Page 74 of Stuck in Paradise with You

One thing’s for sure: if the kids want to nap today, I’ll be a willing cuddler.

Yawning, I sling my bag over my shoulder and head outside.

The hurricane isn’t due to hit for hours but the wind is already ferocious, the white foam capping the sea is plentiful, and I’m fighting against the drag to get to the pathway.

Where is Carrie? Is she already there? Is she in her pod?

There’s no way I’m letting her walk alone in this.

I make a detour. There are no lights on in her pod, the slats have been drawn across the windows and when I try her door, it’s locked.

‘Carrie, are you in there?’ I call, receiving no reply. Though even if she was inside, I probably wouldn’t be able to hear her response for the howling in my ears.

Relieved to be able to put off seeing her a little longer, I turn back in the direction of Hettich House. The main door is closed but not locked. I let myself in, my ears feeling the relief of filtering out some of the anger of the weather. Seeing no sign of anyone still on the first floor, I head down to the basement.

When I say basement, this is like no ordinary basement, no rickety wooden door leading down an unsafe staircase into adark pit with a concrete floor and things that remind you of the most tense scenes in a horror movie. The Hettichbasementis as big as my loft apartment in Tribeca.

Leaving my luggage in the main lounge, I make my way through the security door that’s been left open, though I know Dave won’t be far away, despite the fact a kidnap risk seems slim to non-existent in the current climate. I hear the lyrics to ‘I Just Can’t Wait To Be King’ coming through a sound system that’s barely registrable over the sound of Noah and Toby belting out the song.

Oh boy. I guess this is close to normal wake-up time for the sprogs.

I’m going to need a strong coffee.

Sure enough, Dave is hovering at the bottom of the staircase and holds out his fist to me in welcome. ‘You good, man?’ he asks.

‘Yeah, all good. You?’

‘Ready for whatever the day brings.’ Dave is ex-SAS. I’m close to certain nothing fazes this hunk of man.

Scanning the room and the many faces scattered around the enormous open-plan living space, before anyone else has noticed my arrival and before Noah has had a chance to dive on me, I ask, ‘Am I last to get here?’

‘Pretty much,’ Dave says, checking his watch. ‘Just waiting for Carrie, then I’ll close everything up.’

‘She isn’t here?’Shit. Where is she?

‘We thought she’d be with you,’ Alisha says, noting my arrival and calling over from the large wood dining table, where she’s sitting with Jenny, Ella and Monique, taking advantage of a lull in the sing-shouting session. She’s grinning, her expression alive with mischief, teasing me.

Normally, I’d give as good as I get, but right now, I’m not finding anything funny, especially the fact that Carrie isn’t here.

‘Why would she be with me?’ My tone is too clipped, unintentionally so.

Alisha doesn’t catch my tone, or does and doesn’t care, because she looks to the ceiling and says, ‘Oh I don’t know, maybe because neither of you turned up to dinner last night and you’re the last two people to?—’

Something in the way I respond to her now, though, makes her pause. That, or Ella has kicked her sister under the table. The almost last thing I need this morning is for people to be gossiping and throwing around jovial innuendos. The very last thing I need is to not know where Carrie is when there’s a storm raging outside.

‘Morning!’ Carrie’s voice comes from behind me, too close behind me. I’m grateful she’s here but I’m frozen to the spot. Ridiculously, I wasn’t ready for her. I’mnotready for her.

And the overriding emotion I’m left with is fury. Not even because Alisha is looking at me likeI told you sobut because I woke up this morning, after an earth-shatteringly incredible night with Carrie, alone. Gutted.

She did it to me all over again.

She left.

Now she’s singing good morning to everyone as if nothing happened.

I really wasn’t ready for this. Not for the rage making my fingers tremble, or the unmistakable stabbing in my chest.

Thankfully, Carrie’s lively arrival has notified Noah of mine. He and Toby – dressed in theirCarsfranchise pajamas – call me over to where they’re set up on a karaoke machine and, by the looks of things, draining the life from their dad, Roy and Henry, who are sitting around them on a huge U-shaped sofa.

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