Stuck in Paradise with You

Chapter 29

29

LUKE

I only know because I am physically moving, helping everyone down from the boat back on Charithonia, that my heart hasn’t stopped beating. The way Carrie held me on the way back across the ocean, the way she let me hold her. That look in her eyes, like I’d done something right, as if I was exactly who she needed me to be, at exactly the right time.

It feels like one of those images a person commits to memory, the kind that will sneak out and make you feel like the world has stopped turning when you least expect it. One I’ll never forget.

I’ve helped Jenny, Monique and Dionne down from the boat. I’m standing knees deep in the water while Dave and Roy try their best to hold the vessel as steady as possible, but it’s too rough to use a ladder. Henry and Joe are still at the helm, in case they need to turn on the engine and fight against the waves.

Carrie helps Lola to the back of the boat and as the waves bounce everything and everyone around, she takes the baby from her. Once I get Lola safely ashore, I come back for the baby. Carrie hands him to me, our fingers connecting as the small bundle moves between us, barely murmuring, and it’s unfathomable, in the circumstances, that I feel a spark pass between us. I don’t think it’s from touch alone but of some kind of déjà vu from an alternate universe. One where we didn’t mess each other up.

Having handed Baby back to Mom, I come back for Carrie.

‘I’m good,’ she tells me, yelling to be heard above the crashing and smashing of the sea. ‘I can jump down.’

I shake my head in exasperation. ‘Carrie, could you just not be difficult. For once?’ I hold my arms up and despite her scowl, she slips down into them. Her chest is pressed to mine and with what little clothing that’s between us wet, I feel every inch of her body as it slides against mine. I remember the sensation of her hips in my hands. I could never forget the way her lips part as she watches my own mouth. Suddenly, the chaos around us drifts away to nothing because I finally have her in my arms again.

I can feel my chest and hers rising and falling so hard they’re pushing each other, and the split seconds we’re locked together feel like long, indulgent minutes.

I want her so badly. In every possible sense of the word, I need her.

Then she pats my back like a boy scout who did a good deed and the moment dies with her camaraderie. ‘Thanks. I can make it from here.’

I clear my throat. ‘Right.’ Then I watch her move onto the beach.

She really felt nothing? Nothing? Seismometers were tripped by what I just felt and all it tripped for her was an unaffectionate pat?

Jesus, what am I tearing myself up about here?

Leave the past in the past, Luke.

Or you’re going to end up ruined all over again.

Henry and I take the boat back out to sea, navigating around rocks while hugging the island as closely as we safely can to get her protection, to the boat house on the western point of the island. The boat house is tucked into a small indent in Charithonia’s natural shape, shielded somewhat from the elements. Nevertheless, we secure the boat as best we can.

The superyacht we sailed yesterday was taken to a dockyard, where the hope is she’ll be safe from the storm. The crew will be staying in a nearby hotel, hoping to sail back in a few days.

You’ve got to love insurance when you actually need it. Don’t get me started on what a waste of money it is when you never call upon it. Wasting money on insurance, just like getting your heart broken by the girl of your dreams, is as certain as death and taxes.

With the boat tied up with extra lines, we hike back up to the main Hettich residence, filling the time by talking about Henry’s plans to go back to college and do a postgrad. I’ve got to admit, I like the guy, I always have. He’s worked for Joe for a couple of years now and I’ve watched him grow up a lot in that time.

Correction: I don’t mind him when he isn’t flirting with Carrie.

What I really want to do is tell him to back off, to stake some kind of claim to Carrie. But me not liking the idea of her finding someone else attractive – especially an objectively, though annoyingly, buff and handsome guy like Henry – doesn’t qualify as a right over Carrie or any woman.

I grew up with a misogynistic father and I won’t become him. I made it one of my life’s objectives when he eventually left Mom, my younger brother and me.

With the overcast sky and the humidity rocketing, my clothes that were drenched from the boat are still wet and sticking to me, making me uncomfortable and, in the increasing breeze, cold.

‘I’m going to throw on some dry clothes before heading to the house,’ I tell Henry.

After peeling off to go to my pod, I change into dry shorts, a t-shirt and a hooded sweatshirt. I’d kill for a shower but I need to grab a bite and a hot drink with the others, then we need to get the last of the jobs done on the island before the wind picks up and picks up some more and keeps on going.

I tug on a clean cap and tighten it before making my way to the others. As I’m walking along the hilltop, looking out to the foam-lined tips of the increasingly murky water, it strikes me just how dangerous that boat crossing was. Carrie should never have been out there. None of us should.

I’d be burying my head in the sand if I said I’m not nervous about what tomorrow will bring.

I reach the terrace and see Carrie laughing with Alisha, one hand wrapped around a mug of something that’s steaming and a sandwich in her other. Her laughter flows through my ears, dragging me from my reverie but stilling my feet. I’m powerless to do anything but watch the way her head falls back, the way her wet hair, no longer tied back, hangs down her back, exposing the skin of her neck, around her collarbones, exactly where she tastes and smells impossibly good.

As I take her in, committing to memory the sight of her, every inch of her, even more beautiful now than then, if that’s possible, two wide, stunningly beautiful green eyes find mine.

I’m lying. I’m not nervous about what tomorrow will bring. I’m terrified.

‘Luke, honey, there are sandwiches and hot tea,’ Ella says. Her words reach me while I’m still lost to the view. Then she’s right beside me, her hands on my forearm as she leans toward my ear. ‘That is, if you can work out how to use your jaw again.’ She places her fingertips under my chin and tickles me. ‘You’re gawping, honey. It’s not attractive. Jessie has less sloppy chops than you do.’

I scowl at her from the corner of my eyes but I’m also fighting the twitch at the sides of my mouth. ‘Well, like your dog, I’m salivating because of hunger, Ella.’

‘Mmmhmm,’ she sings. ‘Hungry for what, darling?’

All right, now a short sound of humor escapes me. She isn’t wrong; I am hungry, I’m starving, and I think the only thing that’s going to sate my appetite is a woman who can’t stand me, who is my tax advisor, and who broke my heart once and I would be well-advised to stay away from.

But what is it about knowing what’s bad for us and wanting it all the more because of it?

I head over to the table where Dave and Jenny have now joined Carrie and Alisha and they’re all joking around. There’s only one long buffet table still out – the other tables and chairs must have been stowed away inside already. Carrie is actually holding court. She’s confident and vivacious, slick with it. She’s finally relaxing, maybe. Whatever the reason, it looks good on her. I can see how this woman is on the cusp of partnership at her firm. She’s impressive.

As I think that, my mind jumps back to her patting my back when I helped her down from the boat. While I was lost in the feel of her body against mine, she was friend-zoning me. Except, I don’t even think she likes me as a friend. She was just zoning me out?

I raise my chin as I near the group, trying to seem aloof and, I think, coming off like a dorky kid trying to hang out with the in-crowd. What is actually happening to me?

I’m usually the self-assured one, maybe even a bit cool? Not here. Not on this island. Not since Carrie arrived. She’s going to be my undoing.

‘What’s up?’ I try to ask casually, but it ties around my tongue and comes out like whassuuup , as if I’m some goof on a naughties commercial for Budweiser.

‘You changed,’ Carrie says.

What do you know, she does acknowledge that I exist.

I plate up some sandwiches and a handful of fries. ‘You should, too; you’ll get cold.’

‘I’m fine,’ she says. Her words are followed by a shiver. ‘I’ll be fine. I don’t have any spare clothes. I didn’t actually pack for a hurricane.’

‘Carrie, you should have said,’ Jenny says. ‘Let me get you something of mine. I’ll be back in a flash.’

While Jenny literally runs off, I get the distinct impression I’m not welcome near Carrie so I go back to find someone who is my friend.

As I get closer to Joe and Ella, I can hear them griping at each other in hushed tones.

‘Honey, I know your heart is in the right place but I think you have to tell him. It’s getting serious now, I can see it,’ Ella says. ‘I think the stakes are higher than we realized and it isn’t right to keep meddling like this. What with tomorrow and the storm, too, I just think?—’

‘Isn’t serious what we wanted?’ Joe asks. ‘Isn’t that where we were trying to get to?’

‘Is everything okay?’ I ask, heading over to them. ‘I didn’t mean to eavesdrop but?—?’

‘But you did?’ Joe says, grinning. Happy to be rescued from his ticking off, most likely.

‘Joe,’ Ella says, giving him a warning look.

Joe holds up two hands. ‘All right. I’ll deal with it.’

Ella clamps his cheeks between his palms. ‘You better had. Today.’ Then she kisses him and they’re both smiling again, the way I like them.