2. Jack
2
JACK
" C alvin, let me explain.” I turned to face my accuser and with shaking hands I gestured in surrender. There was no explaining this. I'd just had sex with the man's daughter, and judging by the expression on his shadowy face, he knew it.
"Daddy… I don't feel so well.” Ashley's voice pulled his heated glare from my face. She nudged me and flushed the toilet. "Excuse me, Jack."
I stepped into the dark cabin, and Ashley walked past me toward her father. I had no clue what to say or how to respond. Calvin and I had been friends since my residency when he took me under his wing. Seven years my senior, he had always treated me like a son or a younger brother. I owed some of my greatest achievements to him, and while he never had any rule about my dating Ashley—mostly because she was so much younger than me—my gut told me he wouldn't approve.
"Baby, tell me this instant what happened." Calvin embraced Ashley, who seemed a little more drunk than when we came in here. That last glass of alcohol was hitting her now, well-timed on her part. "Jack, if you hurt her, I'll?—"
"Daddy, I threw up… I'm sorry. I think I got carried away celebrating. The drinks and the boat rocking… I told Jack I felt sick and came in here. He just held my hair back." She was an excellent actress, but the suspicion in his eyes told me he didn't quite believe her. It was the nature of parent-child relationships. Children lied to their parents, and parents mistrusted them.
"Jack?" He looked at me over her back, and I leaned into her lie.
"Calvin, I just wanted to help her. When I saw the way she walked away, I knew I had to follow her." My response skirted the line of truth. It wasn't an outright lie. The way her hips swayed as she sauntered off had my dick twitching, and after those comments, I knew there was no way I could hide the bulge in my pants. I had to get off that deck before someone saw it.
Calvin eyed me for a moment and then released Ashley from the hug. She pulled away, and with her back to her father, she winked at me and smirked. "I just need to brush my teeth.”
She slipped into the bathroom and shut the door, and I heard the unmistakable crunch of broken glass as she walked past the spot I let my drink go. Calvin flipped the light switch on and stared at the mess, then scowled at me.
"I suppose you’re going to say that was hers too?" His comment revealed just how little he believed our story, but I was sticking to it in the interest of preserving our friendship. "She usually prefers the fruity drinks, not the hard liquor."
Surprisingly, the lies rolled off my tongue like water off a duck's back. I knew Ashley would back me up. She had to now. "I guess. I just found her in here over the toilet. You know I'd never hurt her, right?" Those words had never been more sincere.
Ashley made a big deal out of it, but I hadn't rejected her eleven years ago because she was a child. I rejected her because I was settled in my practice and recently divorced with emotional baggage and too much work to make anything happen for us. I'd always found her good-looking and smart, and it was a bit uncomfortable to me how attracted I was to her, given how young she was. At thirty-four, I'd have been ostracized for robbing the cradle. But the biggest reason I turned her away was because she had her college years ahead of her. She didn't need to be tied down to a broken anchor in a long-distance relationship when she would be surrounded by men her age begging to date her. I did the right thing for her, and I stood by that.
"I'm going to tell you this one time, and then I'm going to leave it at that." Calvin raised his chin and jutted it out. "That young woman is my daughter, and I will kill any man who hurts her, friend or not. Remember that."
"What she said happened is the truth, Cal." That one stung. The outright lie to my best friend and mentor would haunt me. I hated that I stooped to that level, but I couldn’t take it back now.
He considered me thoughtfully for a moment before nodding his head. "Thank you for being such a good friend. Now help me clean up this glass."
Guilt weighed my chest down as we found rags to mop up the spilled liquid and a broom to sweep up the broken shards of the glass. Calvin disposed of the mess in a trash bin and shooed me back onto the deck while Ashley finished up in the bathroom. I found myself at the drinks table again with another glass of whiskey in hand, trying to drown my guilt.
Twenty minutes later, Ashley walked out of the cabin followed by Calvin. They mingled with some other partygoers I didn't know, and after a while, Calvin vanished. I didn't know where he went, but I didn't mind that he was gone. The yacht was approaching shore and I still hadn't had the final word with Ashley. The hour-long sail back to the docks was torture. I had to sit across the deck alone, sipping whiskey and practicing a prepared speech in case we had a moment to ourselves, which I intended to make happen.
When we pulled into the harbor and closed in on the docks, I got the courage to walk up to her friend group and clear my throat. She and her dark-haired friend both looked up at me as the few guys who sat with them laughed hysterically, maybe at something she'd said. I could read their body language. They were into her, and she wasn't into them.
"Ashley, could we talk a moment?" I asked, and I glanced around the boat one more time. Calvin was still somewhere else, probably below deck.
Ashley looked up at me through her lashes. I hadn’t seen her touch another drop of alcohol, and I wondered if Calvin had cut her off or if she realized she was getting too drunk. Her friend giggled like a schoolgirl and elbowed her. It seemed to be her odd quirk that Ashley was annoyed by.
"Sure, Boss," she hummed, and she stood and straightened her skirt. I watched the eyes of the three men seated on the large sofas port side all go to her butt as she walked toward me, and jealousy flamed to life in my chest. I had to remind myself of my own prepared talk. This couldn't happen again.
She followed me away from the crowd, and I led her to the bow where the spray peppered our faces with cool salt water. The chill was refreshing on my hot cheeks. Just being close to her again made me feel things no respectable man should feel toward a woman so much younger, especially given that she was about to be my employee.
"God, I'm horny again. Want to meet me at the St James for a booty call?" Her playful tone roused my desire, and I tamped it down by gritting my teeth. I rolled my neck and looked over at her as I leaned on the railing and looked out at the lighted docks growing larger by the second.
"It can't happen again, Ashley. Your dad trusts me. I can't lie to him like that." If I looked at her as I said the words, I'd change my mind. She was intoxicating as it was, but being near her only had me craving another dip in the pool.
"Oh," she said, and I heard the disappointment in her tone. It gutted me. I hated that I lied to Calvin. I didn't know if anything could ever amount from our having a fling, anyway, but honesty had always been my policy. Now, I put myself in a position to make my friend believe I was being honest with him, and that meant no more lying.
"Look, you're gorgeous and smart. That sex was incredible, and you made me feel like a kid again, but I'm going to be your boss. Cambridge has a strict non-frat policy. It would get us both fired."
Ashley turned and leaned back on the railing with her elbows to either side of her torso. I looked down at her and noticed the way she stood made the fabric of her shirt stretch over her tits, showing her cleavage. It made my cock tingle. I wanted to bury my face in that valley and not come up for air.
"So you're saying you like me?" She batted her eyelashes and looked up at me.
"I'm saying I can't have sex with you again. Yes, it's incredible, but we'll get caught." My throat was constricting. It felt like the blood was leaving my head and rushing to my groin.
The boat went over a rough patch of water and jostled us a little, and she leaned closer to me, giving me an even better view down her shirt. "I'm saying, society has stupid rules and when you find someone who makes you feel the way we just made each other feel, there shouldn't be rules against it."
I held my tongue and felt grateful that I was leaning forward. It camouflaged the growing tent in my pants.
"I want you, Jack."
"Christ, woman." The temptation was torture. I ran a hand through my hair to avoid reaching out to touch her.
"It's not like we're getting married, right?" Ashley rose up and pecked me on the cheek before whispering, "See you at work, Boss." Then she walked away happy as a clam, and I stood there waiting for my dick to deflate.
Half an hour later, I was waiting for my turn to deboard as Calvin strutted up to me. He had a beer in each hand and a worried expression on his face. As he approached, he held out the beer I knew I shouldn't drink, but I took it anyway.
"Well, Jack, she's all grown up. I sent her away to UCLA a baby, and now she's this adult I hardly recognize at times." Calvin slurped his beer, and I could see the glassy-eyed way he watched her walk across the ramp to the dock with her friends. He was looking at her like a worried father, but I was noticing how incredible her body looked.
"They all grow up, Cal. She just did it far away from home where you didn't get to watch her." Me either, which was probably one of the reasons I found her so attractive now. Now she wasn't "little Ashley who wants to grow up to be like her father." Now she was a goddess with a stethoscope and surgeon's hands, and I had to stop thinking about her like that.
"Promise me something, Jack," he said, and his shoulders dropped.
"Sure, anything."
"Watch out for her?" Calvin shook his head. "I saw the way those guys were looking at her. Life is hard enough without a broken heart. I just want her to make good choices. She needs a man who can handle her wit and spunk while cherishing her heart."
I knew he wasn't talking about me, but something deep inside me mentally ticked those things off and wanted to rise to that challenge. Something else inside me wanted to do very bad things to her and tell no one about it, make it our little secret. And when she turned to blow a kiss, I couldn't help but wonder if it was to her father—who reached out with a hand to "catch" it—or me. Because I could have sworn she also winked.
"Of course I will, Cal. You have my word." That promise sealed my fate. I was forever the man who would "watch out" for his baby girl. And that ruled out my being the man who'd teach her how amazing "adult things" could be. But God, it wouldn’t stop me from dreaming about it.