Page 1 of Stuck in Paradise with You

PROLOGUE

SEPTEMBER 2017

Carrie,

If you’ve got this far, you’re reading my letter. Thank you for not returning straight to sender, and please don’t throw this in the trash before you’ve heard me out.

You’ve blocked my emails, you’ve disappeared from social media and won’t reply to my messages. My calls ring out. So this is my last resort: an old-fashioned, written letter. The final one.

I’m back in New York. The baby isn’t mine.

When the firm found out about you and me, the partners all but gave me an ultimatum: either I went, or they plateaued you. So I resigned.

I had no idea what I was supposed to do. There you were. Beautiful, arresting, smart and funny. The woman I’d become undeniably besotted with. But Anya was pregnant, I thought with my child. I had to try to do the right thing by her and the baby.

I moved to Chicago to be with them. You might remember me telling you that Anya had gone back home to Seattle after we separated. It was strained and awkward. We fought and griped at each other continually, as if all the reasons we split in the first place were heightened by the pregnancy.

Anya had the baby two weeks ago. He’s cute and fragile, but he isn’t mine. It transpires she’d been seeing someone before weseparated, and it turns out they were still at it behind my back the entire time I was in Chicago.

It’s a kick in the gut, I won’t lie, but I can honestly tell you it doesn’t hurt as much as the thought of you never speaking to me again.

If you don’t reply, I promise I won’t try again; I’ll leave you to move on with your life. But please know that I can’t. I don’t think I ever will, because I’ll never find someone who has the effect on me that you do.

We can be together now, Carrie; there’s nothing left to stand in our way.

I love you.

Luke

1

CARRIE

‘Oh, my little pup, I’ve missed you so much.’

Stepping into my Manhattan loft apartment, I bend to scoop up my pug, Eddie, whom I co-doggy-parent with my neighbor and best friend Callum.

‘You are such a cute, ickle fur ball,’ I say, scratching Eddie’s ears as he licks my cheek.

Behind Eddie, Callum closes the door to my apartment as he comes inside and says, ‘Thanks, honey. I’ve missed you, too, but less of the fur ball talk.’

Rolling my eyes, I reach out with my dog-free arm and pull Callum into a hug. ‘Hey, you. How’ve you both been while I’ve been in Delaware?’

‘One of us has been messing all over the floor and even smudged crap into my brand-new rug,’ Callum says, now with his head in my refrigerator and taking out a can of club soda.

‘And what about the dog?’ I tease.

‘Ha. Ha. Very funny. You know, puppy training would be much easier if Eddie had two parents around.’

I set the dog on the lounge floor and he runs toward his empty food and water bowls beneath my kitchen counter. Callum pours some of his soda into Eddie’s water bowl.

I watch as the dog drinks then opens his mouth like a yawning hippo, and I wait for him to either belch or explode from the carbon dioxide bubbles. Thankfully, neither happens, so I decide not to comment on another of Callum’s puppy-parenting flaws, for now.

‘I know,’ I say apologetically, removing my rain jacket and hanging it over the extended arm of the luggage I just wheeled in from the airport. ‘I’m sorry. How about Chinese takeout this evening, on me?’

It’s Sunday evening. Callum and I usually stay in with takeout on Sunday evenings, and the beauty of living next door to each other – in addition to being able to share doggy-care – is that we can eat food and watch movies in our pajamas, then walk ten yards to bed.

He leans back against the work surface. ‘I would but I have a date tonight.’

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