by Lori Ryan
While she waited for his reply, Jennie walked over to the front door and slipped her feet in her flip flops. She walked back to the couch, sat down next to Chad, kicked her flip flops off, and curled her feet up under her on the couch.
“Jack and Andrew planned this one on their own. I think it was pretty last minute. The friend that asked for a favor went to school with Jack and Andrew so I think they wanted to help the guy out.” As Chad spoke, he eyed Jennie’s shoes on the floor beneath them.
Jennie smiled her most innocent smile as she watched Chad size up her shoes. He stood and picked them up again and put them back by the door.
Oh my God. I had no idea he was such a neat freak.
Chad sat back down on the couch.
“Jack’s sending us some info to look over tomorrow. He emailed and said Peter sent over some financials earlier and there are a few areas we need to look into. Something about the boating trips and scuba diving,” Chad said with a shake of his head.
Jennie popped up off the couch and wandered to the kitchen. “I wonder if they have snacks in here.” She began opening and closing cabinets and the fridge and calling off anything she found.
“Bottled water. More sodas. No snacks. Hmmmm. We should stock up on late night snacks.” She walked back to the front door, slipped her shoes on, and wandered back to the bedroom.
“We pick up the phone any time we want anything and have it sent, Jennie,” Chad said and she could hear the smile in his voice as he spoke.
She came back into the room carrying her toothbrush and kicked her shoes off at the marble-topped table in the kitchen before plopping into one of the chairs.
“But, what if I just want popcorn at in the middle of the night?”
Chad laughed and shook his head. “They’ll get you anything you want, any time. Day or night. It’s that kind of place and I’m pretty sure Jack booked us that kind of package. He seems to have gone with premium everything. We don’t have to lift a finger for the next two weeks. Might as well enjoy it.”
“Huh. Nice. All right. I’m hittin’ the shower, Big Man.” Jennie popped up again and began to cross the room but kept one eye on the room behind her.
Sure enough, the second she stepped away from her shoes, Chad crossed the room to put them back by the door again. Jennie turned and watched him.
When he returned to the couch, he lay down and closed his eyes. He put his feet up on one arm of the couch and his head on a pillow he’d braced across the other arm.
Jennie tiptoed over to the front door and raised her foot to slip into the flip flops once again.
“Whaaaaa!” Jennie squealed as Chad wrapped a strong arm around her waist. He lifted her off the floor before she could get so much as a toe into her shoe.
Laughing, she squeaked as he walked to the bathroom with her locked in place. “Let me down!”
She heard Chad’s low laugh and felt the rumbling it brought to his chest. He dropped her to her feet in the bathroom and shut the door.
“Good night, Jen,” she heard through the door. By that time, the laughter had left her system, replaced by heat. She’d felt pure lust spread through her traitorous body when she was pressed against the hard expanse of Chad’s chest and the flat chiseled muscles of his stomach. Oh, how she wanted that strong arm wrapped around her, holding her tight, again. Wanted and didn’t want…all in one breath.
Chapter Nine
“Hey Jack, whatcha got for us?” Chad asked as he and Jennie sat on opposite sides of his phone, which was set on speaker. Between the size of the couch and the temptation of Jennie in the room next to him, Chad hadn’t slept well at all.
Touching her last night had been a mistake. Wrapping one arm around her for the brief minute it took to move her to the bathroom was all it took to have Chad stirred up. He knew how Jennie would feel as she writhed beneath him. He knew how soft her body felt against his. How she brought the temperature up with just one touch. How she would feel as he pressed his body into hers, holding her tight for one agonizing thrust after another.
“Did you get the financials I emailed?” came Jack’s reply, whipping Chad back to reality once again.
“Yes. We looked them over this morning,” Chad glanced at Jennie. “But, I think we need a little more guidance here.”
“I figured you might. It’s a weird situation. The resort is owned by Jonathan Masters, owner of Master Blend Winery. His winery focuses on inexpensive blends of wine marketed as everyday table wine. You’ve probably seen it.”
“Yeah, it’s in just about every grocery store and liquor store in the United States,” Jennie said. “The one with the old guy leaning into the huge barrel of wine on the label.”
Jack laughed. “That’s the one. And, in fact, that’s Jonathan Masters. Jonathan is now in his seventies and rarely spends time at the resort. He has no interest in running it. He’s left his two nephews, Matt and Alan Masters, running it for him for the last few years, but he’s looking to get out. My friend Peter is thinking of buying it but we’re a little unclear as to how well those nephews have been running the place. Peter has known the Masters family for a long time and always got the sense that the nephews were pretty lazy.”
“We can try to track them down today and check them out,” Chad said.
“Good. See if you can find out if they’re really running that place or if the managers are running it and if the nephews are taking a salary for just sitting on their asses. It seems like the place is a little heavy on managers if, in fact, the nephews are working. If they’re token employees, Peter would be able to cut them and save on their salaries,” said Jack.
Jennie shrugged and looked at Chad. “Should be easy to find out. I’ll get close to them,” she said with a grin.
Chad rolled his eyes, but on the inside, he seethed at the idea of Jennie getting close to anyone other than him.
“I’m also confused about how they’re running money through the business out there. The marina is operated by a separate company. It’s an independent contractor that runs fishing boats, kayak rentals, scuba diving trips, and that kind of thing from the two docks at the resort. The setup is odd, though. The resort collects all of the fees for the services and rentals and then pays the money out to the contractor, taking a very small fee. It’s an odd way to set up the system rather than simply leasing the docks and beach area to the company for a monthly fee. It makes a lot of extra work for the front desk people to book things that way. It’s also not a way I’ve ever seen things done in similar businesses. My hunch is the nephews don’t know any better and the marina company is taking advantage of them. If that’s the case, Peter can change the setup if he buys the place, but I want to be sure. Can you snoop around and see what you can find out?”
“You got it,” Chad said.
“Okay. In the meantime, I’ll find out who owns the company that runs the marina,” Jack said.
“Anything else?” Chad asked.
“Yeah, how’s the villa?”
“It’s horrible, Jack. I expect hazard pay for these two weeks,” Jennie said, laughing.
“Wise ass,” came Jack’s unorthodox reply. None of them really had a traditional employer and employee relationship at this point. Jennie seemed more like a sister to Jack now, than someone who worked for him.
“I’ll tell Kelly you’re having the vacation of a lifetime,” Jack said.
“We’ll call when we have something, Jack,” Chad laughed as he hit the button to end the call.
***
As Jennie and Chad came off the secluded pathway that connected their villa to the more populated area of the resort, Chad reached down and took Jennie’s hand in his.
“Where do you want to eat, Hon?” He asked Jennie. There were several choices of restaurants in the resort, all included in the price of the package. Guests didn’t need to bring their wallets anywhere for food or drink within the resort.
“Casual for breakfast and lunch, fancy for dinners?” Jennie asked. Cha
d recognized her proposal for what it was. She was stepping into their negotiation mode. He and Jennie had a shorthand way of cutting deals and agreeing on things when they were on assignment. Sometimes the negotiations were easy. Other times, they butted heads and their negotiation became real.
Chad made a face. “We’re on vacation. No fancy dinners.”
In a move she’d never employed in their negotiations before – and which Chad had to attribute to the fact that they were posing as newlyweds, since Jennie was always very careful to keep space between them and avoid any unnecessary touching – Jennie pressed her full body against his. He felt her soft thighs, gorgeous hips, and those irresistible breasts of hers press against his hard body. Chad felt his breath hitch and he gritted his teeth to resist her pull.
Hell. Two weeks in hell.
Jennie went up on tiptoes, brushing her body against his with that witchy, captivating smile on her face that she always got when she was being playful. Chad stood stock-still. She whispered in his ear, her hot, sweet mouth so close to his, he thought for a brief second about turning his head to capture her mouth in a searing kiss.
“Please,” was all she whispered but the damage was done and she knew it. She smiled and winked at him, knowing she’d won that round. As Jennie turned and walked toward one of the restaurants, Chad smacked her in the ass.
If she was going to change her tactics on this trip, so was he. She squealed and took a few running steps to get ahead of him. Chad enjoyed the view all the way to breakfast.
Chapter Ten
Four days into their trip, Jennie and Chad had a good sense of the layout of the resort and it was already clear that the nephews did little to run the place. So far, they’d seen them flirting with guests, drinking all day, and playing golf. They schmoozed with some of the guests but that was about the extent of it. They didn’t even seem to engage with the managers much. From everything Chad had seen, they let the managers run the show.
It had taken everything Chad had in him not to go caveman when Jennie was talking to the Masters brothers. In classic Jennie style, she just swam over to them at the swim up bar and started flirting. They were buying her drinks in no time and she was doing her airhead routine. By the time she signaled Chad to come break up the party and get her out of there – which he gladly did, playing the role of the jealous meathead husband – she’d found out a lot about the brothers.
They didn’t lift a damn finger. They liked to play the big shots, even going so far as to refer to the resort as ‘their’ resort. They soaked up the sun and played and took credit for the resort’s success, but that was it. When Jennie put on those big doe eyes and twirled a finger through her hair, saying how hard it must be to run the place, they had laughed. They looked around and shrugged their shoulders and said, “This is it. We’re here to play with you all day.”
Today, Jennie and Chad were trying to figure out more about the marina. There were a lot of extra activities guests could purchase at the resort. Everything from swimming with dolphins, to a trip to a national park or a four-day fishing trip, and more. Every afternoon, the representatives from the different tour agencies were in the lobby, signing people up for excursions. You signed up with the tour company of your choice, paid the tour company representative directly, and booked a date for your activity.
For everything except the marina. For the marina, you spoke to their tour representative to choose an activity and book a date, but then they gave you a slip to take to the front desk where you paid for your tour. So far, Jennie and Chad hadn’t been able to pick up on a reason for that additional step. If need be, Jack would flat out ask the owner why things were done this way, but they liked to try to get a sense of things on their own sometimes first.
It was amazing the things they found out when Jennie and Chad went into some of the companies they looked at. Just three weeks before, Jennie had gone into a company and in less than a week discovered that the medical research the company promised was about to revolutionize diabetes treatment had already been proven to be a bust, internally. The owners thought they could get funding from Jack based on the outdated early findings and use that funding to buy more time to make new discoveries and hopefully come out on top.
The sad thing was, if they’d been up front with Jack, he might have given them money anyway. Their ideas were promising and they had a few things in the early stages that some people in the medical field Jack consulted thought were promising. But the fact that they were trying to pull one over on Sutton Capital, instead of being upfront, killed their chances for good.
With any luck, Jennie would work her magic here and figure out if the resort owner or its management had anything to hide.
The resort had two docks. One where the fishing boats and the boats taking guests scuba diving docked. The other was in a small bay where guests could snorkel and go out in kayaks.
Chad and Jennie sat on the edge of the dock, putting on snorkels and masks. They’d decided to skip the flippered feet and just swim around.
“Twenty-seven kayaks,” Jennie said absently as she fidgeted with her mask.
“What?” Chad asked.
Jennie shrugged a shoulder. “I was counting the slots for kayaks,” she said, pointing to the racks that held the kayaks on the side of the bay. “Looks like all but five are out right now, assuming they actually fill all of the slots. I suppose they may have fewer actual kayaks than the number of slots for kayaks though.”
Chad let her talk. He was used to this. She just catalogued sometimes. They were both observant, which made them really good at their jobs. But they each observed different things. Chad watched people. Their movements and body language. Facial expressions, ticks, and tells. He watched their surroundings, always knowing how to get them out of a situation if he needed to. Not that they needed that in the work they did now. They didn’t do anything dangerous for Sutton. In fact, their version of ‘undercover’ was using their real names, and pretending to be less intelligent than they were.
Chad’s hyper-vigilance was a habit left over from his military tours. He doubted it was something he would ever have to use again. It was something that was so ingrained at this point, it was simply a part of who he was. He had noted the small motor boat tied to the dock because it was a means to escape the area.
Jennie was different. She observed stuff and counted things and noticed details he didn’t. She could tell you if someone wore fake designer clothes or if they were the real deal. She could tell you who designed a person’s shoes and, sometimes, whether their jewelry was real or paste. And, for some unknown reason, things like the number of kayaks caught her eye.
Actually, if he thought about it, he could guess why she’d noticed the kayaks. Their bright colors. Jennie surrounded herself with bright, happy colors. The outside of her house was a light cheerful yellow. He hadn’t been inside her house though he’d dropped her off or picked her up a few times, but he would guess the inside would be filled with color as well. The kayaks were bright red and orange. She would like those colors.
“Come on,” Chad grinned at her. She looked adorable with goggles covering almost half her face. “Let’s go see some fish.”
They jumped in the water and lowered masked faces into the bay. Before Chad knew what hit him, he heard a shriek and had an armful of sputtering Jennie. She had quite literally climbed up him and was clinging to his shoulders, legs and arms clamped around him as high up as she could go. It would be funny to anyone watching.
“Problem, Jen?” Chad grinned, trying to ignore his body’s immediate response to her. He refused to acknowledge the fact that at that moment, the string bikini she wore was giving him access to parts of Jennie’s body he’d only ever dreamed of touching.
Jennie bit her lip and nodded her head.
“And that would be…?” Damn, she’s cute.
“The fish,” Jennie said, eyes wide. “A fish touched my legs. It went right between my legs!”
Chad let a slow
smile form. “I need to protect you from the fish?”
Jennie nodded. “They’re huge. And scary. And kind of gross.”
They were pretty big. Some of them were one-and-a-half feet long and about as wide around the middle as Chad’s forearm. He had expected smaller fish, too. But seeing her so freaked out was pretty damn cute. And holding her was pretty sexy. Really, really damn sexy, as a matter of fact. Chad put his hands around her waist and lifted her up to the dock, then let his hands skim down to her thighs – pretending to be Jennie’s concerned husband did have its perks.
“Want me to hold you in the water and see if that makes you feel better?” Say yes. No, say no. This is a bad idea… But, please say yes.
Before Jennie could answer, a fish jumped out of the water and splashed back in. Chad assumed it was trying to catch a bug skimming the surface of the water. Jennie must have assumed it was an attempt to eat her because she was up and running off the dock in a heartbeat. So much for Jack’s theory that Jennie Evans wasn’t afraid of anything.
Chad pulled himself out on the dock, trying not to laugh too hard – and losing that battle. He scooped up their beach bag and towels. The items quickly became crucial parts of Chad’s ensemble as he followed Jennie back to the villa. Watching the sway of her sweet ass as she hightailed it through the resort had him harder than he’d care to share with the other guests. With their belongings held casually in front of him to hide his predicament, Chad let himself enjoy the show. He’d have to shower with ice water when he got back to the villa, but it was worth it.
Jennie had the sexiest ass Chad had ever seen. That ass in a bikini?
Deadly.
Chapter Eleven
