Stuck in Paradise with You

Chapter 14

14

LUKE

‘It’s your call, boss,’ Henry is saying, clearly holding back on his true feelings as he speaks – his voice reflective of the position of his shoulders up by his ears, contrary to his words.

I’ve walked into the bar on the terrace to meet the others and head down to the beach, where we’ll tender out to Joe’s superyacht.

‘Look, Henry…’ Joe says, his hand on his shoulder in a rare show of tenderness – not that he isn’t a big bundle of gooey soft-center, he is, but he doesn’t often show it so openly with his staff. ‘The sea’s calm today, so let’s enjoy her. We have hurricane provisions fully stocked and fuel for the island’s generators. If Isabel doesn’t change course overnight, then I promise we’ll spend all day tomorrow preparing for her visit on Friday.’

Henry nods, clearly still worried about the hurricane. I won’t lie, I am too. This morning, the news said Isabel is definitely going to be a category five hurricane when she makes landfall, wherever she makes landfall. They’re predicting gusts of up to 285 kilometers per hour, and they still think she’s bound for the Leeward Islands.

This won’t be like the tropical storms Joe and I have ridden out before during summer breaks from college and work trips to the Far East. They were menacing level get-in-my-path-and-I’ll-make-those-unsteady-drunk-legs-even-wobblier, but Isabel, if she comes, wherever she comes, will be menacing level so-much-as-look-at-me-and-I’ll-eat-you-alive.

‘Okay, boss,’ Henry says.

‘Henry, everyone on this island is family to me. I won’t let anything bad happen. We have one of the safest bunkers in the Caribbean, enough rum to sink a pirate ship and a fresh pack of playing cards. There couldn’t be anywhere better than Charithonia to weather this big lady, I’m telling you.’

I clear my throat. ‘Sorry to interrupt.’

‘Chalmers! You set?’ Joe asks, holding out his arms so that his pineapple and frangipani-emblazoned shirt fully opens to his chest of thick hair.

‘Sure am,’ I say as Alisha and Ella, four bouncing kids and two tail-wagging dogs come onto the terrace. The women are laden with bags and brightly colored inflatables – crocodile, flamingo, unicorn and dolphin – which they dump down onto the deck with a thud.

‘I’ll take these down to the tender,’ Henry says, already getting on with the task.

‘Where’s your stuff?’ Ella asks me.

I shrug and hold my hands out, proving that I’ve turned up for the day in a pair of aqua-blue swim shorts, a white t-shirt and a pair of Havaianas. ‘The boat’s already got everything I could possibly need and the great company is coming with me.’

‘Oh, you’re having one of your charismatic moods this morning. Your mother really should have spelled your name with an r, shouldn’t she, Chalmers?’ Alisha jokes. ‘Speaking of charming people,’ she adds, coming to my side and nodding in the direction of Carrie, who is approaching, wearing a wide- rimmed beige hat and a short black cover up that could just as easily pass for sophisticated or sexy-as-sin. ‘Have you told her that we aren’t together yet?’

‘Huh?’ My mind has blanked. I freaking hate myself for it but it’s true. In her dress, Carrie’s legs go on for days and her plump, firm breasts are framed by the neckline of the material. As much as I wish that Alisha making me realize that Carrie is single yesterday had no effect on me, it seems to have obliterated the dam that was controlling my salacious thoughts. ‘I— Ah— Pardon?’

As Carrie slips briefly out of view to come through the arch from the walkway onto the terrace, Alisha places the tip of her finger under my chin and closes my mouth for me. ‘Drooling isn’t a good look on any man, honey, charming or not.’

I look her way. ‘I’m not drool ing. I was just?—’

‘Yeah?’

Carrie briefly stops to ruffle Jessie’s – then impatiently attention-seeking Woody’s – furry ears before heading our way. What’s so good about her, traitors? I purse my lips, scowling at the dogs as I silently fume at their betrayal. Just like everyone else around here, they seem to think the sun shines out of her ass.

She duped me once too.

I notice the large, overfilled beach bag she’s carrying by her side.

‘I was just wondering how much stuff one woman can need for a day on the ocean,’ I end up jibing to spare myself.

Carrie throws daggers at me with her eyes, her cupid’s bow tightly creased. ‘I didn’t know what the itinerary would be, so I brought some options,’ she says, looking at the others apologetically as she meekly justifies the excessive luggage. I sort of feel bad. In a very miniscule way.

Alisha steps toward Carrie and loops an arm through hers. ‘Don’t you know it’s rude to ask a lady what’s in her bag?’ she says, playfully glowering at me. ‘Come on, Carrie, let’s head on down to the beach now that we’re all here.’ She takes Carrie’s bag and swings it back at me, narrowly missing my crotch with the heavy load, and only because I jump back out of range. ‘ You can make yourself useful,’ she says.

Admonished like a child the same age, I end up with Noah on my back and carting Carrie’s ridiculously, needlessly hefty pack-up down to the beach for the tender.

With the help of Henry and Security Dave and Security Thom – two of three security guys who follow Joe and the family wherever they go – we get Ella and the kids, Joe and Alisha, over the inflatable sides and into the dinghy first. Then we wrestle the dogs in and there’s no space left, so Carrie and I wait for a second run.

Carrie and me. On a beach. Alone. In paradise. And she looks freaking great. Any other man would be thrilled with this outcome.

But this man, me, is both hated and hates.

‘Did you have to try to ridicule me like that?’ Carrie snaps once we’ve waved the tender around the rocks and out of sight.

‘I was joking around, Carrie. Jesus, you used to be fun.’

Despite the breeze blowing her long hair in a way that shields her face from me standing next to her, and despite the fact she has big shades covering her eyes, I know she’s glaring at me.

‘He’s my client, Luke. I need to be professional about this whole…’ She motions back and forth between us.

‘Ghost of girlfriends past?’ I offer.

‘Shit show,’ she corrects.

Now I’m a shit show. Nice . ‘I see.’

‘See what?’ she bites, now turning to face me.

‘You only have professional boundaries when it suits you. Being professional never bothered you when there were lines you wanted to cross.’

She gasps. ‘ Me? Right, because me, your junior, led you on, flirted and taunted you until you had no self-control and you were forced to cheat on your wife.’

Red mist washes over me instantaneously with her words. ‘ Cheat? I would never cheat. Never . I’ve seen the mess that does to a relationship. I saw my own father do it more times than I can count and I am not him. And for your information, my ex -wife cheated on me .’

‘Right, sure. Was that a little nugget you were keeping to yourself back then?’ She shakes her head. ‘Change the narrative to suit you, Luke. Next, you’ll say I blew it between us.’

I step closer to her, my heart pounding and my breaths coming thick and fast. How dare she?

‘God, you got so arrogant and conceited!’ I’m shouting, which is wholly uncharacteristic, but Carrie knows how to push all my buttons.

She doesn’t back down. If anything, my words make her more brazen. She seems to grow taller, to puff out her chest, until our bodies are almost touching. ‘When you’ve been treated like dirt, Luke, you have to choose fight or flight. I chose fight .’

‘I treated you like dirt?’ I scoff. She’s unbelievable. ‘I ruined my career over you.’

She throws her head back with an ugly laugh. ‘Says the man who hangs out on private islands and fancy yachts whenever the hell he wants! It doesn’t look like things went so badly for you, does it?’

I feel myself gawking. Incredulous. ‘Did you swallow a fucking lemon tree? You’re thirty-one and on the cusp of partnership, Carrie. It’s impossible to see why you’re so bitter and twisted when you’ve got what you always wanted.’

‘Are you kidding?’ She throws her hands up in the air and finally steps back, putting some much-needed distance between us. ‘I’ve spent seven years trying to retell a narrative. Seven years trying to show people that I didn’t try to sleep my way to the top. I’ve worked harder and longer than anyone else I know. So yes, I’m fucking bitter and?—’

The sound of the tender engine cuts through her words and we both shift to watch Henry coming toward the beach, at the helm.

He kills the engine and hops off the vessel like he’s a stunt double in an action movie. Remarkably, keeping his uniform dry. Damn him and his hot man peacocking.

He drags the dinghy until the front is just touching the sand and holds onto the roped edge while the rear bobs up and down with the lapping waves.

‘Jump in, guys,’ he calls.

I could be chivalrous and take Carrie’s oversized pack-up to the boat but I think, naaah, I’m good.

Instead, I leave her huffily lugging her bag down to the water’s edge with one hand and in the other, holding her sandals.

I feel Henry scrutinizing me but I try to ignore him – what does this charmed kid know? – and toss my flip-flops onto the boat.

‘Do you need a leg up?’ Henry asks Carrie.

I’m about to jump and pop-up onto the boat as she starts struggling to lift her bag up and over the edge of the tender. For God’s sake.

Conceding on grounds of not wanting to seem like a total dick, I take the bag from her and set it in the boat.

‘Thank you,’ she says, though it clearly pains her, which is actually hilarious. ‘No, Henry, I’ll be fine, thank you.’

This should be fun.

I step aside and motion for her to climb in ahead of me. I watch, not able to help the smirk that tugs on my lips. ‘Please, hop in.’

With her brows practically knitted together and muttering something I’m sure I wouldn’t care to hear under her breath, she holds on to the rope around the dinghy’s edge and grunts as she attempts to heave herself up.

Not nearly high enough, she attempts to flick her leg up and on to the inflated rim of the boat. Her dress blows up until her butt cheek, barely covered by her bikini, is exposed and she’s still pulling and grunting and it’s all so inelegant and ungraceful, laughter splutters out of me. I don’t mean to but she does deserve it.

‘Come and hold the boat, Luke; I’ll give her a hand,’ Henry says.

Okay, okay, I guess I have to help.

I bring my palms, one each side, to her near-naked butt and start to push, but she screams and flings her leg back down from the boat, whacking me in the temple as she does so and sending me crashing into the shallow water.

‘Don’t touch my ass!’ she shouts as I manage to get my feet on the sandy bottom and stand, completely saturated.

‘I was helping you out. You didn’t have to try to drown me!’

‘Drown you?’ She rolls her eyes. ‘You’re such a baby.’

Then she tugs on the rope and tries again, this time swinging her leg a little higher, and though her fine, fine behind is exposed, and she looks like a beached whale with a very nice ass flapping around, she eventually tumbles into the dinghy and pops up from the deck like a mole from a hole, straightening her clothes and pulling her hair from her lip gloss.

‘Elegant,’ I tell her, before pulling myself up and into the boat, making sure I flick water over Carrie in the process.

Henry pushes us off, hops on to the dinghy and stares at Carrie and me. Both disheveled, one of us wet, the other sodden. Uncertain, he ventures, ‘Are you guys set?’

‘Oh, we’re all set,’ I say sarcastically, shaking water drops from my shades.

‘Just eager to get going,’ Carrie says, her expression as smug as someone who bought the last bag of Hershey’s kisses in the entire universe.