Jaimie: Fire and Ice (The Wilde Sisters 2)

The receptionist had almost fainted.

“What a guy you’ve got,” she’d said.

Another bouquet arrived the following week. Jaimie had handed them to the receptionist.

“They’re yours,” she’d said. Then, she’d phoned Steven. “You are not to send me flowers!”

He’d sent boxes of handmade chocolates instead.

She’d called him again and said he was embarrassing her.

From then on, the gifts—more chocolates, more flowers—were delivered to her at home.

There was a seniors’ center near her apartment. That was where she brought the flowers and the candy. The first time, the clerk at the reception desk had looked at her as if she were crazy.

“I’m allergic,” Jaimie had said with a quick smile. To the man who sends these things, she’d almost added, but then the woman really would have thought she was crazy.

What she was, she told herself now, was pathetic. When she got home, she’d phone Steven, but for the last time. She’d make it clear, once and for all, that she didn’t want to hear from him anymore.

Light drops of rain pattered against the window.

Perfect. Rain, even a shower, was all she needed. It would only make the traffic worse, if that were possible.

It was decision time, and there was only one way to go.

“Driver?”

“Yes, miss?”

“I’m getting out here.”

“We are many blocks from your destination, Miss. And I cannot let you out in the middle of moving traffic.”

“If the traffic were moving,” Jaimie said logically, “I wouldn’t be getting out.”

The cabbie mumbled something she couldn’t understand. The expression on his face gave her a pretty fair idea of what it was, but he put the car into neutral.

“You make mistake,” he said.

Probably. The entire trip was starting to feel like a mistake. Jaimie checked the meter, added twenty percent, counted out the correct number of bills, bit her lip, added another five dollars. and held them up. The cabbie grumbled something and snatched them from her hand.

The accountant in her thought about asking for a receipt—hey, this was a business expense—but it wasn’t logical to ask a driver to write up a receipt when you were getting out of his taxi in the middle of the street, even if every vehicle around you was landlocked.

It wasn’t logical to overtip him, either. Nor was it logical for him to give you a surly look instead of a thank-you.

It was the little voice again. What was with that, anyway?

Horns blasted as she stepped from the car. She was about as much an impediment to the sea of non-moving vehicles as a pebble in the Atlantic, but she mouthed “sorry” to the delivery van next to her and “sorry” to the wheezing SUV next to the van and “sorry” to all the drivers hitting their horns as she wound through maze of the trucks and cars and taxis packed nose to tail, because “sorry” was logical.

Showing these idiots what you think of them by raising your middle finger is even more logical.

Jaimie blinked.

What kind of crazy thought was that? She wasn’t a raised-middle-finger kind of woman, either.

Unchecked emotion never got a person anywhere.

She had to concentrate. On her appointment. On nailing this listing. For starters, she had to concentrate on getting to the Castelianos condo.