Page 34 of Stuck in Paradise with You

‘Jump in, guys,’ he calls.

I could be chivalrous and take Carrie’s oversized pack-up to the boat but I think,naaah, I’m good.

Instead, I leave her huffily lugging her bag down to the water’s edge with one hand and in the other, holding her sandals.

I feel Henry scrutinizing me but I try to ignore him – what does this charmed kid know? – and toss my flip-flops onto the boat.

‘Do you need a leg up?’ Henry asks Carrie.

I’m about to jump and pop-up onto the boat as she starts struggling to lift her bag up and over the edge of the tender.For God’s sake.

Conceding on grounds of not wanting to seem like a total dick, I take the bag from her and set it in the boat.

‘Thank you,’ she says, though it clearly pains her, which is actually hilarious. ‘No, Henry, I’ll be fine, thank you.’

This should be fun.

I step aside and motion for her to climb in ahead of me. I watch, not able to help the smirk that tugs on my lips. ‘Please, hop in.’

With her brows practically knitted together and muttering something I’m sure I wouldn’t care to hear under her breath, she holds on to the rope around the dinghy’s edge and grunts as she attempts to heave herself up.

Not nearly high enough, she attempts to flick her leg up and on to the inflated rim of the boat. Her dress blows up until her butt cheek, barely covered by her bikini, is exposed and she’s still pulling and grunting and it’s all so inelegant and ungraceful, laughter splutters out of me. I don’t mean to but she does deserve it.

‘Come and hold the boat, Luke; I’ll give her a hand,’ Henry says.

Okay, okay, I guess I have to help.

I bring my palms, one each side, to her near-naked butt and start to push, but she screams and flings her leg back down from the boat, whacking me in the temple as she does so and sending me crashing into the shallow water.

‘Don’t touch my ass!’ she shouts as I manage to get my feet on the sandy bottom and stand, completely saturated.

‘I was helping you out. You didn’t have to try to drown me!’

‘Drown you?’ She rolls her eyes. ‘You’re such a baby.’

Then she tugs on the rope and tries again, this time swinging her leg a little higher, and though her fine,finebehind is exposed, and she looks like a beached whale with a very nice ass flapping around, she eventually tumbles into the dinghy and pops up from the deck like a mole from a hole, straightening her clothes and pulling her hair from her lip gloss.

‘Elegant,’ I tell her, before pulling myself up and into the boat, making sure I flick water over Carrie in the process.

Henry pushes us off, hops on to the dinghy and stares at Carrie and me. Both disheveled, one of us wet, the other sodden. Uncertain, he ventures, ‘Are you guys set?’

‘Oh, we’re all set,’ I say sarcastically, shaking water drops from my shades.

‘Just eager to get going,’ Carrie says, her expression as smug as someone who bought the last bag of Hershey’s kisses in the entire universe.

15

CARRIE

I try not to seem like a woman who’s never been around a billionaire’s play toys before but as I step onto the concealed swim platform of Joe Hettich’s 105-foot catamaran,Ella II, I’m gawking. My jaw is literally hanging loose.

Henry has pulled us up to the back of the superyacht and ties on the dinghy as Jenny offers me a hand to climb onto the million-star luxury accommodation.

‘What happened to you?’ I hear Alisha ask as Joe storms off ahead of me toward a huge lounge area, which has two dining tables either side of a walkway to the inside of the boat –ship.

Around the tables are white chairs with blue padded cushions and in the middle of the tables, surrounded by every snack imaginable, are vases of fresh flowers. Either side of the tables and under the shade of the deck are two lounging sofas, where Joe, Noah and Toby are lying – the boys playing on tablets and leaning back against their dad, who’s the epitome of relaxation: eyes closed, hands behind his head.

Alisha asks her question from where she’s sitting at one of the tables with what looks like a coffee in a cup and saucer, snacking on canapés.

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