Saltwater Kisses: A Billionaire Love Story (The Kisses Series Book 1) (28 page)

He didn't have time for tears anymore. He didn't have time for himself. He was walking away from everything he wanted most in the world, knowing that despite his grand intentions, he would probably never see her again.

He didn't look back as he got in the car and drove away, because if he looked back, he would never be able to leave.

J
ack stared at the picture on his phone. Emma smiled out at him, completely happy next to the man she had just married. He barely recognized the man next to her he looked so content. The lines of worry that always seemed to make him look older than he was disappeared when he was with Emma.

He set the phone down on the reading table beside his leather chair. He wondered if they had reading tables on normal planes or if that was just something reserved for private jets. Emma would know and that made his heart ache again.

“What the hell, Jack!?” Rachel screamed, coming up the steps of the private jet. She was pure pin-striped fury. Dean was hot on her heals, eyes just as dark.

“And hello to you, too,” he quipped, unsure of just what had Rachel in a tizzy. He really didn't want to deal with anything else today. He dropped his let his hands and phone fall to his lap.

Rachel threw a magazine directly at his head. He barely ducked in time and the magazine hit the window with a thud.

“What the hell, Rachel?” he yelled, repeating her phrase back at her. He looked to Dean, but the bodyguard just shrugged. This wasn't like her at all. Rachel was usually the epitome of classical elegance and professionalism. Yet, here she was chucking magazines at his head.

“You got married!” She glared at him through her lopsided, square-rimmed glasses. A stand of dark hair fell out of her bun and into her face but she ignored it. She stomped across the plane, looming over his seat and glaring hard enough to put holes in his shirt.

He looked down at the magazine and blanched as he saw the cover. Front and center was a picture of him holding Emma, kissing her on their impromptu wedding day.

“You got married, and you didn't tell me?”

Jack looked up to see Rachel's big brown eyes rimmed with red. She wasn't just mad that he was plastered on the front of a cheesy tabloid, she was mad that she was the last to know. Rachel was his sister as far as he was concerned, yet he hadn't even both

“Rachel, I was going to tell you,” he started. She glared at him harder and he held up his hands. “I really was! I was going to show you the only picture that supposed to exist and explain everything on the flight home.”

Rachel's shoulders dropped slightly, but she was still ready to spit fire. She held up her phone, the message light blinking blue and green. “I have four messages from your father, six from your mother, and another dozen from the media relations department and your lawyers. Do you have any idea the media nightmare this is?”

Jack looked down at the magazine cover. They both looked so innocent and happy. “Where did the magazine get the images?”

Rachel flopped herself into the leather seat across from him as the plane began to taxi down the runway for takeoff. “Three guesses.”

He opened the magazine and flipped to the article. It was the usual drivel about how he was “Prince Charming” and had swept the small town beauty off her feet, but it was the images that caught his attention. They were obviously taken from a camera phone by someone in the bushes near the wedding site.

A cold, uncomfortable knowledge settled in the pit of his stomach that wasn't related to the jet's rise in altitude. He knew who would want to do this, who would know he was on the island. There was only one person who would have reason to hide in the bushes and follow him.

“Brandy.” His voice was flat. He was past anger.

“Bingo,” Rachel confirmed. “The lawyers are already issuing injunctions and turning her life into a living hell, but the damage has been done.”

Jack wished it was acceptable to rip someone's head off and feed it to sharks, because that's what he wanted to do to Brandy. Not only had she tried to manipulate him, she had taken something wonderful and sullied it. That wedding had been for him and Emma alone, but now thanks to a jealous, bitter woman, the world had been invited.

“We need to make sure Emma is safe. I don't want any harm to come to her.” His voice was hard. He knew he had stalkers that would want to see Emma removed so they could “take her place.” It was standard procedure to make sure even his charity dates had security surrounding events.

“Dean's already called in three associates to meet her in Iowa,” Rachel replied. She leaned forward in her chair. “I'm not happy about this, Jack, but it's obvious you care about her.”

He stared at Emma's sweet smile in the photographs. He was going to ruin her life. All the reasons he had waited to tell her who he was until the last minute, the reason he wasn't going to pursue her after this vacation were now nullified. His best efforts to keep her safe from his world had failed.

“She was supposed to go have a life while I lost mine to the company,” Jack said quietly, tracing Emma's smile with his finger. “I didn't want her to have to deal with this upcoming year.”

Rachel put her hand on his knee. “That's very noble of you, Jack.” He looked up and she shrugged. “But, you married her. She's a part of your world now. How do you want to handle it?”

Jack sighed. Some days, he hated being the one in charge. He pressed his hand to the bridge of his nose, trying to think.

“Bring her to New York. She'll be safer there. That way, you and Dean can keep an eye on her.” He lowered his hand, forcing himself to think about this situation as a businessman and not as a lover. “The media will want more. I know Dad is going to say that this isn't good for the company, so I want to try and keep our picture out of the papers as much as possible.”

“I'll make some calls,” Rachel said, pulling out her phone and typing furiously. She looked up. “Where do you want her to stay?”

“My place. The one on the river.”
The one I might actually go to at night
, he thought.

Rachel raised her eyebrows at him, but didn't say anything. He never invited women to the apartment on the river. That was his special hideaway.

“Rachel?” Jack's eyes stayed on the photograph. “I need to ask you a favor.”

Rachel set her phone down and looked over her glasses at him. He looked so much like the little boy she had watched as a child. Sometimes, she forgot that he was just a man when he got into business mode. He was too much like his father in that regard. “What do you need?”

Jack's hazel eyes met her brown ones. “I want you to be the one to bring Emma to New York. You're the only one I can trust to do it right.”

Rachel's smile was soft. “She's important to you, isn't she?”

He looked back at his wedding picture still displayed on his phone's screen. She was more than just important. “Yes.”

“Then I'll bring her to you,” she promised. Jack looked up to see her smile at him. “Now, we have to figure out—Your phone's ringing.”

Jack sighed and reached for the Jet's personal line. He knew exactly who it was going to be.

“Hello, Mother.” He took a deep breath. “Yes, I got married.”

I
f you liked these books, please check out some others from the series, starting with Owen's story in Rainwater Kisses! All of these and more are available free with Kindle Unlimited!

W
ill Owen ever find the girl of his dreams?

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ainwater Kisses: A Billionaire Love Story

The older sister of Emma LaRue wasn't looking for love. In fact, the last thing Kaylee LaRue thought as she attended her sister's Caribbean wedding was that she would meet a man as confident as Owen Parker. The suave businessman oozed charm, and when that charm was directed at Kaylee, it gave her pause. She couldn't be sure if the man was actually interested in her or just interested in a good time.

In reality, Owen Parker had never met anyone like Kaylee LaRue. The quiet girl from Iowa made him forget to breathe the first time he saw her. When he tried to work his magic, her wit proved to be a match for his, and his charms had no effect. He knew what it looked like- she probably thought that he wanted to have a vacation tryst with her just as Jack Saunders had with Emma. Nothing could be farther from the truth.

Kaylee tried hard not to yield to his advances, but their last night in the Caribbean was simply magical. After a passionate night spent in the arms of Owen, Kaylee ruefully observed that there was no fake wedding to keep the two of them together. As she flew home, she thought it'd be back to the same old life for her. She never expected Owen to show up at her door.

However, this small town girl wasn't sure she was ready to change for this city boy. When Kaylee tried to fit into Owen's world, everything came crashing down. In the blink of an eye, what seemed like a strong foundation suddenly found itself built on a pillar of sand. Would their relationship blossom like Jack and Emma's, or would the two of them forever be haunted by the memories of rainwater kisses?

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W
e had just passed by the hot dog stand again when a crack of thunder made me jump. Owen laughed and pulled me close to him, draping his arm around my shoulder. I smiled up at him and felt something wet land on my cheek. I touched it with my fingertips, confused for a moment until a second heavy drop landed square on my nose. Owen and I looked right at one another with realization that it was raining just as the down pour started.

It was as if someone had turned on the shower faucet, the rain starting quicker than either of us could have expected. We ran for the nearest trees, but their bare branches offered no protection from the sudden deluge. I shivered, the two of us already completely soaked by the sudden microburst. Owen quickly shrugged out of his jacket and wrapped it around my shoulders, the satin inside still warm from his body.

I reached up, wrapping my hand around the back of his neck and pulling him down for a kiss. Our lips met, the taste of the rain on his lips. I parted my lips and slipped my tongue inside of his mouth, which was so warm and inviting. His hand tangled itself in my wet hair and pulling me closer to him. Our bodies pressed together, the heat of his chest defying the cold of the rain.

We stood there, kissing in the rain as if it was the most natural thing in the world. Raindrops pounded against the pavement, splattering against windows and shaking the baby leaves on the trees. I was enjoying the taste of rainwater kisses too much to stop.

W
ill Rachel ever find love? What happened between her and Dean?

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C
hampagne Kisses: A Timeless Love Story

In the summer of 1990, Rachel Weber spent a week down on the Florida coast, soaking up the sun's rays while she waited for her life to begin. It was there that she met Dean Sherman, a handsome, muscular soldier with crystal blue eyes. The two spent a week together full of champagne kisses that only ended when Operation Desert Storm forced Dean to choose between his duty and his love. He chose duty.

Twenty years later, Rachel figured it was just summer love, but she never forgot those eyes. As personal assistant to powerful billionaire Jack Saunders, she never expected Dean to walk into her office after being hired as Jack's personal bodyguard. Even though she had spent the last two decades trying to forget Dean, she found herself falling for him once again.

When fate forced both Rachel and Dean to choose yet again between love and duty, Rachel had to decide between the man she had always loved and the family that had become her life. She knew she couldn't have both, but she knew she wouldn't be happy with just one. Would she choose love, or be forever haunted by the memory of those Champagne Kisses?

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I
was shocked. "You're going to war? Why didn't you tell me?" I asked.

"Because this is a vacation. Because I didn't want to think about it. Because I thought that you wouldn't want to hang out with me if you thought of me as a trained killer instead of as a pretty face." He smiled, but it was an empty smile.

I laughed. "Don't be ridiculous. I never thought of you as a pretty face," I said. I started to laugh at my own joke, but I couldn't. Instead, I began to bawl openly, leaning into his shoulder. I didn't want him to go anywhere, and I certainly didn't want him to go to war.

Dean let me cry, stroking my hair gently. The fire began to go out in front of us, having consumed all the fuel that had been put into it. My heart felt the same way. In one week, I had known such intense highs that my heart had burned like a star, and now that it was starved of fuel, I felt it being extinguished.

I moved my head from Dean's shoulder. He tried to hide it as he wiped a tear away, but I knew. I looked at him. The dying light of the fire was just enough for me to see those crystal clear blue eyes. "Make love to me, Dean. Make love to me like this is the last night we'll ever spend together..."

W
ill Jack's little brother, Robbie, ever catch up with the girl that slipped away so long ago?

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reshwater Kisses: A Billionaire Love Story

Everything in Samantha Conners' life seemed to be in a holding pattern. Her sailboat racing season had fallen through, and she was stuck in a dead end job that barely covered the bills. If it wasn't for the fact that her sister and niece were depending on her, she would have never been out on the water the day the billionaire's boat ran her over.

Robbie Saunders is convinced that he is the screw-up younger brother of billionaire Jack Saunders. One of his biggest rules was to never go out drunk on the water, but with the impending death of his father, he took the boat out after drinking to try and gain some clarity. Instead, he ran over Sam and barely managed to save her from drowning.