Jaimie: Fire and Ice (The Wilde Sisters)

by Sandra Marton

  She knew he was right.

  How else to explain why she’d ever gone out with Steven?

  He was handsome. Smart. Polite. Attentive.

  At first, she’d been flattered by his attention. That hadn’t lasted long. A few dates and he’d begun talking about their future together, planning it in what had become increasingly frightening detail.

  She’d tried laughing, as if his plans were jokes. When that hadn’t worked, she’d told him, politely, that she wanted to be his friend, nothing more.

  He’d only become more determined. More insistent.

  More frightening.

  No. Certainly not. Steven was an annoyance. An irritation. He wasn’t frightening.

  It had to be the heat that was making her think such strange thoughts.

  Jaimie frowned, took her iPad from her oversized purse and brought up the file she’d created on Zacharias Castelianos.

  There wasn’t much in it.

  She’d tried Googling him, but she hadn’t come up with anything.

  She was pretty sure that his name was Greek. That made sense. It was increasingly common for foreigners to invest in expensive Manhattan real estate. And it was increasingly common for the very wealthy ones to be secretive. They had the means and the money to stay out of the public eye.

  It had been easy to form a mental image of the man.

  He was a billionaire. A twenty-first-century Aristotle Onassis. Short. Stocky. White-haired. A doughy face. In his sixties. Or more.

  Roger Bengs had confirmed it.

  “Exactly,” he’d said when she’d described the man she imagined. “Couldn’t have put it better myself.”

  So she’d googled Onassis.

  Homes everywhere. Yachts. Private islands. Planes. Yada yada yada. And he’d been very fond of women.

  Was that the reason Roger had involved her? The feminist part of her rebelled at the possibility, but logic prevailed. It was wrong, but it was still the way of the world. Some men would always smile at a woman and bark at a man. If that was the case with Zacharias Castelianos, so be it.

  She could smile and get him as a client. Well, as Roger’s client, but she’d get a tiny bit of credit and a big chunk of change.

  Assuming the cab ever moved again.

  Assuming, too, that she didn’t melt away by the time it did.

  Jaimie put away the iPad, scooted forward, and rapped on the translucent partition.

  “Driver?”

  The cabbie’s eyes met hers in his mirror.

  “Could you please turn up the air conditioning?”

  He nodded, jiggled a couple of doohickeys on the dashboard. She waited a few seconds, but nothing happened. Sighing, she unbuttoned her jacket, hooked her index finger into the neckline of her blouse, and eased it away from her skin.

  She was sweating.

  Ladies didn’t sweat, the teacher who’d given her and her sisters deportment lessons when they were eight, nine, and ten would have said. Jaimie knew better. Ladies did sweat, all right, but successful Realtors didn’t.

  She crossed her legs, swung one foot back and forth.

  This was not good.

  She was stuck in traffic, her hair falling down, her suit turning into something resembling a tangled bed-sheet, her makeup undoubtedly sliding off her face while the possibility of making her meeting on time grew more and more doubtful.

  Zacharias Castelianos would be irritated, Roger would be pissed, and she didn’t even want to think about Steven, undoubtedly brooding over the fact that she hadn’t gone to a concert with him but had, instead, gone to New York.

  Steven. Back to him again.

  She’d broken up with him a dozen times, but he kept turning up, begging for another chance, telling her he couldn’t live without her.

  She’d finally mentioned it to her sister, Lissa, one day while they were Skyping, catching up the way they did whenever there was time.

  At that point, still early in what Steven had already started calling their relationship, she’d felt the first faint stirrings of unease, so when Lissa had said, “How’s your love life?” she’d phrased her answer with care.

  She certainly hadn’t wanted to sound like an idiot, complaining about a man who was so attentive. So first she’d said, “What love life?” and they’d both laughed because that had become their standard routine and then she’d hesitated and said, Well, there was this guy…

  “He’s hot for you,” Lissa had said, on a long sigh, “but you don’t feel that way about him.”

  “Right,” Jaimie had answered, and then she’d changed the subject because how did a grown woman explain that she wasn’t capable of handling the fawning attention of a congressional staffer, a Fulbright scholar, a man with a family tree that probably went back to the Mayflower?

  That just wasn’t logical and if there was one thing her family expected her to be, it was logical.

  Everybody in the Wilde clan had a claim to fame.

  Her father was powerful.

  Her brothers were brave.

  Emily was The Creative One and Lissa was The Best Cook in the World.

  Jaimie was logical, so logical that her sisters and brothers had nicknamed her James. She’d objected that giving her a man’s name because she was logical was sexist, and she’d quoted statistics about sexist attitudes until her sisters had groaned and her brothers had laughed, and she’d laughed, too, which had made the nickname OK.

  It had been hers, ever since.

  Yes, and why would a logical woman be trapped in a taxi all this time without taking some kind of action?

  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.

  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.

  The sidewalk was crowded; people always walked fast in New York, but the drizzle was speeding things up.

  Zacharias Castelianos’s condo was six long blocks away. She had ten minutes to reach it without being late.

  Not just impossible.

  Futile.

  Maybe the rain would change her luck.

  Her sister Emily had a brand-new job. A wonderful job. Hadn’t Em said she’d gotten it after some Good Samaritan had come to her rescue in a driving rainstorm?

  If it had worked for Emily, it might work for her.

  Except, this wasn’t a driving rainstorm, it was just an annoying drizzle. And from what she could see, there wasn’t a Good Samaritan around, only masses of grim, fast-moving New Yorkers.

  Just keep going, the voice said, and Jaimie did. Faster and faster, and that was not easy in stilettos.

  Her foot landed in a puddle.

  “Shit,” she said which did not ameliorate the problem, but it sure as hell made her feel better.

  She glanced at her watch.

  Fast walking became running. Running became a wobbly gallop.

  OK. She was definitely going to be late, but maybe not too late. Maybe the Onassis lookalike actually expected her. Maybe he really was eager to sign a deal.

  Maybe she’d return to D.C. tonight and learn that Steven had, poof, vanished in a puff of smoke.

  The little voice snorted with laughter.

  And maybe pigs can fly, it said, and Jaimie, who had never believed in voices in anyone’s head much less her own, had the awful feeling that what she was hearing was the last gasp of that ephemeral thing called logic.

  CHAPTER THREE

  Zach had a garage a few blocks from his condo. He left the Porsche there, tried for a taxi but gave up after a couple of minutes.

  There weren’t many available cabs and the few he saw drove straight past him.

  Man, he really must look disreputable.

  Not a problem. Traffic was heavy anyway. Walking would be quicker. As for how he looked…this was Manhattan. Taxis might not stop for him, but pedestrians wouldn’t give him a second glance, not even on this high-priced turf.

  He did get a couple of stares when he reached his street and headed for the royal blue canopy over the entrance to his building, and he could see the doorman stiffen when he spotted him through the closed glass doors, but Carlos recognized him at the last second, smiled and swung the door wide open.

  “Good evening, Mr. Castelianos. How are you, sir?”

  Zach had to give him credit. It had been a quick recovery.

  “I’m fine, thanks,” he said, walking briskly into the welcome coolness of the lobby.

  The concierge greeted him just as politely. No questions, no comments. That was another good thing about living in a building like this. If you wanted attention, you got it. If you wanted to be off the radar, you were.

  The doors to his private elevator slid open. Zach stepped inside and inserted his keycard into the slot. The car rose swiftly and silently to the fiftieth floor, where the doors swished open, directly onto the double-height foyer of his penthouse.

  He stood still for a moment, taking in the sweep of rosewood flooring, the flowing glass walls of the enormous living room that stretched ahead, and the rise of the rosewoo
d and brushed-steel staircase toward the sunlight that poured through a huge skylight on the second level. The place smelled faintly of lemon oil, a sure sign that his housekeeper had been in earlier.

  He dropped his keys on a glass table and took the stairs two at a clip. By the time he reached the master suite, he had his shirt off and his jeans unzipped. The duffel bag landed on the oversized bed; the discarded clothes hit the hamper in a three-pointer that Kobe Bryant would have admired.

  Seconds later, he stood inside the big glass shower stall that was the focal point of the bathroom adjoining his bedroom, all six side sprays turned on full, the waterfall spray overhead beating down on his shoulders. Zach closed his eyes, tilted his head back and let the memories and dirt of the last ten days swirl down the drain.

  He showered for a long time. Shampooed. Scrubbed. Thought about shaving and then decided the hell with it; the stubble on his jaw wasn’t short enough to be itchy or long enough to be annoying. Shaving could wait until morning.

  What he wanted now was a drink.

  He decided on the 25-year-old Macallan and poured the whisky into a Baccarat tumbler. Then, wearing only a fresh pair of jeans, he stepped onto the terrace, sprawled in a lounger, wrapped one hand around the glass and balanced it on his flat belly.

  Perfect.

  The sun was dipping low in the sky.

  One of the reasons he’d bought the penthouse was its 360-degree view of the city. From this part of the terrace, he could see the undulating gray-green waters of the Hudson River. At sunset on clear nights, he liked watching the sky above it turn into a phantasmagoria of pink, purple and fuchsia. If he turned his head, he could see the Statue of Liberty raising her torch in the harbor. Come sunset, she would become a column of golden bronze.

  Zach decided not to move an inch tonight until the entire show played out.

  If it played out.

  It had started to rain. Lightly, and in New York you never knew if a drizzle would stop or turn into a full-fledged storm, but right now he was still comfortable.

  He brought the glass to his lips. Took a long, soothing swallow.

  The minutes slid past. High clouds were moving in, and was that the low rumble of thunder off in the distance?