Troubled Paradise (Gray Tower Book 2)

by J. M. Brister

  Logan cleared his throat.

  “We’ll start tomorrow morning in the gym if that’s alright with you, Miss Langely?” He asked.

  “Yeah,” she said softly. “Okay.”

  A strong feeling of protectiveness came over Jack. Even though Logan was his best friend and was engaged to be married soon, he didn’t want Logan to do anything one on one with Kat. Something just didn’t sit well with him.

  “Wait,” he interrupted. “She’s my fake girlfriend. I should train her.”

  “No,” both Keira and Alex said in unison.

  “This literally is Logan’s job, Jack,” Keira said. “You need to work on set-up for this mission.”

  “And you’ll just get her upset,” Alex added. “She’ll listen better with Logan.”

  He’ll just get her upset? What the hell was that supposed to mean?

  “Whatever,” Jack said. “Are we done here?”

  “Apparently,” Bryant said. “I’ll have Miss Thorn forward you all of the info, Mr. Hunter. Thank you all again for coming on such short notice. We had just worked this out ourselves a few hours ago.”

  With that, everyone got up and went their separate ways. Jack wanted to try and snag Kat after the meeting, but she had dashed out of the War Room so quickly with Keira and Alex that he figured she was busy. He hadn’t meant to belittle her in any way.

  Jack had just been trying to figure out a way to get her off the mission. He cared about her, and he didn’t want to see her in harm’s way. It hadn’t been that long ago that she had had a gun to her head under his watch. If something happened to her, he would never forgive himself.

  ✽ ✽ ✽

  A man worked late that night. There was always work to be done, but this was especially important. Loose ends from years ago needed to be tied up, and it needed to be done soon. Right now, Orson Carr was more of a liability than an ally. He would need to be eliminated if the Conglomerate wanted to proceed forward.

  It would have to be done quickly, preferably on his ridiculously opulent island as there would be no government, military or police force to worry about. He’d send an asset down to evaluate the situation and then proceed from there.

  This would be tricky as Orson Carr was a famous tech mogul. The assassination would certainly be all over the media. However, the man would have to take that risk. A lot was depending on this. The Conglomerate must move forward with their next phase.

  Chapter 4

  Jack tried to walk casually into Gray Tower HQ’s gym the next morning. He was just going to get in a quick workout. That’s at least what he told himself. It had nothing to do with snooping on Kat’s self-defense training with Logan.

  Nope. Not at all.

  The gym itself was a huge area with free weights and weight machines around the perimeter as well as every type of cardio machine a person could want. There was a running track that circled the inside of that, and in the very middle was a large area that they did self-defense, martial arts, and hand-to-hand combat training. Apparently, there were a couple of random employees who taught yoga and tai chi on off-hours, but he never had time or interest for that shit.

  Jack glanced at the center and saw Kat standing in the middle area with Logan. She was wearing a pair of baggy sweatpants that had seen better days and an oversized t-shirt with a logo he didn’t recognize. It was probably some kind of techie thing or video game or something, knowing Kat.

  He walked over to the squat rack, draining the bottle that contained his pre-workout drink. Wearing a pair of gym shorts and a t-shirt with cut-off sleeves, he felt right at home. However, he bristled when he saw two familiar female faces over by the free weights.

  Alex and Keira glanced over at him, wearing just sports bras and yoga pants that fit them very well. Jack would have to talk to Logan about allowing his fiancé to run around like that. As for Alex, she had been put strictly off-limits by Bryant after she got a bunch of unwanted advances working at Gray Tower.

  He tried his best to sneak over to where he wanted to lift without catching their attention, but it was too late. They both looked up at him and started giggling.

  Giggling, like fucking school girls.

  It was well-known that Alex, Kat, and Keira palled around with each other. He had a suspicion that they were there to spy on Kat too.

  “Hey, Jack,” Alex said, walking up to him.

  Keira followed behind her.

  “Hey,” he said gruffly, desperately wanting her to leave him alone.

  “Getting in a morning work, huh?” Alex said with a smirk on her face. “Funny that I’ve never seen you here at this time of the day.”

  Keira stifled a laugh.

  “I get a workout in whenever I can,” he said, grabbing the weights to load the bar on the squat rack.

  “Ah,” Keira said. “It has absolutely nothing to do with your ‘fake girlfriend’ training today with Logan, right?”

  “Nope.”

  He finished grabbing some lighter weights for a warm-up set.

  “Oh,” Alex interjected. “Well, just so you know, she’s doing really well.”

  “I’m sure she is,” Jack mumbled. “Now, are you ladies done, or are you going to continue to harass me?”

  “Yikes,” Alex said laughing. “You’re extra grumpy today. We’ll leave you alone.”

  As they left, Jack put in his earbuds and put on the angriest metal song he could find. It didn’t help that as he could watch Kat train with Logan while he blasted out his sets. He wasn’t particularly happy that he would touch her to position her body or help her with a move. Logan was a professional and was also madly in love with his fiancé. That still didn’t make Jack happy about the situation.

  Hey, she was his fake girlfriend. It should be him touching her, right?

  He ended up squatting some of the highest weight he had done in a while. It had nothing to do with showing off for Kat. Absolutely not.

  ✽ ✽ ✽

  Kat cringed as she sat at Alex’s hair salon, trying to balance a laptop on her lap while her hair was being bleached. Why had she agreed to this?

  Alex had told her that it wouldn’t hurt, but her scalp felt like it was on fire. Was this the price for beauty? How could anyone do this all the time or even try to keep up with a lighter hair color? It felt silly to Kat.

  Then again, she spent a ton of time playing video games and writing programs, so what did she know?

  Kat had spent the past five days spending time with Keira’s hunky fiancé, Logan, at Gray Tower’s gym and gun range as well as clothes shopping with Kat and Alex. It had actually been kind of fun; it was certainly a change of pace from what she was used to, though she longed to get back to her normal routine.

  Kat had off-handedly told Alex that it might be fun to do a new look for the operation. It had hurt a bit when Jack had suggested that she wasn’t his type, so she had wanted to do something that would shut him up a bit. At least that was what she was telling herself.

  Now, she was at the salon, getting her hair “transformed” into Alex’s vision for her. Kat had already gotten everything waxed that could be, including a ridiculous Brazilian wax that Alex had insisted on.

  “You’re going on a private island,” Alex had said to her. “You’re going to want everything taken care of down there.”

  Kat sighed and said, “That wax still hurts, and so does this bleach by the way.”

  “Sometimes we have to hurt a bit for beauty,” Alex said with one of her dazzling smiles.

  This is exactly why I don’t bother with any of this, Kat thought. It takes up too much time, and it’s rough on the body.

  Then again, Kat could try a little more to take care of herself. It wouldn’t take that much more effort to shave and do her hair now and again, right?

  She sighed.

  Kat was frantically trying to get caught back up with the rest of her actual work, so she was trying to multi-task with her laptop. Unfortunately, she figured she’d be perpetually behi
nd until this was all over. Why had she agreed to this?

  Oh, yeah. She remembered.

  Jack was going to be there, and even though they clashed like crazy, there was a part of her that just wanted to spend time with him. Then, there was the part of her that wanted to prove Jack wrong. She was perfectly capable of handling missions like this. Kat wanted to shock the hell out of him just to show him that he was wrong about her.

  Kat sat at the salon for a few more hours, and when everything was finally done, she was utterly shocked at the transformation. Gone was the dirty blonde, long hair that she usually just pulled back in a ponytail. Gone were her glasses as she had put a rush order on a set of contact lenses, which she occasionally wore.

  Okay, so she didn’t wear them at all, but she always told herself she would every time she went to the eye doctor.

  The face that stared back at her didn’t feel like her own. Her hair was now platinum—or at least as close as they could come to it in one session. It was cut in a bob with the longest part at her chin. Her make-up was done in soft pinks and grays. Without her glasses on, her face looked naked, almost foreign to her.

  What had she just done?

  Meanwhile, Alex was smirking the whole time. Apparently, Kat’s new looked had the “Alex seal of approval.”

  “I told you my girl could get it that light,” Alex said pointing to Kat’s blindingly almost-white hair. “Look how your brown eyes pop now. You’ll look so hot for Jack. I can’t wait to see his face.”

  “I’m not doing this for Jack,” Kat said. “I’m doing this for me.”

  Alex winked and then shrugged.

  “Whatever you need to tell yourself. Now, I was thinking we’d go back to HQ and show off. We might need a broom to wipe Jack’s jaw off the floor, though.”

  “I told you…” Kat started, but decided not to press it.

  Let Alex have her fun. The girl lived for this kind of stuff.

  “Okay,” Kat said instead. “Let’s go.”

  ✽ ✽ ✽

  Jack was sitting in a small conference room with Logan, finishing up a meeting between the two of them. They occasionally sat down together to discuss field operative readiness as well as possible staff changes. Since they were now done with the important stuff, the meeting had dissolved into bullshitting around.

  “How’s your upcoming mission plans?” Logan asked. “Don’t you leave tomorrow?”

  “Yeah, Carr is sending a private jet for us to Nassau, and then we get to go on a boat to Carr’s island.”

  “Damn. You’re a lucky bastard for this one, Hunter,” Logan said, chuckling. “I wish my last field mission had been as nice.”

  Logan was currently in charge of training Gray Tower employees for field work, but before, he had been in the field himself. His last operation protecting his fiancé, Keira, had almost killed him.

  “Your last mission worked out in the end,” Jack argued. “Look at that hot fiancé you have now. That has to count for something.”

  Logan grinned and said, “Yeah, it does. But hey, you’ve got a hottie coming with you on this trip. Who knows, right?”

  Jack grimaced, thinking back to Kat.

  He wasn’t quite sure what he would describe her as. Cute came to mind often.

  “Look. I’ve already voiced my concern over her tagging along,” Jack said. “Hopefully, she won’t get herself into any trouble while we’re there.”

  Logan shook his head and said, “That really wasn’t what I was talking about, but I do understand your concern.”

  “Uh—just out of curiosity—how is she doing with her training?” Jack asked hesitantly.

  Logan laughed and said, “You should know. You’ve been stalking her all week.”

  “It’s called making sure my team members are prepared,” Jack stated.

  “If you say so. Kat’s doing fine, by the way. She’s quick to pick up on things, and she’s a decent shot. However, I am worried about how she’ll react in an actual situation. She seems timid about nearly everything and is really anxious.”

  Jack nodded.

  It was about what he had figured. Kat was smart enough to get the mechanics of pretty much anything down. He was more concerned about what would happen if shit went down. He had seen how she had reacted in a tense situation last year. Though he had to give her credit for not completely falling apart, she was not by any stretch of the imagination mission ready.

  It was then that the conference room door opened, and two figures stepped in. Jack frowned when he saw two women standing there. One was Alex, dressed a bit more casually than usual. The other woman—holy shit—was wearing a form-fitting, short white sleeveless dress, showing legs for days in a pair of high-heels. She had straight platinum blonde hair that framed her face.

  He stared at this woman in awe, lust starting to creep up through him. Who the hell was this?

  Then, he blinked.

  What the ever-loving fuck! He thought.

  Jack had thought she looked familiar. The more he studied her, the more he realized that he already knew her.

  “Kat,” he said under his breath.

  Oh, it was her alright. But instead, it was some sort of tantalizingly sexy version of herself. The dress she wore emphasized the right parts of her body. Her big black-rimmed glasses were gone, and she was wearing make-up. And those legs—dear Lord—they just went on and on.

  Logan chuckled softly, leaning into Jack’s ear, and whispered, “You are so fucked.”

  Yeah, he really was.

  Gulping, he tried to get himself together and back in control. It was going to take everything he had too because that cute little nerd had fucking turned into a bombshell.

  “Ta-da!” Alex exclaimed excitedly. “What do you guys think? Did I do a good job on Jack’s ‘fake girlfriend’?”

  Logan gave a thumbs-up sign while Jack quickly tried to think of something to say. Well, what was he supposed to say? That she looked gorgeous? That he was going to have a damned hard-on for the whole trip because of her? That he was currently fantasizing about bending her over and fucking her silly?

  “Uh, you look…good,” Jack managed to say.

  Kat smiled hesitantly, while Alex grabbed her by the hand and led her farther into the conference room. The high heels were obviously a new thing for Kat since she stumbled slightly before righting herself. Jack had to smile. Her awkwardness was kind of cute sometimes.

  Then, Jack remembered that this mission wasn’t just about getting all glammed up. Alex and Kat shouldn’t have spent that much time on hair, make-up, and clothes. Kat needed to be preparing for actual mission situations. They couldn’t afford any issues, especially since it would be just the two of them with no back-up from the rest of Gray Tower. If something happened, they’d be on their own.

  “Now that you’re finished playing dress-up,” Jack started. “Why don’t you concentrate on your training?”

  Kat looked a bit deflated. Without saying anything to anyone, she turned and left. Alex glared at him.

  “What the hell is wrong with you, Jack?” Alex bit out. “You are absolutely infuriating.”

  Jack shrugged, trying to play it off.

  He hadn’t meant to be an ass. In fact, he had just wanted to get the point across that this wasn’t going to be some fun vacation. Sure, it might be a nice place to visit, and they may get some relaxation time. However, you just never knew what would happen on a mission.

  “Look, I’m just trying to rain down a little reality on the situation, Alex,” Jack told her.

  She flung up her hands in frustration.

  “Whatever, Jack. Just swear to me that you won’t make her cry, or I will come down on you so hard that you’ll wish you weren’t employed here.”

  Make her cry? He wondered.

  What the hell was she talking about?

  “I’ll be nice,” Jack said. “I’m always nice.”

  Alex let out a snort, shaking her head as she left the conference room. Jac
k looked at Logan who was rubbing his forehead with his right hand.

  “What?” Jack asked.

  “I’m only going to say this once. Since Keira and Kat are friends, I probably should tell you that you’d better not break her heart. However, as your friend, I’m just going to say be careful.”

  Jack shook his head and said, “I don’t know what the fuck you all are talking about.”

  “You know exactly what I’m talking about. You’ve got yourself a reputation with the ladies.”

  Jack threw up his arms in disgust.

  “One time! I slept with someone one time on a mission, and I’ve never heard the end of it. Right now, you’ve got the same tally.”

  Logan laughed.

  “Okay. I guess I do. But seriously, just be careful, alright?”

  “I’m still not sure what you’re talking about, but sure.”

  Deep down, though, Jack knew Kat was going to be trouble but not for the reasons he had been fretting about. He was going to have a hell of a time keeping his hands off her.

  Chapter 5

  The sea breeze hit Kat in the face as she stepped off the dock to Orson Carr’s private island. Faraway Cay—as it was called—was a beautiful paradise with clear turquoise waters, white sandy beaches, and a magnificent resort-style building sitting squarely in the middle of it all. She was shocked to see how big the island was. Sure, she knew that Carr was worth a massive amount of money, but she hadn’t realized what kind of place that money could buy.

  After a ride in Carr’s luxurious private jet and then a quick jaunt over to his island by boat, Kat was feeling tired from traveling, yet she was excited to visit such a cool place. She had never been anywhere in the Caribbean before, so this felt like an exotic treat for her. How awesome was it that she got to come here for work?

  Then, there was another part of her that was terrified. She was on this island to hack Carr’s closed network, which would require at the very least some tricky work. However, she was most concerned about having to do the work in a sneaky manner. There was a chance that Jack would have to get her into an office or server room in order to do the hack. She was certainly not looking forward to that aspect of the trip.