Troubles in Paradise

The final installment of the Paradise trilogy, following Winter in Paradise and What Happens in Paradise, picks up on St. John in the U.S. Virgin Islands shortly after the FBI has seized the assets of Russell Steele, whose double life set the series in motion. Russ died in a helicopter crash on New Year's Day with his secret mistress, Rosie Small, and their business partner, Stephen Thompson. Russ's widow, Irene Steele, and their grown sons, Baker and Cash, had traveled from the mainland to discover that Russ maintained a hidden family in the Caribbean, including a daughter named Maia, while running an offshore company called Ascension that laundered money for dangerous criminals. The FBI has seized both Russ's fifteen-million-dollar villa on St. John and the family home in Iowa City, leaving Irene nearly destitute.

Irene wakes on the couch of Huck Powers, Rosie's stepfather and a charter fishing captain who has become her closest friend and employer on his boat, the Mississippi. Through a former colleague, Mavis Key, she retrieves a treasured photograph of Russ's mother, Milly, and secures the legal services of Mavis's twin sister, Natalie Key, a corporate attorney specializing in white-collar crime. Natalie's findings confirm that most incriminating paperwork from Ascension bears only Russ's signature. Todd Croft, Ascension's founder, claims ignorance, but Irene insists Croft bribed and then blackmailed Russ by threatening to expose Rosie and Maia. Huck offers Irene shelter and work, though she worries their closeness will blur friendship and romance. Maia, Russ and Rosie's 12-year-old daughter, comforts Irene over breakfast, reminding her she still has what matters: family, friends, and papaya jam from Jake's, a beloved local restaurant.

Baker arrives from Houston with his four-year-old son, Floyd, unaware the villa has been seized. On the flight, he meets Duncan "Dunk" Huntley, a 28-year-old Australian entrepreneur who has purchased Lovango Cay, a small island near Cruz Bay, with plans to build a resort. His almost-ex-wife, Anna, wires a hundred and twenty-five thousand dollars, urging Baker to start fresh. He buys a Jeep, enrolls Floyd at Gifft Hill School, lands a time-share sales job at the Westin resort, and rents a stone villa called the Happy Hibiscus, only to discover it sits across the street from the apartment of Ayers Wilson, Rosie's best friend.

Ayers, a crew member on the charter boat Treasure Island, is in her own crisis. After Maia spotted Ayers's fiancé, Mick, kissing his ex-girlfriend Brigid on the beach, Ayers returned the engagement ring. Now a test confirms what her nausea and exhaustion suggested: She is pregnant with Baker's child, conceived during a single night together. She confides in Cash, who comes to collect his dog, Winnie. At a bar, a drunken Mick reveals the pregnancy to Baker. When Baker and Ayers finally speak honestly, she confirms the baby is his and says she is keeping it but asks for space: She wants her heart, not the pregnancy, to guide her romantic choices.

Cash is living at the Peter Bay villa of his girlfriend, Tilda Payne, whose father, Granger Payne, is partnering with Dunk on the Lovango resort. When Granger proposes sending Tilda on a weeklong research trip to Caribbean resorts and Cash cannot join because he is the sole crew on Treasure Island, Dunk volunteers to accompany her. During the trip, Tilda's accounts of couples massages, waterfall picnics, and dancing betray growing intimacy with Dunk. When she calls at two in the morning to accuse Cash of flirting with an influencer, Cash recognizes her anger as projected guilt and texts that he is breaking up with her.

Huck, struggling without Irene, reads Rosie's journals, which Ayers had taken from Rosie's room and recently turned over to him. The journals chronicle the origins of Rosie and Russ's affair and reveal Rosie's view of Irene as a rival she hoped to replace. Huck gives the journals to Irene, believing honesty is the right course. The gesture backfires: Irene is devastated and confronts Huck, accusing him of complicity for failing to question Rosie's secret relationship. Huck explains that LeeAnn, his late wife and Rosie's mother, handled Rosie's affairs, and after LeeAnn's death he was too afraid of losing Rosie and Maia to press. Irene quits the boat, moves into Baker's villa, and announces she will earn her own captain's license and start a competing charter called the Angler Cupcake.

At the Happy Hibiscus, Irene learns that Milly's estate has cleared probate, yielding a hundred and seventeen thousand dollars, which she splits among herself, Cash, and Maia. She begins studying for her captain's test but discovers it requires 360 logged days on the water; she has roughly 30. Her resolve toward Huck softens when Maia delivers a handwritten letter from Huck describing his ignorance, his fears, and his history of betrayal by his first wife. Irene tucks the letter away rather than discarding it. Her feelings shift further when Swan Seeley, a school mother, mentions seeing Huck with a pretty redhead at Skinny Legs, a local bar. The woman is FBI Agent Colette Vasco, whose advances Huck rebuffed, but Irene does not know this, and jealousy forces her to acknowledge she does not want to lose him.

Ayers finds her own equilibrium. At dinner with her globe-trotting parents, Phil Wilson and Sunny Ray, and Mick, she realizes she feels nothing for Mick but indifference. He announces he is leaving St. John for Bermuda, and Ayers takes over his lease at a cottage called Pure Joy. She returns to Treasure Island rejuvenated. One night, seeing Baker walk Swan to her car, Ayers crosses the street and invites him to see her new place, reclaiming him.

The trilogy's central mystery resolves when Marilyn Monroe, Todd Croft's wife and former secretary, arrives at the Happy Hibiscus in the black Jeep Huck had noticed for weeks. She reveals that Todd's business escalated from laundering a marijuana farmer's money to serving clients involved in narcotics, weapons, and human trafficking. Todd recruited Russ after a chance reunion as an ideal front man. The meeting between Russ and Rosie at Caneel Bay was engineered: Todd had Oscar Cobb stage a harassment scene so Russ could "rescue" Rosie, ensuring an affair began. Once the pregnancy gave Todd permanent leverage, Russ's name went on every incriminating document. When Russ and Stephen tried to leave Ascension, Todd ordered Oscar to plant explosives on the helicopter. Oscar refused and tried to warn Rosie, but Todd killed him and fled toward Venezuela. Marilyn made copies of everything from Todd's safe and is heading to the FBI to turn state's evidence.

Armed with this knowledge, Irene drives to the dock. When the Mississippi pulls in, she asks permission to board. Huck spreads his arms: "Permission granted, AC." Irene jumps, and Huck catches her.

The narrative advances through spring and summer. Todd Croft is convicted of second-degree murder and manslaughter, sentenced to 22 years, and fined nearly four hundred million dollars. Irene and Huck reunite personally and professionally, purchasing a boat together to expand their fleet. Baker confronts Dunk over his inappropriate behavior toward Swan during a meeting on Lovango, where Dunk touched her without consent; Baker intimidates him into sending a written apology and rehiring her. The extended family celebrates Irene's 58th birthday at Jake's, capturing the blended family's hard-won joy.

In early September, Hurricane Inga, a category-five storm, bears down on the Virgin Islands. Dunk abandons Tilda on Lovango, flying to Las Vegas on a private jet, so Cash has Huck ferry him to the island to ride out the storm with her. At the Happy Hibiscus, Ayers goes into labor. She insists on a home birth supported by her parents, and Huck drives through rising winds to collect Sadie, a nurse practitioner whose mother was a renowned midwife who delivered Rosie decades earlier. Baker enters the room as the father; Maia holds Ayers's hand.

The storm devastates St. John, but the characters emerge intact. Irene finds Milly's photograph cracked but intact and tells Huck the island is "damaged, not destroyed." Cash and Tilda reconnect on Lovango. Baker's Houston friends, who visited just before the hurricane, have met Ayers; Ellen tells Ayers that Baker is "the gold standard" and urges her not to hurt him.

In the epilogue, the baby is named Millicent Maia Steele, after Russ's mother and after Maia herself. Ayers tells Maia she chose the name because she wants the baby to grow up smart, strong, and fun, just like Maia. Maia leans over the bassinet, lets baby Milly grasp her pinkie, and whispers, "Just watch me. I'll show you how it's done."