I’m actually not free day after tomorrow, but I would make an incredibly rare exception for her and reschedule my luncheon meeting.
“Why would you want to go to lunch with me?” she asks suspiciously.
“So we can bury the hatchet.”
Some small, rational part of my brain is yelling, “What the hell are you doing?” but the words are drowned out by the blood thundering in my ears as it rushes south.
She narrows her eyes. “I know where I’d like to bury a hatchet.” She reaches into her purse with both hands. This is probably bad news for me.
I lean over to try to look into the purse. She moves it away from me.
“What are you doing?” I demand.
She meets my gaze boldly. “Wouldn’t you like to know?”
“Yes, that’s why I asked, Angry Orphan Annie,” I say drily.
“Angry Orphan Annie?” She pulls the perfume bottle from her purse and brandishes it at me. She’s unscrewed the top.
“Don’t you dare!” I snap at her. She looks me right in the eye and dumps it directly onto my lap, soaking my pants and splashing my jacket. Instantly, the interior of the cab is filled with a suffocating, thick cloud of sweetness. Henry starts coughing again, and he’s barely even hiding the fact that he’s laughing.
“What the hell!” My roar of fury is echoed by a squawk of outrage from the driver.
The cab is slowly rolling to a stop at a traffic light. She has the nerve to wink at me. “A little something to remember me by.”
With that, Winona flings open the door and leaps nimbly from the cab.
Chapter Four
Blake
Rolling down the cab windows doesn’t help. Stripping off my jacket doesn’t help. And Henry doesn’t bother hiding a small smile of satisfaction as he calls his assistant Shanice – yes, I’m so damn busy my assistant needs an assistant – to tell her to have a new suit waiting for me when I get back to the office.
Because this is mostly my fault, I give the cab driver an extremely generous tip to cover the cost of getting his car detailed, and also the fares he’ll be losing while he’s waiting to get it de-stenched.
We make it to LaGuardia right as my sister’s plane is landing. Henry had already arranged for another driver to meet us at the airport, so we won’t have to cab it back. At least he’s good for something beyond low-level sabotage and reproachful glances.
The airport is ablaze with noise and distraction, crammed with gawking tourists and impatient locals. Today, they all have one thing in common. Every single one of them swivels their head in bewilderment and sniffs the air as they pass me. They’re trying to figure out what’s making their eyes water.
A couple of frat bro types, sporting Abercrombie & Fitch shirts and pastel shorts, elbow each other and look at me. I’m holding my briefcase in front of my crotch to hide the stain where the perfume splashed me. And I’m imagining very creative acts of revenge on Winona Jeffers.
“Whoa, dude,” Blond Bro says, fanning the air with his hand.
I scowl. “Yeah, thanks. I know.”
“What the hell happened to you? Let me guess. You got mugged by a bingo club?”
I ignore him.
His friend joins in. “You banged an entire French whorehouse?” He guffaws.
“Charming,” I say tightly, “but no. I met a crazy woman in the back of a cab and she dumped her perfume in my lap.”
Just then, thank God, they spot their luggage on the baggage carousel and trot off to get it.
“Uncle Blake! Uncle Blake!” my niece’s excited shriek lightens my mood a little bit. Alice and Tamara wave at me enthusiastically, and hurry towards me.
Alice and her husband, Steve, live in Florida, and I don’t get to see them often enough. I keep trying to buy them guilt-gifts to make up for my insanely busy schedule and multiple missed holidays. Very, very generous guilt-gifts. When I had to cancel Christmas last year, I offered to buy or give Alice anything she wanted. She keeps turning me down.
When Alice and Tamara reach me, they both scrunch up their faces and wrinkle their noses in exactly the same way. They look so alike it makes my heart swell with emotion. Alice’s black hair is angled in a stylish chin-length bob, with thick dark eyebrows that frame kind, cornflower-blue eyes. Tamara has the same coloring, same brows, same slightly crooked left incisor. They’re both wearing Lilly Pulitzer, and between the neon floral print and their perpetual tans, they might as well have big blinking “I’m from Florida” signs over their heads.
“Uncle Blake, you smell like a lady!” Tamara giggles. “Have you been kissing a girl?” Her eyes widen. “Was it a princess?”
“Tamara!” Alice chides, laughing. She flashes me a grin and leans in to give me an air-kiss on the cheek. “I’d hug you, but I don’t want to smell like you. No offense.”
“None taken. I don’t want to smell like me either.” I grimace. My precious planner is ruined and I’m going to have to shower. If we rush back into the city, I’ll have time for a quick lunch with my family before the board meeting. I’m mentally rescheduling everything, sliding appointments into new time slots as I pull my niece in for a quick hug.
“Did you buy me anything, Uncle Blake? My birthday’s coming up.”
“Tamara, we do not ask people for presents,” Alice says firmly. “And your birthday isn’t for weeks anyway. Cool your jets, tiny terror.”
“But we’re coming back here for my birthday, right?”
“We could.” She ruffles her daughter’s hair. “If you behave.”
“Unlikely,” Tamara muses. “But I bet I’ll get to come back anyway.”
“It’s fine.” I wave away Alice’s objections. “You know I got my favorite niece a present for her seventh birthday!” I didn’t, but the head of our personal shoppers’ department, Thérèse, has a list of birthdays and other special occasions for my family, friends and business acquaintances, and she always gets the perfect gift.
Tamara’s brows pull together. “I’m your only niece. I’d have to be your favorite,” she says in a mildly chastising tone. “Also, I’ve thought about it, and you need a new girlfriend. Whoever that lady is, I don’t like her perfume.”
Alice covers her mouth with her hand to hide a snicker, and I suppress a smile.
“Oh, there’s our suitcases!” Alice starts to move forward, but Henry says, “Allow me!” and hurries over to get them.
“Speaking of girlfriends, how is Sloane?”
“We broke up about a week ago. She was really pushing for a ring.”
I sigh. Sloane was perfect on paper – she looked great on my arm and our families move in the same circles – but we just didn’t spark together. Now, if only I could find someone who lit me up like Winona, but didn’t boss me around and dump smelly things on me, I might actually consider dating again.
Well, it will have to wait until after my big project, and after I convince the board to take us public so we can finance opening up in London and Paris, and then of course I’ll be pretty busy for a while supervising the opening of those two locations…