Page 4 of Stuck in Paradise with You

My luggage has been taken to my pod and I’ve been handed a rum punch at one of Hettich’s poolside bars. I’ve been coming out here to see Joe three or four times a year for the last four years, since the inception of his private resort, yet it still wows me every visit.

Charithonia island – named after his wife’s favorite butterfly, which is native to the Caribbean, same as her – is a small island nestled among the British Virgin Islands. It’s exclusive to Joe, his family’s main residence offshore, ten guest pods each with its own infinity pool and hot tub, and a small cluster of housing which is home to a highly efficient army of staff. When they aren’t here, Joe and his wife, Ella, split their time between London and New York residences.

Kicking my feet up onto a footstool, I take a swig of the kind of rum punch you can only get under the sunshine of this stunning part of the world. It’s been a baptism of fire taking over the role of CFO for the Hettich group. A dream role, in many respects, and one I never would have imagined reaching eight years ago, when I was gunning to become the youngestever partner of my accountancy firm, but one that comes with a proportionate amount of stress for the title.

Leaning my head back, the sun warming my face and bringing spots to my eyes even behind my shades, those stresses feel happily far away for a minute or two.

‘Chalmers!’ Joe’s voice is loud, always a holler, and comes from somewhere behind me.

Joe and I met at Princeton a disgustingly long time ago – he was studying for a second degree and me my first. He was best man at my wedding – if only I’d listened when he offered to cover for me if I wanted to make a run for it the night before, then I wouldn’t have winded up a divorcee before I was even thirty. In our eighteen years of friendship, Joe has gone from running a small business from his college bedroom to having a global empire. We are worlds apart. While I was getting divorced and fundamentally stalling my career, he was building airplanes, investing in innovative technology, and becoming a world-renowned philanthropist.

But he’s the kind of man who knows exactly where he came from – a rundown town in West Yorkshire, England – and who his real friends are.

And boy has he paid me back for years of friendship. In a way I never would have asked for, by making me his CFO, but I’m extremely grateful. Work is kind of my solace, my distraction, my other half and family.

I stand as Joe bounds down stone steps from his palatial home to the large infinity pool and welcomes me with his big arms and stiff chest, near winding me as he thumps my back. His tasseled sombrero falls off his tightly curled hair, staying attached to him by a band under his chin.

‘You made it. Good to see you, matey,’ he says.

It’s only Monday and… ‘You saw me on Friday in the office,’ I tell him.

‘This is true. But there’s nothing like seeing you at home. What are we drinking, old boy? Rum punch?’ He signals to Monique, a member of his kitchen staff who is surreptitiously hovering in the distance, gesticulating that he’d like a drink. ‘Pretty please with a cherry on top!’ he calls to her. Then turning back to me, he asks, ‘The brewing storm didn’t put you off, then?’

I raise my brows as we come to sit again on opposite sides of the table, though both facing the view of the crystal-clear waters below from our elevated location on the hilly island. There isn’t a sign of a storm in the sky as far as we can see across the Atlantic.

‘The news is saying it could turn into a hurricane over the next couple of days,’ I tell him.

‘Pfft. They always say that. Drama-lamas. I’ve spent many a hurricane season out here and they always fizzle out or go off course eventually. Nothing to worry about.’

Looking to the horizon, I’m inclined to agree.

Once Monique has served Joe a drink, which he slurps with satisfaction through a straw, he says ‘So…’ in the way every conversation no one wants to have begins. ‘The word in the office is that you’re single, again, matey. What happened to Lauren – or Laura or Layla?’

‘Lou. And we just ran our course. No story.’

As I speak, Ella, Joe’s wife, appears, floating down the steps toward us in a floor-sweeping, turquoise kimono and holding what looks like another three rum punches.

‘When are you going to settle down, Luke Chalmers?’ she asks. ‘From the kitchen,’ she adds, setting down our drinks on the table and coming to sit on Joe’s lap, her arm draped around his neck. These guys have built a business together, had four kids together, and never lost their youthful romance. It’s special, admirable and enviable.

‘Settling doesn’t come off for everyone,’ I tell her.

‘Not if you stick to a two-months-and-you’re-out rule,’ she says, chomping a glazed cherry from the top of her drink.

‘I don’t have a rule.’

‘Mmmhmm. Name one woman since your divorce that you’ve been with for more than two months.’

She’s got me there. Though there was one time. One relationship. One person. After my wife and I separated. It might only have lasted six weeks but under different circumstances, she might have been the?—

The sound of one of Joe’s speed boats – and then its appearance on the Caribbean Sea from behind the rock face of the island – stops me from completing the thought: she might have beenthe one. Good thing, too. I don’t need to go back there; I don’t need to have thoughts about?—

Rising from my chair to get a closer look, I think I’m seeing things, a figment of my imagination. It must be the heat, or the alcohol, making my mind play tricks on me. I for sure hope so. Otherwise, the woman I am staring down at as the speedboat pulls into the beach beneath us is…

‘Carrie?’ I spin around to look at Joe. ‘What the fuck is Carrie doing here?’

‘Carrie? Who do you mean?’ he says, his voice many decibels louder than it ought to be.

Who do I mean?Only the woman I was madly, utterly, undeniably, heartbreakingly crushed by seven years go.

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