LOVING HELL IN PARADISE

Anna's POV

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Are you calling Ridley on the other end and asking him a question??

Yes, I clenched my teeth and answered. "Why didn't you tell me that we were providing services for a singles party?"

She replied matter-of-factly, "Because I knew you'd answer 'no'.

Because you knew I'd exclaim, "God forbid, Ridley, what were you thinking?!" I lost it, boiling within. You of all people should be aware that the last thing I want to do is spend a week alone on a boat with inebriated scumbags.

"First, it's a yacht," she said. Second, they are extraordinarily wealthy a$$holes who will tip us well. Third, we only need to interact with them for a short period of time, and fourth, Jason Stryker is the boat's owner.

"Yeah, so?" you reply. Not knowing the man's name and not caring a rat's ass if he was the president of the United States, I replied. My skin crawled at the notion of being stranded in the middle of the ocean with a group of horny, undeserving males. I was hurt if anything. Hurt because one of my closest friends in the world, Ridley, had to be aware of how painful this would be. especially considering that less than a year before, my ex had cheated on me during his own bachelor celebration.

He is the pitcher for the Tampa Bay Rays, as you would know if you watched baseball.

I said, pacing back and forth in my living room, "I don't care who this Jason person is. You see why I don't want to do this, Ridley, really, don't you?

"Anna, I'm sorry. I had hoped that you would have moved over the event with John by now. Furthermore, because they are all strangers, we may assume that they will behave themselves.

I replied pathetically, "I'm trying to get over it, but this certainly won't help."

Walking inside our just-constructed home the morning after his stag party still made my heart hurt. I had gone out of town with Ridley for a catering conference, and we had returned earlier than expected. He was not alone when I discovered him in bed, nude and unconscious. He apparently got two rides home—one in her posh new Corvette and the other in our bed—from one of the strippers at his party. John pleaded for my pardon when I woke him up with a bucket of ice water and said he couldn't remember anything. But I could tell he was full of it by the sneer on the stripper's face and the sheer volume of condom wrappers on the ground.

I apologize for not telling you. In actuality, we need this job. We risk losing the food truck if we don't act soon since I'm late on several payments, said Ridley.

I sighed. "Seriously?"

"Seriously."

I was aware that we ought to have attended the Bar Mitzvah celebration last weekend.

The flu struck me. We were unable.

I said, "Maybe I could have tried doing it myself.

The guest list was too enormous, and organizing it would have been a nightmare.

I said glumly, "At least we'd have been paid."