AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Chapter Four
We were eating in the main “hut” (which was two stories and included a yoga studio, a five-star kitchen, and the dressing rooms that now held our drying swimsuits). A pile of assorted fruits, cheeses, and meats were stacked before me.
“A huge, swanky place like this, where’s the staff? No cook, maid? Do you actually do your own laundry?” I asked incredulously.
“Of course not, I wouldn’t want our dainty hands getting dirty,” Rob said with a southern belle voice, but then he continued more seriously, “I told the staff they don’t have to come over until tomorrow. I figured we could shift for ourselves for one night.”
“See, my brother doesn’t get everything handed to him on a silver platter,” Joseph snarked, “Just sometimes he grabs the platter himself. It shows he’s really retained his man-of-the-people spirit.”
“And you’ve retained your out-of-work asshole vibe,” Rob countered, “What is it your doing now? Besides leeching off of me.”
“Just jumping out of private planes, riding motorcycles cross country, and sleeping with beautiful women. Remember when you used to do cool stuff like that?” Joseph asked, speering a pineapple chunk with his fork.
He looked like a burly mountain man but he talked like a petulant child.
Anya must have been thinking the same thing as me, because in the most stern voice I’d ever heard, she said, “Little boys who don’t behave at the dinner table get spanked.” It would have been an innuendo if it didn’t sound so terrifying coming from her.
Then the strangest of sounds in that secluded island paradise. A ringing phone.
“Where the heck is that coming from?” I asked, feeling my side for the useless phone I’d left in my luggage. Rob had told me there was no service on the island, to help us focus and relax.
“The emergency line in the kitchen,” Rob said, jumping up and running into the kitchen to answer it.
I was left with Anya and Joseph only briefly. I didn’t like the way Joseph stared heatedly at Anya, nor did I like the way he stared at me. He looked at me like he hated me.
I glared right back at him until Rob returned to the room. He had a flustered half-smile on his face, which made me say, “Oh no.”
“Yeah,” he looked pained but tried to hide it so I wouldn’t feel worse, “There’s been an issue nearby at one of the hospitals we built. I’m the nearest executive, so they want me to go handle it.”
“I could do it,” I piped up, and Anya looked interested in leaving as well.
“No, no,” he said, “It’ll only take a few hours. I’ll pop over, see what the trouble is, by the time I’m back I’m sure you’ll all have had your separate bubble baths and gone to sleep in your comfy beds.”
Why did he specify separate bubble baths? My cheeks felt like they were heating up, a response I didn’t understand.
He kissed me on the forehead and said, “No need to even get up, darling. I’ll be back before you drift off to dreamland. No worries, okay?”
“Okay,” I almost whimpered. I didn’t see any reason to insist, but I wish I had. I didn’t really want to be left alone on the island with the Ice Queen and the Devil.
I didn’t get up at first, but when he was almost out the door, I jumped up and ran over to him. I gave him a big hug and a bigger smooch.
“Something to make sure you come back for more,” I told him.
He grinned widely. “Of course,” and kissed me gently, once on the nose, once on my softly parted lips.
He left. His brother shouted from the table, “Y’all come back now, ya hear?” and then grinned wildly at me and Anya. His grin was like a mutilated twin of Rob’s.
“Now ladies,” he said, putting on a deep voice like a porn star, “Let’s have some real fun.”
“I’ve got reading to do before we start work tomorrow,” I immediately said, “There’s lots of reports to go through. Sounds like you wouldn’t know what that’s like.”
“I was Rob’s original Chief Financial Officer,” he chuckled, and it sounded upsettingly like Rob’s laugh, “I’m aware of what reports are and that they need to be read sometimes.”
“You were the CFO?” I asked in shock, “When?”
“Eons ago,” Anya said, “When I was first hired as a press release writer.”
“You sure worked those skinny legs to the top!” he said, “If only I’d known the way to getting the company from Rob’s fumbling grasp was to have nice tits and average legs,” he gestured at my legs, “I’d have gotten plastic surgery a long time ago.”
