Chapter 8
Chapter Eight
Jack
Katherine Jenkins has been working for me for two weeks, and I’ve had zero contact with her. It feels surreal knowing she’s in my office building, working on files related to my business, and yet we haven’t spoken or seen each other.
“So I was wondering if you would like me to arrange a dinner for you and Willamina Tacoma,” my assistant says as she pops her head into my office.
I look up at her with a frown. “Sorry, what?”
“You take Willamina on a date once a month, and you haven’t asked me to schedule it yet this month, so I was wondering if you would like me to schedule something for next week.
” She gives me a questioning look, as if I were too slow to question her.
To be fair, she has scheduled many of my dates, but I hadn’t thought about any of those women in a couple of weeks.
I didn’t even want to think about why that might have been.
“We’re coming to the end of the month now, Mr. Heathcliff. ”
“No, I think I’m okay.” I shake my head. I can’t even remember what Willamina looks like. “Thank you, though.”
“What about Jasmine then?” She continues and opens a notebook in her hand. “Or Kenya, Lucia, Tracy, Jan—”
“I don’t need you to book any dates for me right now.
” I stop her before she reads off the name of every woman I’ve even glanced at.
She looks peeved at my tone, but I don’t care.
“I will let you know if I need your help in that department. Right now, I need you to concentrate on assembling the files for the Mercurial meeting in a couple of hours.”
“Yes, sir,” she says stiffly, as if she’s greatly offended by my words. “I just wanted to make sure I was on top of it because a lot of the restaurants you like to go to are very popular, and it’s hard to get reservations, so I like to do that in advance.”
“I appreciate how diligent and hardworking you are, Patricia, but I don’t need your help. By the way, how’s the new girl coming along?”
“Which new girl, sir?” She looks at me with a frown, and I wonder if she’s being deliberately incompetent. “We’ve had ten new employees start in the last couple of weeks—six of whom are women.”
“The special hire in the marketing department.” I stare at her. “The one I specifically hired, and you emailed.”
“Oh, you mean Ms. Jenkins?”
“Yes, Katherine Jenkins. How is she doing?”
“I gather she’s doing fine. It’s not like they have any important projects in that specific department,” she says, shrugging.
“What do you mean they don’t have any important projects?” What on earth is she talking about?
“Well, they’re working on the PowerPoint presentations for the conference coming up, so you know... they’re not working on anything big.”
“Sorry, what are you talking about?”
“You told me she had no experience in marketing, correct?”
“Yes, that’s what I said.”
“So I put her on the, uh . . .” She pauses. “I put her on the beginning marketing team,” she says quickly. “She’s new, and they are working on some hotel projects now.”
“Hmm.” I give Patricia a blistering stare. “The entire purpose of her taking this job was to learn about marketing for hotels.”
“Yes, I know. They will be working on hotel projects. In fact, I’m going to be sending them the marketing information for the hotels in Coconut Beach, in Florida, that you’re looking at. They will do some research on the area and the deal.”
“Okay, good. Well, that will be all.” I dismiss her, and she walks out of the office with her head held high and her shoulders stiff. I know she’s upset with me, but right now I don’t care.
“Jack, you in there?” My younger brother, Zac, walks into the office, his cocky stride confident as he breezes in without a worry in the world. His blue eyes are vibrant as he grins at me and then at my assistant as she walks past him. “Hey, Patricia. How are you doing?”
“I’m fine, thank you, sir.” She blushes slightly as she beams at him.
“Ah, Patty, that smile... It’s going to break my heart one of these days,” he says as he grins at her.
“I’m a little older than you, Zac.” She looks like she’s received the compliment of her life as she touches her hair.
“No way, you don’t look a day over eighty.”
I can see Patty frowning, because she’s most definitely not even close to that age. “I’ll be in my office, Mr. Heathcliff,” she says to me and walks out, slamming the door behind her.
Zac starts laughing. “She’s still as tough as old boots, isn’t she?”
“That wasn’t funny, Zac.”
“What? She can’t take a joke?”
I decide against telling him off; I just don’t have the energy. “What are you doing here? I thought you had a business meeting.”
“Yeah, we got done already, so I figured maybe you’d wanna go to lunch.”
I look at my watch. It is 1:00 p.m., and I haven’t eaten, but I have so much work to do. “I don’t know. I still have work to do.”
“Come on, bro. All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy.” He winks at me, and I roll my eyes.
“I mean, I can grab something quick. You want to go to the cafeteria?”
He lets out a long-suffering sigh. “The food is not that great.”
“We have Michelin-star chefs cooking there.”
“Well, they don’t seem to be making many Michelin-star recipes,” he says, shrugging. “The last burger I got . . . Let’s just say it wasn’t all that.”
“Really, Zac?”
“And I’ll have you know that the last time Tristan was here, he got a quesadilla, and he asked for—”
I shake my head. “If you want us to go to lunch, let’s go now. I’ve got a meeting in about an hour.”
“Boring.”
I shake my head. “And how are you, bro? How’s business?”
“It is what it is. Tristan and I are getting ready to open our comedy club.” He grins. “And I think it’s going to be a great success. We’ve already had a lot of DMs from a lot of big-name comedians who are interested in coming and performing.”
“Oh, really?” I say as I stand up and head toward the door. “Who? Anyone I’ve heard of?”
“Lots of people.”
“Oh, okay. Like Dave Chappelle?”
“Well… maybe not Dave Chappelle.”
“Eddie Murphy?”
“I don’t even think Eddie Murphy does stand-up anymore.”
“Chris Rock?”
“After the Will Smith thing? We don’t need that kind of—” I stare at him and hold my hand up.
“What? I’m just saying!”
“Chelsea Handler?”
“No.”
“Ricky Iglesia?”
Zac frowns. “Who the hell is Ricky Iglesia?”
“Isn’t he a comedian?” I ask him. I’m starting to get annoyed. This is the last conversation I want to be having at this time.
“Not that I’ve heard of.”
“Jeff Foxworthy?”
He starts laughing. “Bro, we’re in New York City, not Kentucky.”
“Lots of people like Jeff Foxworthy. He’s funny.”
“You would go to see Jeff Foxworthy?” he asks in disbelief as we walk out of my office and head to get some food.
“I mean, if I had a date that wanted to—” I shrug, not even sure if I believe it myself. I don’t date the sort of women who want to go to comedy shows.
He laughs. “So how’s the love life, anyway?
” He looks at me as if he already knows the answer, and he finds it funny.
I don’t have the energy to explain that I’m running a multi-billion dollar business and don’t have the time or the energy to pursue a relationship.
I don’t need any complications distracting me from my schedule.
“Same old. What about you?”
“It’s crap. Sara Sote dumped me.”
“I didn’t know you were dating anyone named Sara Sote.”
“I mean, we weren’t dating. We were friends with benefits. You met her, didn’t you? After we competed in that couples mud wrestling competition?”
“Doesn’t sound familiar.” I want to groan.
I already know that whatever story he has to tell me will be ridiculous.
Nothing involving a couple’s mud wrestling competition was going to be sweet and innocent.
Not that I thought my brother was innocent in any way.
I just wish he’d spend as much time thinking about business as he did thinking about getting laid.
“Remember, we were naked, and I was telling you she got upset because the other girl was on top of me, rubbing her nips on my lips, and she thought…” He shook his head as his eyes lit up with the memory of whatever deed he had definitely gotten up to.
“Well, no matter what she thought.” He grins.
“That was a good day, but then she started getting jealous and was no longer interested in being casual.”
“So she no longer wants to be friends with benefits with you? Is that why it broke off?”
“Let’s just say she saw another woman’s nipple accidentally in my mouth and she got jealous.” He shrugged. “I mean, what was she expecting? We were naked wrestling.”
“I have no words, Zac.”
“Anyway, she started acting funny after that, and then she told me she wanted me to take her to Thailand on some sort of couple’s trip.
And I was like, why? And she was like, because we’ve been dating for two years now.
And I was like, no, we haven’t. And she was like, I thought you were my boyfriend.
And I was like, have I ever called you my girlfriend?
And she’s like, we’ve been hooking up. And I’m like, I don’t know about you, but I’ve been hooking up with—” He pauses as he sees the look on my face. “Anyway, let’s just say it’s over.”
“So you were in a friends-with-benefits relationship with someone who didn’t know you were in a friends-with-benefits relationship.”
He frowns and shakes his head. “We had threesomes. She knew we weren’t monogamous.”
“But she changed her mind, and then she dumped you.”
“Yeah. I guess she wanted more. But hey, you can’t tie a good man like me down.”
I roll my eyes. “I have a feeling she’s not calling you a good man, Zac.”
“Well, she’s not calling me a bad man. There were many times she told me I was the best she ever had, and I kinda think it was true because of the way she screamed my name every time I slammed—”
“Enough,” I say. “I really don’t want to hear about your sexual exploits.”
“What, are you jealous?”
“Jealous of what?”