Kisses From Jack (The Kisses 1.5)

Jack's jaw dropped as he leaned against the wall. Janet apologized again, promising to go and get some yogurt right away. Her keys jingled as she ran out of the kitchen to start her car. He knew how much Janet needed this job to feed her three kids.

“She better not get the cheap kind.” Brandy sighed and slammed the fridge door shut. “And she didn't even wait for me to tell her to get more celery. Fuck, I need another drink. I'm going to have to fire all of Jack's staff.”

Jack couldn't believe his ears. He thought about calling Janet back, but realized it was pretty futile. Besides, it wasn't Janet that was the problem. It was Brandy.

Jack didn't think. He just slammed open the kitchen door, ready to confront Brandy with what he had just heard. The woman thought that she was going to be Mrs. Saunders? What, one trip and they were suddenly engaged? The disrespect and pride of that woman burned in his veins. She had strung him along with her pretty blue eyes and soft giggles, but the way she spoke to Janet was unmistakable. She was a total bitch.

The kitchen door creaked on its hinges, still swinging from the Jack's charge. It was the only sound in the empty kitchen. Jack stomped to the window, still ready for a fight. Brandy was making her way to a chair next to someone sitting out on the porch. Jack shifted his position slightly and could see her smile widely at Paul.

Jack's stomach twisted with oily nausea as Brandy touched the scummy lawyer's arm and giggled before sitting down on a lounge chair next to him on the porch.

“Are you the pool boy?” she asked, letting her robe hang open, displaying her perfect bikini body as she sipped on a Bloody Mary. Jack had known her for long enough to know a Bloody Mary this early meant she was hung over. He didn't even want to know where she got drunk last night.

“I'm whatever you want, baby.” Paul's lecherous eyes gobbled her up.

Brandy laughed the giggle that Jack had thought was only for him. The one that had made him feel special.

“You look like the pool boy to me, handsome.” She fluttered her eyelashes and sipped demurely on her drink. Greed shone in her eyes at the possibility of another billionaire in her grasp.

He stepped back from the window fighting the urge to throw up. He wasn't even going to bother going out there now. If Brandy thought the dirt-bag lawyer was a rich friend of his, then she was welcome to him.

Pieces of their history were falling together in unpleasant ways. Like how Brandy always convinced him to buy her expensive things, her insistence at only staying at the best hotels, and even how she had asked him to fire the mail clerk after he remarked she was cute. He had been so blind.

“Morning, Jack” Rachel greeted him from behind, making him spin. She pulled a mug from a cabinet and then set it down without filling it as soon as she saw his face. “You okay?”

“Fine,” he growled.

The woman he considered somewhere between sister and mother raised her eyebrows. “You look pissed.”

He glared at her. She had been right about Brandy but damn her if he was ready to tell anyone that yet. “I want Paul gone.”

“Of course, sir,” she replied, picking up on his unhappy tone and slipping directly into business mode. “Anything else?”

“Give Janet a bonus.”

***

Jack slammed the door to the beach mansion behind him, hearing the windows rattle in their panes. He was furious: couldn't see straight, red vision, knuckles needing to punch something kind of furious.

“Damn her,” he growled under his breath as he stalked away from the mansion. He walked along the beach, kicking at the sand and clenching his fists.

Brandy. Just thinking her name made Jack's blood pressure rise. She was so fired. He had brought his secretary on vacation with him, thinking that he might have finally found someone, and then she betrayed him. She was only after his money. Just like everyone else, Jack thought with a sigh.

He kicked the sand, trying to calm himself down rather than rev himself up, but it wasn't easy. He had wanted to trust Brandy. She had been so easy to trust that he couldn't believe he hadn't seen her intentions before now. The fact that he had defended her to Owen and Rachel stung. They had been right about her all along. He knew he had just been seeing what he wanted to see.

Picking up a rock, he threw it into the ocean as hard and as fast as he could. And then another. He thought about going back and finding Noah for a boxing lesson. He wanted to hit something. To break something. He felt the need to destroy something.

He threw the last rock hard enough to make his shoulder pop. The rock dropped peacefully into the waves as though nothing had happened. The ocean was peace and tranquility.

Jack sighed and ran his fingers through his hair. Now that he had a moment to calm down, his rational business mind was kicking in. He couldn't fire her just because she had played him; as far as her job was concerned, she hadn't technically done anything wrong. As far as the company was concerned, they weren't even dating. He would have to be the good employer and just transfer her. He comforted himself with the thought that at least a department transfer would hurt her plans just as much as a pink slip.

He wished he had another rock, but the beach was just smooth white sand. He started walking, his mind going in hundreds of directions at once and none of them pleasant. Despite being on vacation, he was already mentally preparing for the incredible amount of work that was coming with taking over his father's company, with his father's illness weighing heavy as the cause. Throw in this mess with the secretary and how it just further proved that he was going to end up alone, and he was ready to run away and become an island hobo.

“Somebody, help! HELP!”

The scream cut through his thoughts like a hot knife. He didn't even have to think, his legs just took off in the direction of the cries. A woman jumped from her beach towel and sprinted out in front of him, heading directly into the water.

Jack reached in his pocket, grabbing his phone and dialing for help as he ran. The woman, who he immediately dubbed Beach-Girl, was already halfway out to a struggling couple in the water. The other woman was screaming while the man next to her bobbed lifelessly in the water.