Stuck in Paradise with You

Chapter 37

37

CARRIE

Our voices are raised above the growling wind, the crashing debris, though we’re not shouting in anger. The three of us – Luke, Jessie and me – are sitting on the floor with just two candles lighting our bunker. The walls are trembling around us, as if at any moment, they might give in to the relentless battering they’re receiving from the outside.

‘Joe planned this whole thing? But how?’ I ask, not sure I’m following entirely. Not sure if I’m supposed to be shocked or angry or if I’m completing misunderstanding what Luke is trying to tell me.

This might be the worst time ever for Luke to decide to make a confession, but I have to admit, it’s a diversion from everything else, at least.

‘He only told me earlier when— Well, you saw me leap for him in the basement,’ Luke tells me. ‘Apparently, Eric really did get stomach flu but Joe knew that you were working at the firm; he’d known for months and not mentioned it to me. Then when Eric got sick and cancelled his trip, Joe spoke to your boss and arranged for you to replace Eric.’

I press my fingers to my temples, eyelids squeezed shut. ‘Because…’

Luke nods. ‘Because of me. He wanted to bring you over here, where I would be, where we’d be trapped together.’

‘But I just… Nothing to do with him wanting me to be his advisor?’

‘He thinks you’re great,’ Luke is quick to say. ‘But no. He… I guess he thought there was something unfinished between you and me.’

I rub my hands over my face, feeling grit on my fingers and now on my clammy skin, hot and sweaty in the humidity. His words are sinking in, slowly being pieced together by my brain.

‘He brought me here for you ? To be your plaything? A toy? A game?’

‘I— Yes. No. I swear I didn’t know, Carrie, and for what it’s worth, I think he was trying to play matchmaker, not… I don’t know.’

‘This is mortifying, Luke! Did he tell Rachel his grand design for us? Did he tell my boss ?’

‘I honestly don’t know.’ Luke watches me from the ground, his knees bent, his wrists resting on them. He looks dirty and tired and defeated. ‘I don’t know more than I’ve told you and, if it’s any consolation at all, I’m livid about it too.’

‘ You are?’ I throw my arms up in frustration. ‘Luke, do you know how long and hard I’ve worked to change the narrative that I’m some kind of whore who tried to sleep her way to the top? Do you?’ I’m yelling now and it’s nothing to do with the noise of the weather. ‘I’m on the cusp of partnership and he, you , have made me look like— What the hell am I doing here?’

My eyes burn with anger and I have to slam the heels of my hands into them to stop me from crying like some kind of damsel in distress.

Luke’s hands are on my shoulders and I move my own to slap his away. ‘Don’t touch me!’

I walk the entire four steps away from him that I can possibly move in this space. ‘It’s happening all over again. All fucking over again. I fell for you, I slept with you, I’m fucking heartbroken and to top it all off, I look like I’ve been screwing the firm’s biggest client to get my partnership case over the line!’

My eyes are watering uncontrollably and I really wish I could stop them. Trying, I think, takes the last of my energy. This day, this week, the last seven years of hurt and resentment, it’s all been too much.

I slump back against the unsteady wall, ironically, for support. ‘I really was just a pawn in a game.’

We fall silent, Luke and I facing each other, Jessie coming to sit on my feet. I stare at the man who keeps blowing my mind and messing up my life, and he stares right back. Despite all the madness outside, inside, it feels like I could hear a pin drop.

Unspoken words silently whirl around the air between us, until eventually, Luke says, ‘I swear I didn’t know, Carrie, and you have never been a game to me. Never .’

Everything about him is sincere and I believe him. It must be true. Why in the world would he have actually tried to bring me here? He walked away from me once; he’d do it again, I think. It’s something even I’m not convinced of anymore. Which is probably a reflection of how much my mind is having to contend with here in supposed paradise.

There’s a loud crash of something big and heavy against the steel doors that makes us both flinch like we’re dodging bullets, that makes the machine and countertop leaning against the doors shudder, and has Jessie howling.

‘Shh, girl, you’re okay,’ I tell her, trying to convince us both of that truth, running a soothing finger down the crease between her eyes and onto her nose, the way Eddie loves. It seems to work and she calms, leaning into my side when I come to sit next to her on the floor, then draping her head and a front paw across my thighs. I continue stroking that sweet spot and watch the rise and fall of her tummy gradually slow. It’s a safer space to keep my focus than on Luke.

‘I’ve no doubt we’re going to be fine and that we’ll see this storm through,’ he says, forcing me to look up to where he’s standing on the opposite side of the small space, leaning his shoulders back against the wall, squeezing the peak of his cap between his hands. ‘Even so, I don’t want to leave things unsaid because I don’t know if you’ll walk out of here and I’ll never see you again.’ His lopsided smile is sad. ‘I should be well versed in it by now.’

‘If I’ve walked away, it’s been for good reason,’ I tell him, not snapping; I’m surprisingly composed, though I am having to speak loudly.

He’s just watching me, not reacting, completely unreadable and, oddly, I really want to know what he’s thinking. It’s also bizarre that we’re having this conversation, in this space, with a terrified dog laid across my lap, and I’m thinking Luke looks like strength and home and sexy-as-hell all at once.

‘I am sorry that Joe has brought you here if you don’t want to be here,’ he says. ‘Though I don’t think it’s career-threatening because you’ve done a great job for him. I’ve been in awe, listening to the way you’ve advised Joe, responded to his off-the-cuff questions, and mine. If there’s any take away to be fed back to your firm, it will only be positive.’

I clear my throat, which has tightened with his words. I’m not sure if I should thank him. I’m not sure I agree. So I don’t respond. Instead, I focus on Jessie.

‘Scratch that, I’m irate that he’s brought you here and you’ve gotten stuck in this hurricane. I’d never do anything to put you in harm’s way and I want to kick his ass for it.’

I give him my attention now. Without doubt, my presence on this island was a shock to him. Irrationally, it makes me… sad? Disappointed? Maybe I was flattered by that 1 percent of doubt. At the idea that maybe Luke wanted me to be here too. Which is stupid, foolish, idiotic, I know.

He inhales deeply, his chest pushing against his damp t-shirt, his eyes piercing mine as he replaces his cap on his head. ‘But I’m not going to say I’m sorry about getting to see you again. As much as it killed me to wake up alone this morning, I can’t regret last night. Being with you again felt natural, unbelievable. Like I was exactly where I was supposed to be, at last.’

With each of his words, the pressure behind my eyes builds, and I dig my teeth into my lip in an attempt to fight against it, because I didn’t expect, I couldn’t have expected, him to feel today exactly how I felt. Like we were back where we began, the way things used to be, as if we fit together in a way that could only mean we were intended to be.

But I shake my head. No . ‘That aside, Luke, what if great sex is all we have, all we’ve ever had, and if we did this again, made the same mistake again, then when the novelty wears off, you’ll go? You’ll run off to something you prefer. Something better. Exactly as you did last time.’

He crouches to my level, a little frantic. ‘Carrie, are you crazy? Is that honestly what you think I did?’

I shrug, uncertain about what happened in our past for the first time ever, because Luke is so bold and so sure of a different version, even if I still don’t know what that is. ‘It’s what it felt like you did,’ I tell him, watching my fingers as I stroke Jessie, glad of her warm weight on my lap.

Luke crouches down in front of me and gently teases my chin until I’m meeting his gaze. He leans his head to one side. ‘Then I’m sorry for that too. I’m sorry that that’s how you’ve seen it all this time.’

I don’t consciously do it but I seem to have slipped to rest my chin, my cheek, further into his palm. My eyelids close for a moment, just long enough for me to gain some perspective. ‘How could I see things any differently? You’ve never given me an explanation.’

His hand leaves my skin and I open my eyes, feeling the loss of his touch, only to see him coming to sit on the ground opposite me, his knees pulled up and his feet touching mine.

He’s going to explain. Finally.

I’m more afraid of this moment than I am of the 285kph gusts of wind outside.

Do I want to know why he hurt me, ruined me for all other relationships? Do I want to relive it all, right here, right now? Hasn’t this week been grueling enough?

‘I assumed you knew some or most of this because I’ve always thought you were the person who opened the first letter I sent to you. I thought you knew but still shut me out.’ He takes off his cap and drags a hand back through his hair, giving me the impression this will be as hard for him to say as I know it’s going to be for me to hear. Maybe that’s why I don’t stop him. ‘I’ll tell you everything; maybe some of it won’t be new, I don’t know.’

He puffs the air from his lungs. ‘The day everything imploded, I found your note on my desk.’ His mouth twitches up. So fleetingly, I could have imagined it. ‘I was so excited to come to you. I remember the way my heart started thumping and every part of me was running from the office in your direction before my mind could even catch up.’

His words make my heart race in response. I remember that feeling. The giddiness, the heat, the desperation. The insatiable desire. I remember how my fingers trembled with it as I wrote that note.

‘As I was leaving the office, my phone buzzed and I thought it must be you. So I took it out and?—’

‘It wasn’t me,’ I say, finishing his sentence. I know it wasn’t me because I never messaged him. Not at five to twelve, not when he was twenty minutes late, not when he was an hour then two hours late. It was Luke who messaged me, while I was lying on a hotel bed, dressed in new lingerie I had bought for his birthday, a bottle of champagne and two glasses on the bedside table.

He rubs a hand down his face, across his chin and two-day-old stubble. ‘I still can’t believe Anya told me by text but she did. I pulled out my phone and found out I was going to be a dad. It stopped me dead in my tracks.’ He looks from his fingers to me. ‘I don’t want to give you a sob story but to say I was shocked doesn’t cover it. I was— It was a total mind screw.’

I have to know… ‘Were you happy?’

I don’t realize I’m expecting him to say no , maybe hoping he’ll say no, until he says, ‘Yes. On some level.’ He looks back to his fingers, as if he’s said something wrong. He hasn’t, I suppose, only something I don’t want to hear. ‘I’ve always thought I’d have kids. There was a time I thought that would be with Anya. So, I was— I don’t know. I guess that’s the problem. Only more recently, with the perspective of distance and time, can I see I was happy about the prospect of being a dad but not about being the father of Anya’s child. Even now, Carrie, I don’t know how bad or evil that sounds, even when I’m saying it to you and it’s the thing that messed up everything between us. I couldn’t get my head around it in those minutes, not for the six months after that when I was living in Chicago, and not after?—’

He leans his head back against the wall, focusing on the roof above us. Trying, maybe, not to look my way, or to hide his expression. For a moment, I’m reminded of the raging storm outside and the reason I’m sitting here sweating, with a dog lying across my thighs. The fact that I’m trapped in here because Luke rescued me and I can’t get away from his words.

No matter how much I don’t want to hear the story of how and why he left me, it’s what I’ve waited thousands of nights to know.

‘There was a baby but it was never mine.’

‘What?’ I heard his words and saw his mouth speak but… ‘I don’t understand.’

He gives a short, sad laugh. ‘Yep. I left you, I moved to Chicago, I stuck around for six months, decorated a nursery, picked out baby clothes, even tried to convince myself that if I could just fall in love with my son, then I could fall back in love with Anya, despite everything that happened between us. Then he was born and Anya told me she thought we should get a paternity test.’

I feel myself gawping.

‘Honestly, I just didn’t see it coming. I don’t know if I was blind to signs, but it came completely out of the blue for me.’ He shrugs. ‘The baby wasn’t mine.’

I try to compute that, struggling, maybe feeling a shred of what Luke must have been feeling back then. ‘But the timing. I mean, you must have been?—’

His eyes widen when the proverbial light switch comes on. ‘I swear to you, Carrie, I wasn’t still sleeping with her when you and I got together. We had one last senseless night together. Not even a night. A short—’ He shakes his head, eyes closed. ‘It told me definitively that we were done but it was always a goodbye or for old times’ sake, or— Jesus , I never considered what you must have been thinking about that. I just assumed you’d know. I guess I’ve been blind to a few things before this week. Maybe it was easier to blame you because deep down, I know I fucked up something that could have been amazing between us.’

My mouth is dry. We could have been. But we weren’t. I feel… deflated.

Though at least he’s answered one of the questions that has eaten me up inside for so long. ‘The other guy?’ I manage coarsely.

‘She’d been having an affair. I mean, that wasn’t the thing that stung, truthfully. You know that Anya and I were done a long time before we officially ended. The thing that killed me was that she’d let me fall in love with the baby, or at least the idea of him.’

I thought that hearing this would hurt me, but seeing Luke reliving this, seeing his pain, cuts me deeper than his words. ‘I’m sorry,’ I tell him sincerely.

He smiles a somber smile. ‘Don’t be. It’s how karma works, right?’

I return his sad turn of the lips. ‘Maybe.’

He picks up an old piece of string from the ground and starts twisting it between his fingers. ‘So, I got her message when I was on my way to you that day and it threw me, blew my mind, but I was still coming, or would have, I’m sure of that. Except, as I was standing in the corridor, wondering what the hell kind of message I’d just received from my ex, Christopher Oakes – the old managing partner of our firm – collared me and asked me to go with him to his office. When I got inside, two other equity partners, Bernie Walton and Bill Lin, were in there, and the HR director too.’ He scoffs. ‘I knew the second I saw them. They were all wearing the same expression, like a “We gotcha”. That was how I knew they’d found out about you and me.’

My breathing quickens, as if I’m back there, in the thick of the discovery, the immediate aftermath and realization that I was facing it alone, that my career was tanked, that Luke had gone back to his ex-wife and their child. Except, what I thought were truths are seemingly not , and while Luke is still talking, I can’t process anything more than the facts he’s giving me.

‘So that’s how it happened?’ is all I manage.

Luke nods. ‘They sat me down in that office, grilling me, making me feel like some kind of predator, like the disgrace of the partnership, for more than an hour. It was as if they were enjoying it.’

If it’s possible, my mood dips even lower. I hate imagining that they made him feel that way. That they made him feel as if what we shared was wrong, sordid.

‘Luke, it was never controlling and it was never one-sided, you know that, right?’

The way he looks at me tells me he doesn’t know that at all. Seeing things through his eyes, the fact he thinks I ghosted him – I suppose I did – I can understand how I played into that view.

He doesn’t answer and it tears through my heart that he maybe regrets us, what happened. Pain fills the space between us and for a while, neither one of us speaks.

‘Someone saw us leaving my apartment that morning,’ he says eventually. ‘Reported it to the partners and in justifying it, I ended up spilling that we were in a relationship, which only made things worse in their eyes, not better.’

I shake my head, furious. ‘I hate that. I hate that they would assume I couldn’t make a decision about a relationship on my own, that you must have coerced me. I hate that they made you think that.’

‘It’s the way the old school works, Carrie.’ He shrugs. ‘They said they wanted me to stay but that I wouldn’t make partner and they were going to move you to a different team to separate us.’

‘They would have managed me out,’ I say as the realization hits me.

Luke nods. ‘I thought so too. And I knew how hard you worked and how much your career meant to you. You were still so junior and I had experience under my belt. So, I told them I’d resign, provided they kept you in the position you were in.’

‘You did?’

‘Yes, Carrie. I did and I’d do it again. I’m not sure when you’re going to figure it out but you were bigger than a job to me; you meant more. I was in love with you.’

There’s an enormous clatter outside that’s so loud, it makes me duck on reflex. Then it’s gone and I’ve no idea what hit the building, but I can’t wait for the wind to start subsiding. I wish I could tell whether it’s the storm that’s making my ears and my head ring with pain, or if it’s my mind trying to deal with everything Luke is hurtling at me.

He was in love with me?

After all this time… With all the murky water beneath the bridge between us.

‘You surely knew that?’ he asks. ‘How could you not have known that?’

‘Because you left me in a hotel room with the only explanation being by message that you were going back to your wife and child!’ For some reason, I’m shouting. My confusion emanating as anger or frustration, or both. ‘I never knew you gave up partnership for me. All I knew was that you wanted to be back with your ex, as a family. It shattered me into a million goddamn pieces.’

As I vent my anger, I feel pressure in my eyes, I see my vision clouding. I don’t want to cry, again. I don’t want to. ‘Why? Why her and not me if you’re telling me now that you were in love with me?’

‘Because I thought I was doing the right thing,’ he snaps back. His own frustration silencing mine, unclouding my vision. ‘I had no fucking clue what to do for the best. I didn’t want to leave you, of course I didn’t. But I had a wife in Chicago who was telling me she was having my child and I—’ He stands. ‘ Goddammit , I didn’t know what the hell to do.’ He thrusts a fist into the countertop that’s leaning against the doors and immediately yells, ‘Jesus! Christ. Fuck .’ He’s flapping his hand, his face twisted with agony.

I stand, Jessie rising with me, and go to him. ‘Let me see,’ I say, calmer now. ‘Wiggle your fingers.’ He does. ‘I don’t think it’s broken.’

I realize I’m holding his hand and I’m painfully close to him when he reaches out to me with his other hand and tucks a loose tendril of hair behind my ear. I can’t hold his gaze, looking away. It’s all too much. He’s too much.

Thankfully, he steps back, and we both move to lean back against the walls, which I notice aren’t moving anymore. In fact, the roar outside seems to be slightly less now than minutes ago.

We’re facing each other as he tells me, ‘My parents separated when I was ten. Old enough to remember and miss my dad, despite the fact he was a dick to my mom. Old enough to understand he’d had an affair and had another family.’

‘I didn’t know he had another family.’

‘It’s not something I like to go over. Life without him was tough, awful sometimes. I felt like I was supposed to be the man around the house for my mom and my brother. I was an angry kid, pissed off at the world, even my mom for not— It sounds crazy now that I’m a man, but for not being good enough to hold on to my dad for me.’ He shakes his head. ‘I couldn’t. I wouldn’t have inflicted that on my own son.’

Finally, I think I’m starting to understand.

‘I chose to do right by the baby I thought I was having. I didn’t choose Anya over you, Carrie. We were finished. I didn’t love her and I truly don’t think I’d known how amazing a relationship could be with a woman until you. I’ve not found it since, either.’

The enormity of his words renders me speechless. He’s nailed exactly how I’ve been feeling, what I’ve been missing without realizing it for so many years. This is what Callum means when he says there’s got to be more to life for me.

‘This is the most open you’ve ever been with me, Luke.’ I sigh. ‘Maybe the most we’ve ever talked about how we really feel.’ I want to offer him something back, but what I won’t allow myself to say is that last night reminded me, too, of everything I feel, or used to, maybe still do feel, for him. Because it’s easy to say things, right? It’s easy to spin a line but nothing has really changed, has it?

So, instead, I tell him, ‘I didn’t know all of that about your parents. But I guess it’s hard for me to understand that you could feel the way you say you felt for me and walk away. My parents separated when I was a teenager. You know that. But they should have done it a long time before they did. I lived for a long time with arguing and fighting and eventually cheating because my parents stayed together for me.’

His eyes narrow in concentration.

‘I suppose what I’m saying is, I don’t know if I can believe that there was nothing between you and Anya. That you didn’t have options. Something other than leaving me sitting on a hotel bed, watching you walk away to your family. Or at least what you thought was your family. I— I don’t know what I’m saying, Luke. This is all a lot.’

‘I know.’ His voice is as fragile as I’ve heard it. Maybe he thinks I’m saying no to he and I having anything more. Maybe I am. I’m not sure.

‘Has anything changed between us, Luke? Even if there are feelings between us, is that enough? I don’t even know what I’m feeling and how I’m feeling it. Like, if it’s real now or if it’s some kind of nostalgia or reflection of something we used to share.’

‘Carrie—’

‘Please let me try to articulate something that makes sense.’

He nods.

‘I think that maybe we’re only just talking now because things between us have always been about sex. That would explain a lot, wouldn’t it? You could walk away from sex. And yes, it was intense and great, but is it enough?’

‘Carrie—’

I hold up a hand – I’m not finished . ‘In any event, Hettich is my client and regardless of whatever games Joe has played here, my firm still sees Hettich as my client. This still reflects on me and my ethics and it isn’t a good look. I’ve worked so hard, Luke.’

Luke sighs, long and slow, his shoulders rising and falling. ‘I can’t tell you how much weight to place on your career, Carrie. I know how much it means to you and I don’t think this has to kibosh it, I really don’t. But that’s your call. It’s a balance for you to make.’

I see the hurt in his eyes – I’m putting my career before him, he thinks. But there isn’t an us , not now. And he put something, some one before me once before, when there was something real and tangible between us.

‘I will say this,’ he tells me. ‘I don’t believe two people can have the connection we had last night, that we’ve always had when we make love, and not feel something on a much deeper level.’ He raises his arms from his sides. ‘Maybe we did focus on the sex and not communicate enough. I also think that every relationship where the guy and the girl are freaking head over heels for each other is bound to have a lot of sex. And ours was great. Is great. Not just the physical, but…’

I feel my lips rise in agreement. I can’t deny it.

‘We just didn’t have long enough together to get to know everything,’ he says. ‘I get that it’s on me. I didn’t, or I didn’t want to, accept it before this week, because it was easier for me to put all that pain into a box with your name on it and blame you. I’m so sorry I screwed up, Carrie, and I’ll be forever sorry that I hurt you.’

‘Me too, Luke. I felt justified in blocking you out of my life and I’m still not sure I completely understand why you left, but I don’t believe it was because you were selfish or not thinking about me in it all. So I apologize for misinterpreting everything and not being grown-up enough to speak to you rather than cutting you out.’

Even in the low light of the space, I can see Luke’s eyes are glazed, as if we’ve said things he’s been waiting to hear for a long time. A feeling I can understand.

When he speaks again, his first words come with a croak. ‘Maybe I don’t know everything about your childhood and you don’t know everything about mine, but I do know you , Carrie. I know what you value, what you’re about. I know that if you’ll let me in and tell me I have permission to get to know every single thing about you, I will. I want to. And I can handle not making love to you until I know it all.’

I feel my brows rise. He could? I guess my lust when I’m around him is stronger, or my willpower significantly weaker.

‘It would be painful abstinence. Extremely.’ He chuckles and I reciprocate. A welcome relief from the intensity between us. ‘But I’d do it. Or at least try really hard.’ He rubs the corner of his eye and I wonder if, like mine, his vision is blurred by emotion. ‘I’ve been damaged too, Carrie. You’ve ruined me for all other women. No one else has had or will have a look in since you. So just consider giving us a chance. Please .’

I want to say yes. Because of the man sitting in front of me baring all. Because of the churn in the pit of my stomach, the pounding of my heart when I’m anywhere near him. Because of the honesty and the forgiveness we’ve finally shared.

But something is holding me back as we stare at each other across the space. Something is stopping me from crossing the space between us, wrapping my arms around his neck and holding my mouth to his.

I just don’t know where we go from here.

There’s a bang on the steel doors that’s less of a sound brought by the hurricane, which has slowly been receding while Luke and I have been lost in our world of torment, and more like a person.

Jessie barks.

‘Luke? Carrie? Are you in there?’

Dave .

There’s a beat, where I see in Luke’s eyes that he isn’t ready for us to be found. Then he calls back, ‘Yeah, we’re in here.’

‘Joe! They’re in here!’

Just like that, we’re back in the real world.

Though I have a sense that something life-altering happened while we were in this concrete shell.