Jaimie: Fire and Ice (The Wilde Sisters 2)

She leaned forward and tapped on the partition.

“Driver? We haven’t moved in ten minutes. How about taking the side streets?”

“Is no way out of this traffic, Miss.”

He was right.

There was a truck to the left, a bus to the right. Why had she made the appointment for six in the evening, the absolute middle of rush hour?

Because Steven had turned up at her office just as she’d been making that first phone call to Zacharias Castelianos.

He’d arrived just in time to hear her telling Castelianos’s voice mail that she’d see him Friday evening, except Steven hadn’t known she was talking to a machine.

“Are you making an appointment for Friday night?” he’d said. “I bought tickets to that concert at the Kennedy Center.”

“Wait,” she’d mouthed.

“It’s that band you like, Celeste. The one from England.”

The “Celeste” annoyed her. Steven had somehow learned her middle name and he’d taken to using it even though she’d asked him not to.”

“Celeste?”

She’d raised her hand, mouthed the word “wait” again.

“Are you talking to a man? Are you making a date for Friday night?”

Her eyes had flashed a warning at him; she’d half-turned her swivel chair away in an attempt at privacy.

“So, um, so, Mr. Castelianos,” she’d said, stumbling a little over the words, “Friday evening…”

“I thought we’d have dinner first, at that little Italian place you like so much.”

“Friday. At six,” she’d said rushing it, coming up with the first hour that popped into her head, and she’d ended the call and looked at Steven and said, “I was leaving a message for a client. And what are you doing here? I’ve asked you not to come by my office.”

He’d gone from looking hopeful to looking wounded. The rounded eyes, the downturned mouth had reminded her of a puppy she’d had when she was five or six, and the look it got whenever she’d caught it chewing on one of her dolls.

The memory had made her laugh. She’d covered it quickly, turned it into a cough, but Steven hadn’t bought it.

“Are you laughing at me?”

There’d been a coldness in his voice she hadn’t heard before, a look in his eyes that had nothing to do with puppyish behavior. The icy tone, the cold glare were gone in an instant, so qui

ckly that she’d decided she must have imagined them.

“I’m not laughing at you,” she’d said. “But you shouldn’t have bought those tickets. And we went to that restaurant once, Steven. Only once. It’s hardly my favorite place.”

“Tell me a restaurant you prefer, Celeste, and I’ll make reservations.”

Jaimie had risen from her desk, taken his arm and marched him past all the other cubicles at Stafford and Bengs, past the receptionist, out the door and into the hall. Once they were alone, she’d let go of his arm.

“Listen to me,” she’d said sharply. “My name isn’t Celeste. It’s Jaimie. J-A-I-M-I-E. Celeste is my middle name. I don’t even know how you learned it or why you insist on using it.”

“Because you are special to me. I don’t want to call you what the rest of the world calls you.”

“Don’t call me anything,” she’d said, before she could think. His lips had trembled; there was a time that would have made her feel pity for him, but lately all she felt was anger and, yes, pity, so she’d forced herself to smile. “Steven. You’re a nice man, but we aren’t meant to be anything more than friends. Do you understand?”

Jaimie had thought that she’d finally gotten through to him... but the next day, he’d sent her an extravagant bouquet of flowers.