Page 24 of Stuck in Paradise with You

‘You hurt her,’ Alisha says emphatically.

I narrow my eyes on her. ‘I messed up trying to do what I thought was right. But she shut us down completely.’

‘I wasn’t there, Luke, so I won’t tell you what happened, but have you tried to sit in her point of view for a while?’

‘She cut me out of her life, Alisha,’ I snap unintendedly.

She reaches for a tissue and waves it as I did, in peace. I feel bad but I can’t help how much of a trigger Carrie is for me.

‘I’ll leave you to it,’ Alisha says, heading out. ‘See you on the beach?’

I nod, too wound up for words.

By the door, she pauses to tell me, ‘For the record, no woman refers to a man she loves as a co-doggy parent. I’m sure there’s one less thing standing between you and Carrie than you think.’

10

CARRIE

The ocean is calm, a stark contrast to the way I’m feeling.

What just happened between Luke and me?Thatlook… it was like… Never mind what it was like. What itwasn’twas athing.

Which doesn’t at all explain why I’m feeling way hotter than the sticky Charithonia heat, which is a cool eighty-six degrees and about 99.9 per cent humidity. I fan myself, tugging the material of my blouse at the chest.

It isn’t working, so I take out my phone and call Callum.

No answer.Damn it.

I glance back across my shoulder to the meeting pod, making sure neither Luke nor his girlfriend have eyes on me. They don’t, so I allow myself the indulgence of letting my hair down and tugging on the roots like a masseuse does during an Indian head massage, hoping it will yank some straight thinking into me.

Because the thing is, it’s like everything I used to feel for Luke was there, in that one look, right there, for a heartbeat.

Like the way I felt relieved that he was giving training to a group of new associates the first time I met him, so I had an excuse for not being able to tear my focus from him. There wassomething about his voice that was smooth and confident, yet gravelly and manly all at once.

In the months that followed, when we were working in the same office, I’d pretend to be working on my own computer screen as I listened in to his calls with clients, not absorbing the substance of his words but just the way he conducted himself.

And later still, a year after we met, when I’d lie back on the sofa in his apartment, my legs across his thighs, his fingers gently, nonchalantly, massaging my ankles as he asked about my day, about my dreams and aspirations, about my upbringing. Just the two of us, hiding away from real life. I’d have divulged anything he wanted to know, the kind of top-priority state secrets people kill for, if I’d known any, because all I really wanted was for his words to wrap around me, for the light rough of his skin to move around my jaw, down my neck.

So now, standing on this terrace in paradise, like Eve who once ate the forbidden fruit, I’m scared. No, terrified, waiting for karma to bite again. I can’t be here, physically, metaphorically. I can’t be sent back to where he left me seven years ago. In pieces.

Bracing myself on the balcony of the terrace, I try a deep inhalation and exhalation. And again. And again.

When it doesn’t work, I try to call the only other person who knows about Luke and me. Whoknewabout Luke and me when we were actually together.

I call my mom.

‘Carrie! Where are you, what are you doing, and why?’

That’s how Mom always answers the phone to me. It’s not an interrogation, as much as a habit, lovingly meant.

‘Well… I’m standing outside of a meeting room, having stepped out for air from my client, Luke Chalmers.’

‘Okaaaaay.’ She’s distracted, doing something in the background, shuffling things or picking them up. It sounds likeher cell is wedged between her ear and her shoulder. ‘Should I know who Luke Chalm— Luke?LukeLuke?’

‘You remember him then?’

‘Remember him? He broke my daughter’s heart and ran off into the wind to let someone else put it back together again. Of course Irememberhim.’

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