Troubled Paradise (Gray Tower Book 2)

by J. M. Brister

  They followed him out of the room, Kat walking awkwardly beside him. Jack could tell that she was uncomfortable. He wasn’t sure if it was because of this assignment or because of the revealing outfit she was wearing.

  Jack took hold of her right arm, reassuringly. He could feel her tense even more.

  “Relax,” he whispered in her ear. “You’re going to do fine.”

  She glanced at him uneasily but seemed to calm down.

  They made their way to a large dining room, one that was so large it had many tables, a bar with bartender, and an area with lounge chairs that opened into a balcony overlooking the ocean. It was a nice set-up, though it seemed like a bit of an overkill.

  The whole thing looked like Carr was trying to rub it in everyone’s face that he was richer than hell. Jack much more preferred Bryant’s approach where he played his money off as if he was just like everyone else. He definitely respected his boss for that.

  There was a group of people standing by the bar as well as a few conversing next to a large round table that was close to the balcony.

  “I mentioned that this place was supposed to be a resort,” Westfield commented as if reading Jack’s mind.

  Jack nodded, gazing around the huge space.

  “This was supposed to be the main dining room,” Westfield continued. “Mr. Carr likes it because he can entertain as many guests as he pleases.”

  “I like it,” Jack said, giving Kat’s arm a reassuring squeeze.

  He glanced over at the bar and saw Orson Carr standing there with who he thought was his wife, Veronica. They were a striking couple who commanded attention wherever they went.

  Carr caught glimpse of them and met them.

  “Welcome to my home!” Carr said enthusiastically, giving Jack a firm handshake. “I’m Orson Carr.”

  Then, he moved to Kat and kissed her hand. Jack instinctively gripped her arm tighter, not liking the gesture on his girlfriend.

  Well, fake girlfriend. Same difference.

  “I’m Jack Hunter. This is my girlfriend, Katherina.”

  “It’s a pleasure to meet you both. I hope you have found your travel and accommodations adequate.”

  They were way more than “adequate,” but Jack wanted to show indifference.

  “It’s been fine, thank you,” he told him.

  “Come,” Carr said, pointing to the others around the bar. “I’d like to introduce you to my wife and some of my other guests here tonight.”

  They walked over to the bar and were introduced to his wife as well as a few other friends and acquaintances. A few were higher ups at Cypherus. There was also a couple of long-time friends. Jack noted their names and faces. He’d dig into their backgrounds when he got back to the room.

  Then, the bartender took drink orders. Jack ordered a soft drink. He figured Kat would want wine or something, so he got her a glass of something white. Like he knew anything about that shit. When he had been drinking, he drowned himself in straight booze.

  When he handed the glass to her, she took it and clutched the glass nervously.

  “Katherina, you must sit poolside with me tomorrow, while the men do their thing,” he heard Veronica Carr say to Kat.

  “Sure,” Kat said and tried to smile.

  There was more small talk. Orson Carr loved to talk, or—more likely—loved to hear himself speak.

  “I’m thinking tomorrow that I’ll give you the grand tour, and you can get a sense of the layout. Then, I can run some numbers with you, so you can understand what you’re working with.”

  “That sounds good,” Jack confirmed.

  He had a hard time concentrating, though. There was a tall, leggy platinum blonde beauty who was distracting the hell out of him. She seemed to be doing better after talking with Carr’s wife for a bit.

  Jack noticed she hadn’t touched her drink and moved over to where she was standing.

  “You okay?” He asked softly in her ear.

  “Yeah,” she said, wrinkling her nose. “Can you get me something else? I actually don’t drink alcohol.”

  Interesting.

  He hadn’t met many women who didn’t drink. Kat seemed oddly refreshing to Jack for some strange reason.

  He got her a soft drink instead, and she seemed a little bit more at ease. Good. Maybe this mission would work out after all.

  ✽ ✽ ✽

  Kat fidgeted in her seat at the dinner table. Orson Carr had chosen a large, round table by the bar for dinner. The guests were making small talk as they finished the second course. Jack sat next to her, and he was being nice for once. That was odd.

  What wasn’t weird was the fact that Jack looked freaking sexy in that black suit he was wearing. How could one man look so gorgeous? It drove her nuts. She was going to have to spend the whole evening trying to push down her libido.

  The group had been politely discussing various topics. When there was a lull in the conversation, Kat decided to do a bit of social engineering to get herself started with this mission.

  “Hey, Veronica,” she said, batting her eyes a bit at Carr’s wife. “Do you guys have Wi-Fi? I’d love to upload a bunch of vacation stuff to social media.”

  Jack, who was seated right next to her, took his hand and grabbed her upper thigh from underneath the table, giving it a hard squeeze. The shock of his touch made her freeze temporarily, and she looked to him to see what the heck he was doing.

  He glared at her.

  Apparently, he was displeased with bringing this up so soon. Heck, it seemed like everything that she did annoyed him in some way shape or form.

  Whatever.

  He may have expertise in some areas, but Kat was good at what she did. This was the right time, and it would save her tons of time later on.

  “Oh,” Veronica said, looking at her husband. “Sure. That sounds like fun. I’ll have Mr. Westfield get you the details to log on immediately.”

  The dinner conversation continued, and Kat looked at Jack defiantly. He continued to glare at her whenever he glanced her way.

  Ha! She thought. I know what I’m doing, Jack Hunter.

  However, her tune began to change as she realized that his hand hadn’t lifted from her thigh. She froze, not knowing what to do. Just being around him made her nervous. When he had taken her arm earlier, she had about lost it. Now that his hand was on her upper thigh, she was going to panic.

  A shock of sexual energy coursed up her leg. She didn’t know how to respond. Her experience with any kind of physical stuff with men was pretty much nothing. Some of the circumstances of her life had pushed her to stay secluded. Now that the man she had a huge crush on was touching her, all she could do was sit there and silently flip out.

  Should she say something? Should she flirt back? Or—more likely—was he keeping his hand there to secretly communicate with her, should she do something else that pissed him off?

  Yeah, that was most likely it. Was it getting hot in here?

  Jack did eventually remove his hand but only after she remained quiet for a while. Dinner continued, and Kat wanted to do nothing but leave. The polite conversation was boring, and she was getting all worked up sitting next to Jack. Except for a few glares her way, he hadn’t said much to her.

  When dinner was finished and everyone was hanging around the balcony, chit-chatting, Kat made an excuse to leave. She was allowed to be “tired,” right? In reality, she wanted to get back to her laptop and hopefully score the Wi-Fi password from Westfield.

  Also, she wanted to get away from Mr. Grumpy Pants. She had an idea of how working this close to him would go. However, she hadn’t expected this amount of moodiness, though she wouldn’t mind if he wanted to touch her some more.

  She had to laugh at herself. How could one person—a man who didn’t even like her—make her that horny? Was she so pathetic that she would still fantasize about a guy who acted like a straight up jackass? Or, even worse, was she attracted to the fact that he was a jerk? She couldn’t be one of th
ose women, right?

  Kat made her way back to the room and was pleased to see a note on the table from Westfield with the name of the Wi-Fi and its corresponding password. Great. Considering Carr was using WPA encryption, it would be incredibly difficult to hack otherwise.

  Even better, there were written directions on how to connect. Double great. They thought she was clueless. It was just what she had wanted.

  She connected to their Wi-Fi and began to tinker around a bit. Obviously, she still couldn’t get to their closed network just from connecting to their Wi-Fi. However, she wanted to see if there was any kind of device that linked one network to the other. It could be something simple. You never knew until you started digging. There were smart devices everywhere now.

  Only a few minutes had gone by when Jack stormed into the room, looking pissed. Kat immediately tensed.

  Oh, boy. Here we go, she thought.

  “What the hell do you think you’re doing?” He demanded, marching over to where she was seated on a couch.

  “My job,” she retorted, trying the best she could to not look at him directly.

  “You need to run anything you attempt to do here past me first,” Jack growled. “You could have blown the whole operation right there.”

  “I know what I’m doing, Jack. It’s called ‘social engineering.’ I do this kind of stuff all the time. That’s how I got to where I’m at today. If you’d trust my judgment more, you’d realize that I can do this mission.”

  She eyed Jack, noting that he looked a tiny bit less angry now.

  Good.

  It felt amazing to finally put him in his place.

  “Is that why you changed your whole look?” He asked, his voice oddly soft.

  “Um, sure,” she said uneasily.

  It had been part pressure from Alex, part appearing like Jack’s ditzy blonde girlfriend, and part her wanting to look smoking hot for Jack. However, she would never tell him that.

  “Oh, okay. That makes sense.”

  His expression became unreadable.

  Then he said, “Well, I hope you can get what we need.”

  Kat shrugged.

  “We’ll see. It’s a long shot, but it’s worth trying. If this doesn’t pan out, I’m going to need direct access to the network, which probably means breaking into an office or wherever they keep their router.”

  “Keep me apprised then and try not to do anything major without discussing it with me.”

  She gave a mock salute and went back to her work.

  It was not long, though, that the day began to catch up with her. She was tired and stressed. Jack was certainly not helping with that. It might not be a bad idea to get some sleep.

  Kat went into her bedroom and prepared for sleep. This whole taking off make-up thing was still new to her, but at least she had kept firm with Alex on sleep wear. Alex had wanted to put her in lingerie. Kat had told her absolutely not. Therefore, she at least got to sleep in an oversized comfy t-shirt and a pair of cotton shorts.

  Before she turned out the lights, she brought out a well-worn teddy bear and cuddled against it in bed. She had been apprehensive about bringing Mr. Snuggles with her, but she knew that this mission was going to bring out the worst in her anxiety problems. Sometimes, that little stuffed animal was the only thing that could calm her down.

  Kat just hoped that Jack wouldn’t see it. She didn’t want him to give her grief about it—that’s for sure.

  Chapter 7

  The cursory tour of Faraway Cay took most of the morning the next day. The place was huge as Jack had noted. The island and mansion itself also had huge security flaws that would take a while to fix. There was no perimeter protection, whether that be security boats, video surveillance, or manpower along the shore. That would be the first thing to fix as anyone could come from any side of the island and ransack it.

  The mansion itself didn’t fare much better. There was only a hand full of security guys who were employed here. The video surveillance was miniscule. It would be a hell of a job to get the place up to par. However, getting Kat into whatever room she needed was going to be much easier now that Jack knew what was going on with security. They should be able to get in and out of wherever without too much issue.

  Sadly, the biggest issue was probably going to be Kat. At first, he had assumed that she was going to be a problem with her acting capabilities and nerve. After watching her last night, he had decided that she could handle herself. Hell, she played the ditzy blonde role perfectly.

  The issue was going to be with himself. Jack was having a hell of a time keeping his hands off her. He had almost lost it last night when he had innocently enough grabbed her thigh under the table to get her to knock off her eagerness. Then, he had ended up keeping his hand there way too long. He was pretty sure he’d have to deal with a sexual harassment claim when they got back.

  Alex was going to kill him.

  For that matter, probably Keira, Logan, and Bryant too.

  Jack just couldn’t help it, though. This sexy side of Kat was starting to get to him. It was going to take everything he had not to touch her. He cared about her. She meant something to him, though what he wasn’t sure.

  He had just finished up with Carr and had told the man that he would put together a plan and cost analysis for him. More importantly, Jack had obtained blue prints for the analysis and was given free reign of the place so that he could accurately pinpoint where he would want video surveillance and security guys. It was the ideal situation since he could now get Kat anywhere that she wanted to go as long as no one noticed the two of them skulking around.

  Jack walked back to their room in order to tell her the good news. When he got there, he was perplexed when he found the suite empty. Where the hell had she gone? It was almost lunch time. Perhaps she went to eat?

  He strolled through the mansion to the dining room but only found a few of Carr’s employees putting dishes out on the same table they had sat at the night before. Perplexed, he walked out to the balcony, which provided a nice breeze. He leaned on the ledge and looked out at the stunning view.

  Jack had to admit that Carr had it made. The place was awesome. He wouldn’t mind vacationing somewhere like this, though he was so fucking busy with Gray Tower that he doubted he’d be able to take the time off.

  It was then that he glanced across to the left where there was a large infinity pool that looked out toward the ocean. Two figures sat on lounge chairs around the pool. One was Veronica Carr, and the other was—dear Lord—Kat.

  Not just Kat; Kat in a white bikini, showing off that beautiful body of hers.

  Hell, why did she always hide it behind oversized hoodies? It seemed like a waste when she was hiding all that underneath.

  He tried to gather himself together as he made his way down to the pool. Both women were sunning themselves quietly. Kat’s eyes were closed, and she seemed relaxed. He almost didn’t want to disturb her, but he needed to relay the new information. They might be able to sneak off this afternoon, since Jack had time to work out a plan for Carr.

  Jack stared down at her and swallowed hard.

  Kat was tall and thin and perfectly proportioned in every way. Seeing her in a bathing suit was driving him nuts. How was he supposed to do his job when he had a little vixen taking away his focus? She was so fucking beautiful that he couldn’t stand it. The growing bulge in his pants proved that one.

  Interestingly enough, he was pretty sure that she didn’t see that in herself. She was certainly confident with her work but lacked confidence in her appearance. He had watched her over the past year and had seen the way she carried herself. She was timid and made herself seem small in social situations. For the woman who knew her shit when it came to her work, the other side of Kat was a stark contrast.

  Jack cleared his throat in hopes of getting Kat’s attention without startling her.

  Kat’s eyes snapped open, and she let out a gasp. Immediately, her arms crossed her chest in an attempt
to cover up.

  She was apparently pretty modest too.

  “Hey,” Jack said. “I’m sorry to disturb you.”

  Jack eyed Veronica who had sat up from her lounge chair and was watching them intently. He’d have to tread carefully.

  “I just need to…touch base with you. Care to join me back in the room?”

  Kat nodded, and then Veronica piped up.

  “We’re all adults here. You can just say you want to have sex,” she said with a laugh. “Honestly, Katherina, I don’t know how you can keep your hands off him for any length of time.”

  Kat’s face went pale, and she looked panicked.

  Great. Just what he needed.

  “Yeah, sure,” Jack said, grabbing Kat by the arm and hauling her up to stand.

  He walked her quickly away from Veronica and back to the room. Once they were inside, she began to settle down—at least a little bit. She looked uneasy.

  “Come on now, Kat. Is the thought of sex with me that bad?” He joked.

  She just stared at him blankly.

  Okay, then, he thought. I should probably quit before I make a total ass of myself. Here comes more HR complaints.

  “Yeah, well,” he continued. “Why don’t you get dressed, and I’ll tell you about what we need to do next in this mission.”

  Kat nodded and escaped to her bedroom, only to reappear a few minutes later in a short pale blue dress. Now after seeing her in a bikini, he knew what was hiding under that dress. She was fucking driving him crazy, but apparently, she wasn’t interested.

  That was too damned bad.

  Or, maybe it was for the best? He had already decided not to pursue Kat, hadn’t he?

  “How’s the access to the Wi-Fi going?” Jack asked her. “Have you found anything?”

  She shook her head.

  “Nothing that I can see. I was able to get into their HVAC system and a few other things, but like I said yesterday, it was a long shot. If it’s a truly closed network Carr is running, then I’m going to have to get physical access to something connected to it.”