Chapter 13
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 will not under any circumstances go there again.
I will not , unequivocally will not , 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, I am 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 very Below 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 treat him to a visit like this for being an insanely great best friend but, truly, even if I make partner, a resort like Joe’s home , 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.
Life ain’t too shabby…
Until it’s ruined by Luke’s arrival, swanning onto the terrace like he doesn’t have a care in the world, as if he owns the place. All butt-hugging shorts and muscle-stretched t-shirt, sexy aviators and shower-wet hair.
Makes me… sick. Completely, totally and utterly… ogling. I mean, sick.
I watch him surreptitiously, my eyes on him from behind my shades, my body fully angled toward my laptop but the allure of him impossible to ignore.
Unfortunately for him, his lenses aren’t dark enough for me to miss his double-take in my direction and I don’t miss the falter in his step as, I’d guess, he ponders whether to sit with me.
I nudge my laptop further away from me, so that it is fully intruding on the space that’s set for breakfast opposite me on my table.
No. Thank. You.
I’ll eat alone. As I did for weeks, months, after you.
Of course, he does the next worse thing. He sits on the adjacent table and on the opposite side of his table from me, so we’re facing each other anyway.
He too sets the laptop I didn’t realize he was carrying on the table and opens it to work.
I focus intently on my screen, chastising my eyes every time they betray me and flick his way.
‘Morning, Luke. Would you like coffee?’ Dionne, the woman asking the question, is something of a waitress, chambermaid and handywoman combined, as far as I can gather, and lives on Charithonia with her husband Glen, who is also a handyman, as well as a gardener. I know this because we’ve been chatting.
See, I am sociable when I actually have an interest in people. In fact, I’m always sociable, often too polite to avoid conversation even if I’m feeling grouchy. Just not when it comes to my arch enemies.
I’m spared eavesdropping into Luke’s breakfast order by my cellphone screen coming to life. Rachel, the big boss, is calling me.
‘Rachel, hi,’ I say, slipping out from behind my table and moving farther along the terrace, farther away from Luke. When I’ve exhausted the space I can put between us, I turn to rest back against the balcony rail and ask Rachel, ‘How are you?’
As I do, I see Alisha, looking as glamorous as ever, figuratively gliding on the air toward Luke and pulling out the chair opposite his.
I am such an idiot.
He wasn’t sitting on the next table over to put distance between him and me. He was sitting at the next table so that he could enjoy breakfast with his girlfriend.
And more than I hate my own stupidity, I hate the irrational disappointment I feel.
‘Carrie? Are you still there?’
‘Yes!’ I say, too zealously, like I’ve been caught red-handed doing something… bad. ‘It’s going well, Rachel. I had a very productive meeting with the CFO yesterday and I’m pulling together a tax report for him and Mr Hettich.’
‘Ah, you had a good meeting with Luke Chalmers?’ There’s something peculiar about her tone, almost like a teenage girl teasing another about a crush.
My mind is really playing tricks on me now. Rachel knows nothing about my past with Luke. We’re friendly colleagues, rather than friends.
I need to get out of this situation asap, before I really lose my mind.
‘We had some very sensible discussions about the new rules in the Cayman Islands and I suggested a company restructure. I’ll obviously let Eric see the report before it goes to the client. Since, ah, presumably, he’ll step back in as soon as he’s well and able?’
Please, say yes.
‘Great. And are you okay, Carrie?’
‘Me?’ Bizarre. ‘Yes, sure.’
‘You know the storm that’s heading your way is all over the news here,’ she says.
Ah, she means the storm. Of course she does.
‘It was never part of the plan that you would get caught up in a storm,’ she continues.
‘None of this was planned, Rachel. You couldn’t have predicted Eric being sick, or the storm. And it’s… stunning here. I’m having a, ah, nice time. Lots of business but in a beautiful place.’
If only the man who smashed my heart to smithereens wasn’t here too.
‘As for the storm,’ I continue, ‘apparently, it still might not hit the island. Even if it does, I spoke to Joe about it yesterday, and whether I should, ah, leave the island.’
Because I can’t stand another minute in Luke Chalmers’s company.
‘He assured me that he has a large, reinforced steel and concrete shelter under his house, which is big enough for all of us to weather the storm, so to speak. Animals too, he said. So you’ve no need to worry. I’ll be back in New York and back to the office in no time.’
‘Okay, Carrie. It sounds like you have everything in hand. Great work. Keep me posted on how things progress over there, won’t you?’
‘Sure, will do. Have a great day, Rachel.’