Page 30 of Stuck in Paradise with You

Happy? More like X-rated.

I hide my face in my hands, now sitting on the bed, hot stones on the floor around us where they’ve fallen from my back.

‘It wasn’t… you know… how it sounded,’ I bullshit, knowing Greta can see right through me.

She waves a hand. ‘Lie back down and have your happy moment, girl.’

I shake my head profusely. ‘I can’t.’

‘Yes, you can. You deserve it. You won’t let yourself fall asleep again, anyway. We can talk if you want to.’

‘I…’ Am sitting on a bed naked but for a towel over my lady parts, so actually, the lesser of evils is to lie back down and spare my further embarrassment. ‘Okay.’

If nothing else, I like the happy drawl of her accent, how her words bounce rhythmically and her ‘r’s are exaggerated. There’s a hominess about it.

Greta moves onto my arms and I keep my focus firmly on what is happening in the present, until she asks with a coy tone, ‘So Luke, huh?’

I bite my lip, bringing my free hand to my forehead. ‘Please don’t tell him.’

She chuckles. ‘What happens on the massage table stays on the massage table. Honestly, with the stories I have, I should write a book.’

13

CARRIE

It’s Wednesday morning.

The dawn of more enforced fun with Luke et al.

Can’t wait.Thought no jaded ex ever.

Said no woman who has ever been dumped on her ass by a man she was head over heels for when being forced onto a boat with zero escape other than jumping overboard.Ever.

At least last night I was permitted to dine alone after my simultaneously glorious and hideously awkward massage, then spend an hour soaking in my heated infinity pool, alone, listening to the sound of the sea lapping onto the beach below and splashing against the rocks at the edges of the bay.

Now, though, I need to be seen to be sociable with my client and his family and friends. While also being seen in business mode.

Joe Hettich might know I had a blip in the past with his best friend, but I was a young woman then. Today, I’m older, significantly wiser and more successful.

I willnotunder any circumstances go there again.

I willnot, unequivocally willnot, mess up my chances of partnership by falling for Luke’s charm.

So, I’m sitting on a table on the terrace of the main house, drinking coffee from a French press and enjoying a plate of exotic fruits, waiting for a mushroom omelet. My laptop is open on the table in front of me as I work on the tax paper I agreed to prepare for Hettich following yesterday’s long meeting with Luke. He is my client, after all, and though I’m reluctant to acknowledge it, for this week, he’s sort of my boss, again.

But when it comes to our,my, personal life,Iam 100 percent in control.

Jessie is lying by my feet, intermittently shuffling and rubbing her fur against them, most likely doing what Eddie does and making sure I don’t forget she’s there if I have any food going spare.

I’m wearing a long white and blue striped linen dress with capped sleeves. It’s one that always makes me feel elegant but is very weather appropriate. So much so, I’ve rarely worn it since I bought it a couple of years ago.

I plaited my hair wet after showering because even though it’s not yet 9a.m., it’s too hot and humid to contemplate a blow dryer. Pointlessly, because I’m wearing large cat’s eye shades, I have on a smidge of eye make-up, but I’m otherwise covered in sunscreen all over.

I’ve been chatting with the staff as they come and go. Henry and Jenny came to the terrace for a light breakfast before heading down to the beach to start preparing for our sailing trip today. I can see them lugging cooler boxes down the steep steps and across the sand, then they jump in a speedboat like the one they drove to collect me from Tortola, and disappear around the rocks, out of sight, presumably to the larger boat we’re sailing today.

It all feels veryBelow Deck.If I forgot that Luke would be on the boat too, I could almost be excited. Callum would be utterly giddy with the build-up of it all, I’m sure. I do wish I could treathim to a visit like this for being an insanely great best friend but, truly, even if I make partner, a resort like Joe’shome, kitted out with all of his toys, would be hugely beyond my or even our means.

I start pulling together a flow diagram of how the new Hettich business structure would look with my suggested changes – navigating those little boxes is not my forte, but I’m managing – intermittently breaking the frustration of tiny text boxes by eating otherworldly sweet slices of mango, and dragon fruit that actually tastes of something, rather than the bland stuff in the stores of Manhattan.

---