Page 92 of Stuck in Paradise with You

‘Did Luke know?’

‘I decided not to tell him, for reasons that will become clear.’

When Joe frowns, I feel his expression reflected on my own face.

‘Eric was supposed to come here this week and he really did get stomach flu.’

I nod. ‘You could have rescheduled. None of what we’ve discussed this week has been drastically urgent.’

‘I could have. But I saw the opportunity and told Rachel I wanted you to come in Eric’s place.’

‘She didn’t question it or encourage you to rearrange?’

He looks at me now and grins. ‘Very few service providers question me, Carrie.’

I give a short laugh. ‘I’m sure.’

‘Rachel was curious as to why, after years of dealing with Eric, I would request you in his stead.’ He looks at me directly now. ‘You’ve been fantastic, by the way. More than capable of filling Eric’s shoes.’

I clear my throat, thrown by the compliment. ‘Thank you.’

‘Alas, I told her you had a personal connection to my CFO and that I’d like you to come. She asked what the connection was, I fobbed her off with you two working together previously, she asked if there was any conflict of interest, I assured her there wasn’t, blah, blah, blah.’

Oh God. This isawful. She asked if I was conflicted?Yes!A huge, big, fat, massiveyes. Ethically, morally,yes. I had an affair, or legitimate relationship that turned out to be an affair, with the CFO of my client.

I don’t realize my head is in my hands until Joe says, ‘This is my doing, Carrie, and I’ll happily explain the full extent of my manipulation to Rachel.’

At this stage, maybe Joe should justnotexplain anything to anyone.

I puff out my next breath and look at him. ‘Why?’

He leans his head to one side then the other, as if he’s bouncing to a beat. ‘Hmm, that’s the part I hoped you and Luke would figure out for yourselves. But since you don’t seem to have got quite that far, I’ll tell you this: I’ve known Luke longer than any man could care to.’

Despite myself, I laugh.

‘He used to be the life and soul of everything, everywhere. Then after you two were involved and split, and, admittedly, Anya was an absolute dick to him, he was dark. Bleak. I’ve never seen him that down. It took him a long time to get happy again.’

My throat tightens as my chest swells. In a weird way, I wish I could have been there for him.

Joe’s eyebrows rise. ‘He never got ecstatically happy again. He’ll probably rugby tackle me for saying this, but he has sabotaged every relationship he’s been in since. They never last and usually it’s of his own doing. Imagining things that aren’t there, faking this love of his job that means he can’t invest time in a relationship, all the stereotypical moves of a man whose heart isn’t whole.’

This is like listening to Callum talk about me. Which makes it easy for me to say, ‘I get it.’ The words roll off my tongue before my mind tells them not to. I’m not speaking with an agony aunt but my client.

‘I brought you here to see if you two couldn’t close things off once and for all, one way or the other.’

Tension seems to flow out of my body with his confession.

‘Thank you for being honest with me.’

‘At last.’

I smile. ‘At last. It’s not okay, Joe. You’ve meddled in my life and with my career and you didn’t have that right.’

‘It’s fair to say that sometimes I get ideas above my station,’ he concedes.

He stands, dusts down the back of his shorts and offers a hand to me. I take it, standing up.

‘I suppose I can see why you’ve done it. As a friend to Luke.’

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