get so fucking angry. It will never happen again, duchess. Never.”

“I believe you.” There was such sincerity in his gaze and his words that I knew them to be true.

He pressed a gentle kiss on my cheek then took my hand. “Food.”

I grinned. “Food.”

Following him into the well-appointed kitchen, I cut up ingredients for a salad while he fried some lamb cutlets and cubed potatoes. We topped it off with a bottle of cold Pinot Grigio, then ate outside on the porch, the sound of the ocean providing music. The conversation flowed easily, the same way it had on that first night. He was surprisingly open and told me all about growing up in a house of five brothers with no father figure around, learning how to steal cars and pick pockets. In return, I told him about life after losing my parents, growing up with my aunt and wreaking havoc in the eyes of Alesha’s super-strict dad.

“Sounds like you were a bit of a terror,” he said during a pause in the conversation.

I smiled at him and took another sip of wine. “No more than most. I certainly wasn’t out there robbing people.”

His gaze focused on his glass. “You’ve never taken a single thing that didn’t belong to you?”

“Never.”

“No one is that pious, duchess. Everyone’s taken something—a pen, extra change, a chocolate bar as a kid or an item that didn’t scan as an adult. There isn’t a single one of us able to cast a stone on that one.”

I thought back to the times when I left stores, then found items in my grocery trolley that I’d forgotten to pay for. “I suppose you’re right,” I said quietly.

He leaned back in his chair and stretched his long legs out in front of him. “There are worse things to be in this life than a thief.”

Mirroring his reclined position, I looked out to the water, watching a flock of gulls diving to feed on a school of fish. “Better than making your money being a contract killer.”

“There you go.” He looked over at me and smiled.

“Or a gun smuggler. I would really hate that.”

“Or a people smuggler,” he added.

“Oh, you’re right,” I gasped. “That would be horrible.”

“See, there are worse things.” He took my hand, lacing our fingers together as we both stared out at the setting sun.

“Or a drug dealer. I’d really hate it if you were that.”

“More than if I was a contract killer or people smuggler?”

I nodded. “Yes. Alesha’s mother is a victim of the drug trade. She had nerve damage and got hooked on her pain meds, which turned into an opiate addiction, and then suddenly she was gone. She went from doting mum to full-blown junkie in less than twelve months.”

“She died?”

“We have no idea. She just left when we were in grade six and never came back. Alesha’s father won’t even speak her name.”

He lifted my hand and pressed a kiss against my centre knuckle. “I think everyone has a story of someone they knew who took things too far. Jasmine has always been adamant that if we’re caught using, we’re out of the family. She has zero tolerance for users.”

“That’s the first thing I’ve ever agreed with her on. Although, I have to ask, why do you call her Jasmine instead of Mum?”

“It’s just something we’ve always done. Especially where jobs are concerned, we don’t wanna be yelling ‘Mum’ when we need to run.”

“She does jobs with you?”

“Sometimes. Mostly she holds down the fort and deals with the business side of things. She was great in her day though. Never caught, and only questioned twice.”

“Sounds like you had a good teacher.”

“That we did.” Something about the way he said it and the silence following made me think that she was a much better thief than she was a mother. But then, I’d been spoilt growing up. I’d had two wonderful mothers—my own, and my aunt after. I never wanted for love or attention. Perhaps that was the difference between growing into a criminal or a model citizen.

There was so much more I wanted to know about him. He’d lived a life far removed from my own experience, and I wanted to know every single detail. But as the silence between us extended, I knew that those questions would have to wait for another day.

“You know, I never did get a look inside the master bedroom. Want to show me?”

His head whipped around and his eyes lit up. “Is that your way of propositioning me, duchess?”

I stood up and peeled my shirt off. “Maybe,” I said coyly, swinging my hips as I headed for the door. The moment I stepped through, I removed my bra and tossed it out for him to see. I’d barely taken two steps before he collected me in his arms and ravished me with his skilful mouth.

I saw a lot of the house that night, but it wasn’t until much later that I saw the master bedroom, falling into the massive mahogany bed, exhausted and aching all over in the most delectable way. I listened to the ocean’s lullaby singing me to sleep through the large floor-to-ceiling windows that covered the outside wall. It was picturesque, perfect, the fairy tale Alesha had been talking about.

For a brief moment, I wondered how she was now that the wedding was complete and she was married to her own thief. But then Nate pulled me a little tighter, pressing a kiss on my shoulder as he whispered, “Sweet dreams, duchess.” I let out a contented sigh, my eyes heavy as I snuggled a little closer. And it hit me then. I was content. A few weeks ago, I’d considered throwing my normal life aside and travelling the world for a while. Perhaps I had been feeling discontent then. I wasn’t sure. But I was sure that just as Nate had said he’d felt found in me, I was beginning to realise that I felt found in him too. I could get used to this.