Negotiation Tactics

by Lori Ryan [romance/suspense]

  Most of the employees seemed to feel that the Masters brothers didn’t have much to offer. They were careful not to badmouth them too much, but Jennie didn’t miss the undertone of what people weren’t saying. No one respected the brothers. They brothers were dead weight on the resort and none of the employees would be sorry to see them go.

  People liked and spoke well of Jonathan Masters, the owner, but they said he rarely came there anymore. From what Jennie could see, the managers were running the show and, it seemed, running it very well.

  At night, Jennie and Chad went to dinner and then played cards or talked and laughed back in the villa. They talked and laughed a lot, actually. Even though it was hard to ignore the sexual undertones that always sparked between them, Jennie really enjoyed being with him on this new level.

  The night before, they had gone to one of the restaurants that had dinner and dancing. Jennie was stunned to find out Chad could salsa, rumba – you name it, he could do it on the dance floor. As he whirled her around, making her breathless, she had to laugh. She never would have pictured her tough soldier-man boss as a dancer.

  “Where did you learn to do this?” she had asked when they sat down for their entrees.

  Chad shrugged a shoulder and grinned at her. “I have my secrets.”

  Jennie shook her head at him, to which he’d just winked.

  “If I tell you, I’ll have to kill you.”

  This afternoon, they lay back in lounge chairs by one of the pools, pretending to be a couple in love. They were fairly sure they had found out all they needed to know about the Masters brothers. They’d booked a boat tour the next day to see if they could find out more about the marina and how it functioned. For now, there was nothing to do but relax.

  “Hey, Boss Man,” Jennie said, cracking her eyes open to peek at Chad while she swirled her empty drink at him. “Wanna swim over to the bar and get me another daiquiri?”

  After three strawberry daiquiris, Jennie was a little tipsy. She was probably being a little too uppity with her boss, even for her, but they had both let down their guard quite a bit.

  Chad lowered his sunglasses and leaned over her on the lounge chair. His body almost entirely covered hers and his face was right in hers. When he spoke, he turned her body heat to high without any effort at all.

  “Now, Jen, what will people think if they hear you call me Boss Man?” he asked quietly.

  As usual, the sexy rumble of his voice when he spoke so softly to her sent her body spiraling out of control. Jennie wanted to reach out and touch his chest. It was hot and tanned and just a little sweaty from the searing Florida sun. She knew it would feel heavenly under her fingertips.

  Jennie didn’t notice the tiny moan that slipped from her lips until it was too late to stop it. She saw Chad’s eyes burn hot and dark for a second. Her breath caught at the intensity in his eyes and she felt his whole body coil and tense above her.

  And then he was gone. Jennie watched as Chad slid into the water and cut clean strokes across the pool to the swim up bar. Jennie let out a breath she hadn’t realized she was holding and groaned.

  One more week.

  Chapter Twelve

  Two other couples waited on the dock when Chad and Jennie arrived for their boat tour. They would apparently be taken to a quiet bay to swim – although he expected Jennie to stay in the boat for that – then they’d go to a quaint restaurant, outside the resort, along the coast for lunch, and later tour a small shopping center where they could shop for local touristy junk, before being taken back to the resort.

  Jennie began to do her chit chatty thing while Chad sat on one of the benches and watched her. She had on a red bikini and a brightly patterned wrap tied around her waist. She leaned her head back and laughed at something one of the other couples said and Chad couldn’t resist.

  He reached out and looped an arm around her waist, pulling her down onto his lap. She yelped while the other women cooed over his romantic gesture. One woman swatted her husband on the arm and scowled at him.

  “You never treat me like that anymore,” she said, drawing a laugh from the group.

  “They’re newlyweds,” her husband said. That earned him another whack.

  Chad could barely pay attention. His arms were around Jennie’s bare waist. Her skin was so soft and smooth. It was silky and creamy and it begged to be touched and caressed. If they weren’t in public, he wouldn’t have been able to control himself.

  Jennie seemed unaffected. She settled back in his arms and chatted with the other couples about their experiences at the resort. When their tour guide came and got them loaded onto the boat, Chad relinquished his hold on Jennie momentarily, and pulled her down on the bench seat next to him in the boat.

  He let one hand trail up and down her velvety back as Jennie started to work the tour guide for information. Somehow, she struck up a conversation about wanting to work as a tour guide in a marina just like this. The next thing Chad knew, she’s getting information about busy seasons and slow seasons, how many trips the marina did in a day, what the tour guides were paid…and more.

  It never ceased to amaze Chad. People would turn over their bank statements to Jennie if she asked them to. The guy didn’t look the least bit phased by her questions and she’d somehow managed to draw the other couples into the conversation.

  Chad should be contributing in some way, but there really wasn’t a damned thing he could add. So, he sat back and watched the way the sun glinted off Jennie’s strawberry curls. He watched the way her eyes sparkled when she laughed and the way she leaned toward whoever was talking and looked at them as though they really mattered to her.

  That’s why she was so good at this. People wanted to connect with her. They were drawn to her. Chad was an expert on the topic of being drawn to Jennie.

  He had been drawn to her since the first time he’d spotted her at Sutton Capital. Chad had gone to ask Jack a question. He had been having a bad day and was hurried and stressed. He turned the corner and spotted Jennie at the desk outside Jack’s office and froze. And, then she’d looked up at him and smiled. Since then, that smile cut right to his heart every time she graced him with it.

  The attraction had only grown from there. When Jack had married Kelly and they’d all started hanging out outside the office together, he had gotten his first glimpse of Jennie laughing. She always tipped her head back and laughed with such abandon. He found himself trying to make her laugh over and over again.

  Sitting on the boat with his hands on Jennie’s bare skin, Chad knew he would regret the closeness later when reality came racing back to him. But, he couldn’t stop himself. He’d let himself pretend, for the next few hours, that Jennie was his. That they had a life together, a future together. That this scenario wasn’t some masquerade to get information for Jack’s friend.

  Yeah. It would suck when he came falling back to earth, but for right now, he would let himself fly high on the fantasy of Jennie.

  Chapter Thirteen

  That evening, they were drinking beers out on the patio, sharing the double chaise lounge. The sexual tension that always whirled around them was present, but they were both getting better at living with it, or so it seemed to Jennie. She suspected it wouldn’t ever go away but they were building more of a friendship than they ever had on other assignments. And, they were definitely getting good at forgetting that they were supposed to have a professional, working relationship.

  Chad opened a new beer and handed the icy cold bottle to Jennie.

  “Truth or dare?” Jennie asked Chad. They’d been playing for a while now, each of them repeatedly choosing ‘truths’ and skipping the ‘dares.’ It was as if they’d both forgotten that they worked together. That Chad was her boss. That they shouldn’t interact like this.

  “Truth,” Chad answered.

  “Most unusual place you’ve ever had sex.”

  Chad shook his head at her but answered anyway. “Top of a mountain. We were hiking and we got to
the top of a very isolated peak. We were hidden on one side by a boulder but anyone on the mountain peak across from us would have seen what was going on.”

  Jennie didn’t say anything in response. She was too busy picturing sex on top of a mountain with Chad. Would it be fast and dirty or would he take his time despite the fact that anyone could spot them at any time?

  “Truth or dare?” Chad asked.

  “Truth.”

  “What’s your biggest fear?” Chad asked.

  Jennie opened her mouth to answer, but Chad quickly amended his question.

  “Besides fish,” he said with a grin.

  Forgetting my husband? Falling in love again? Losing my entire life, my reason for being – again?

  “Pass,” Jennie said, invoking her one pass they’d negotiated for at the start of their game.

  Jennie continued before Chad had a chance to comment. “Truth or dare, Chad?”

  “Truth,” Chad said, raising his beer bottle to his lips again. Jennie’s eyes fell to Chad’s mouth involuntarily, before she ripped them away.

  “What’s your biggest fear?” Jennie asked.

  Chad turned to face her, answering without hesitation. “That I’ll turn out like my father.”

  Chad’s father had left Chad’s mother when he was in his early twenties after twenty-five years of what everyone thought was a perfect marriage. He didn’t cheat on her, didn’t leave because he fell in love with someone else. He simply left one day and didn’t even bother to seek anything in the divorce. Kelly had told Jennie once that the last anyone heard of him, he was living on a beach in New Zealand or something.

  Jennie started laughing, drawing a look from Chad that might have scared any other woman. Or, at least sobered them enough to stop laughing. For Jennie, it only made her laugh harder.

  “I tell you my greatest fear and you’re laughing at me?” Chad seemed truly offended as Jennie shook her head at him, trying to catch her breath so she could explain.

  “I’m laughing because it’s not even remotely possible.” Jennie wiped at tears under her eyes. “It’s so far from possible it’s…well, it’s just laughable. There isn’t anything in you that would let you walk away from your family like that, Chad. I don’t know what happened to your dad, but it’s not in you to do that. When you love, when you commit, you’ll do it forever, Chad.”

  Jennie turned to face the ocean as Chad seemed to process what she said. After several minutes, he resumed the game.

  “Truth or dare, Jen?”

  “Truth,” Jennie said. When Chad didn’t respond right away, she turned to look at him through her lashes and found him watching her.

  “Truth,” she said again.

  “Why did you back off that time we kissed? Was it because of your husband?” Chad’s voice was quiet now. His question made Jennie freeze, her beer halfway to her mouth. She knew exactly what he was asking about. She’d kissed him once. And, for a minute, she’d forgotten about Kyle. For one glorious, wonderful, breathtaking minute. One gut-wrenching, tortuous, heartbreaking minute she’d forgotten the man she loved.

  The realization that Chad could make her forget her husband both broke her heart and scared the hell out of her at the same time.

  Jennie lowered her beer and kept her eyes on the ocean. “I didn’t know you knew about…about Kyle.”

  Chad’s eyes were gentle but they bore into her the same as they always did. “Background check. I always run them when someone joins Sutton. I never said anything because it wasn’t really related to the job. And, you never talked about him so I figured you didn’t want anyone to know.”

  “Yeah, that makes sense. I guess I never thought about that.”

  And then she recited the facts about her and Kyle’s marriage and his death. She recited them as if they were nothing more than facts. Not as if they were the fundamental pieces of her life that had been torn apart, never to be put back together again.

  Chad was quiet while she told her story, and for several minutes afterward, and she was glad. Most people gasped and told her how sorry they were. Which did nothing to help her. There was nothing that could fix her pain and Chad seemed to know this. After a minute, he took her hand and laced his fingers in hers, but still he didn’t speak.

  “I pulled away the day we kissed because I…I don’t know. I just can’t even imagine being with anyone other than Kyle, you know?” Jennie asked. She didn’t expect an answer and he didn’t give one. Jennie knew that Chad did know. Somehow, he understood.

  Jennie raised her bottle to her mouth and took a sip. “Truth or dare?” she asked.

  A long drawn-out moment passed before Chad answered. “Truth.”

  “What are you thinking right now?” Jennie asked.

  Chad cleared his throat. “That you’re strong as hell. That I hate that there’s nothing I can say or do to take away your pain. That I want to go back to easier questions.”

  Jennie laughed but there wasn’t much humor in it.

  “Truth or dare?” Chad asked.

  “Truth,” Jennie said.

  ***

  They played on, well into the night, keeping the topics light and fun. As with everything between the two of them, it eventually snaked back around to sex and Chad threw back a question Jennie had asked him earlier.

  “Kinkiest thing you’ve ever done.” Chad’s answer had made Jennie blush when she’d asked the question earlier in the night.

  Jennie squirmed, not wanting to tell Chad. But, he’d know if she lied. He always did.

  Jennie focused on the corner of the label on her beer bottle, peeling it away from the sweaty glass so she wouldn’t have to meet Chad’s eyes.

  “When we were in college, Kyle bought me these panties that, um…” Jennie started. “They had, um, well, they were battery operated. And he had the remote control. We’d be studying and he could turn them on whenever he wanted and I couldn’t stop him. He’d get all turned on knowing he was teasing the crap out of me and, well, clearly I’d get all worked up. We’d see who could hold out the longest without jumping the other one.”

  Jennie thought back and laughed. “I don’t think it was really fair, though.”

  “Wh…” Chad cleared his throat. “Why not?”

  “When he lost, it just meant he had to do the dishes. When I lost, I got a spanking.” Jennie was laughing but as soon as she said it she remembered how hot it had been when Kyle won.

  Jennie looked up at Chad and realized she’d probably had way too much to drink. That wasn’t a story she should have told. He was looking down at her, eyes intense and heated and focused only on her. She swallowed.

  Chad got up suddenly and put his beer on the table next to them. He walked in the house without saying a word. Jennie followed, laughing.

  “Where are you going?”

  He didn’t answer.

  “Chad?” Jennie padded after him, a little wobbly on her feet after so many beers.

  Chad walked in the bathroom but didn’t shut the door. He walked straight back to the shower, stepped in with his clothes on, head down, as he turned the water on full blast.

  Jennie burst out laughing at the sight of him.

  “Oh my God! Chad, what are you doing?”

  Chad kept his back to her. “Taking a cold shower, Jen.”

  “You’re crazy!”

  Chad raised one hand to waive her off.

  “Nite, Jen. Get some sleep.”

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chad woke with a headache. The cold shower had done little to erase the effects of Jennie’s vibrating panties confession. His dreams had been filled with images of Jennie moaning and squirming underneath his hands. He knew they’d played with fire last night and he’d paid the price for it all night long as he chased Jennie from dream to dream.

  It didn’t help that they’d had too much to drink either. It had started with margaritas at dinner and ended with beers at the villa. Way too many beers. And too much talking. Chad would’ve liked to
focus on Jennie’s story about her very special little panties this morning, but his head was stuck on the fact that she was nowhere near over her husband. He had suspected as much, but knowing it for sure seemed to cut deeper somehow. There were no words for how Chad felt about that.

  Maybe his mom was right. Maybe he did do this to himself on purpose.

  Well, if he did, he was damn good at it. What better woman to pick, if he subconsciously didn’t want things to work out, than a woman who was not only off limits because of their work roles, but who was also in love with her dead husband? How do you compete with a ghost? A perfect ghost who was her soul mate in every way even when they were growing up?

  Shoot me now.

  Chad heard a groan come from the bedroom and knew Jennie was struggling as much as he was this morning. Chad sat up slowly and swung his legs down to the floor. Sleeping on the couch was killing his back and his neck. He stretched out and stood to try and work out the kinks, then reached for the phone.

  Jennie came out just as he hung up.

  “Hey. I ordered room service. Thought we’d stay in and try to recover this morning.”

  She smiled at him but her eyes were tired and sad this morning. He had a feeling she could’ve done without the recap of her life with Kyle last night.

  “Thanks. I don’t know if I can eat. I haven’t had that much to drink in years,” Jennie said, rubbing her stomach.

  She got quiet for a minute and studied her feet. “Can I ask you for a favor, Chad?”

  “Anything. You know that.” Chad didn’t like how vulnerable she looked.

  “Only Kelly knows about…about what I told you last night. Can you, um, not tell anyone else?”