Jaimie: Fire and Ice (The Wilde Sisters 2)

Thank you for everything.

“You are undoubtedly puzzled, Mr. Castelianos.”

Zach barked a laugh.

“I know, I know. She gives the appearance of being, how shall I put this? Of being sexually unsophisticated. You see, she is in treatment. She has come a long way, with the help of her psychotherapist and me. I am not saying anything happened between you last night, sir, but if anything did… Well, she is surely trying to put it out of her head this morning.” A long, gusty sigh. “My Jaimie is very good at denial.”

Denial.

Zach put his hand to his forehead. He’d slept with a woman who had psychosexual problems. Holy shit.

“How did you get this number, Mister…Mister…”

“Young. Steven Young.” Another gusty sigh. “My beloved Jaimie gave it to me, of course. She phoned me early this morning. You must have been sleeping. She told me she’d made a terrible mistake and asked me to forgive her. She said she was on her way home and—”

Zach disconnected.

He fell back on the bed and stared at the skylight.

Years ago, he’d slept with a Thai hooker. He hadn’t known she was a hooker; he’d been painfully young, a long way from home, lonely as only a man, a boy, really, in a strange land among strange customs can be.

The girl—pretty and sweet—had come up to him in a crowded club. She’d spoken very little English, but that was more than he could speak in Thai. She’d let him hold her hand; after a while, she’d let him kiss her. Then she’d taken him with her to what he’d thought was her home.

“Must be very quiet,” she’d whispered, and he’d made love to her there, in a tiny room that smelled of incense and fish, and it was only afterward, when she held out her hand and he looked baffled and she spat what even he knew was an ugly word, that he’d realized he’d been with a whore.

The woman he’d been with last night was not a whore.

She was a liar.

An actress.

She’d played the scene well, convinced him she’d been overcome by passion, passion for him, for him…

“Fuck,” he snarled, and shot to his feet.

The bed smelled of sex. Of her. Of a man made to look like a fool.

Zach grabbed the pillows. Stripped off the cases. Threw them on the floor. Tore off the blanket. The sheets. Bundled everything together and carried them down the stairs to the laundry room just off the kitchen.

Mrs. Halverson looked at him in surprise.

“Here, sir,” she said. “I’ll take care of—“

He motioned her aside, tossed everything in the washer, slapped open cupboard doors until he found the detergent, poured some into the machine and turned it on.

Then he went back upstairs, showered and scrubbed until his skin felt raw.

And told himself, as he pulled on clean clothes,

that he was an asshole for letting something like this bother him.

The other guy, Young, was the one who’d been made a fool of, not him.

Hell, when you came down to it, he’d had a great night. A terrific night. Fantastic sex, not once, not twice, but three times.

Nothing about this should bother him.

Except, it did.