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“Nothing for you to worry about, Ms. Frazee.” Jamie ensured her address to Siena this time held not a single trace of the purring flirt she had first used at the beginning of this call.

“Are we scheduling a time to meet about these questions or not?” The typing began again, and Jamie wondered why the hell she had ever expected anything else from this cold-hearted entertainment manager.

This wasn’t the woman she had picked up or the woman who had spent the afternoon with her, getting to know Jamie in a way no one else ever had.

“I don’t suppose I actually have a choice in the matter.”

“Of course you do,” Siena snapped, and for the first time, Jamie actually enjoyed the fire in her voice. “You have a choice about everything you write and don’t write. You have a choice about everything you do. Don’t put blame on other people for choices thatyou’vemade and the thingsyou’vedone.”

The silence stretched between them, and Jamie wondered how in the hell her life had gotten complicated. Drama had always been her interest, but not her own drama. When it came to her life, she steered away from drama in all areas.

“When are you free to once again discuss and eliminate questions the public might actually be interested in knowing the answers to?”

“You’re impossible.” The words were muttered, and pages were flicked with a force that sounded like Siena may have actually torn them incidentally. “Two days. One o’clock at the same cafe as before.”

“Fine. Your terms… once again.” Jamie didn’t need to check her calendar. She knew she had to prioritize this if she wanted to keep her job. It had never seemed like such hard work before. But she knew having her byline on an interview with Bunny and Piper would help her, both in this job and for her reputation on the blog.

Ever since Siena had learned that she was behind the blog, Jamie had been less careful about others finding out. Anyone paying attention could easily see that she was both of them. The call disconnected without even a word from Siena. Jamie stared at the receiver in her hand.

“Well, fuck you, too.” Jamie slammed down the receiver and looked up to find a fellow late shifter standing nearby. They held a full coffee cup in their hands, their mouth open a little and their eyebrows raised.

“This job is filled with shits and giggles, ain’t it?” Jamie ignored what else they might have wanted to discuss. She pushed her chair back and stood. Grabbing her coffee off her desk, she decided the coffee offered at the place downstairs might at least get her through the last few hours of her shift without her going full shit fit on anyone else who walked past her desk.

“Truth.” They chuckled, taking the hint and giving a nod as they continued on their way.

She didn’t have that kind of relationship with any of her colleagues, especially with the late shifters. She never had the kind of camaraderie that seemed to come easy for everyone else. She had never seen the point in it. When she was honest with herself, Jamie had never had that kind of sharing relationship with anyone. Other than Jessie. She’d never needed it.

Even with Jessie, there were times it was still hard for her to open up to her sister. She would in the end, but it had to be on Jamie’s timing and based on her sense of comfort. And with more than just a few pushes from Jessie.

Jamie walked to the small kitchenette of the office. Shedidn’t particularly need the caffeine, but anything to keep her hands busy and give her a sense of control was welcome. She had always been in control, always been on a path she was sure-footed with. It had never mattered that no one else understood it—not even Jessie.

But at the moment, nothing felt sure-footed. And everything kept getting in her way. Including herself.

“And this is why I should never have mixed business and pleasure, no matter how good the sex was.”

nineteen

Siena arrived early at the cafe.

The lunch crowd was still in full flow. The noise of muttered conversation, the clatter of ceramic dishware and flatware, mixed with the hiss and churn of the espresso machine. Taking a deep breath, Siena let the bustle of the cafe wash over her. It calmed a fluttering in her stomach that made absolutely no sense at all.

Especially considering what she planned to discuss with Jamie, outside of the interview questions, if such a conversation came up at all. The phone call with Jamie had been terse, and she had been grateful when it was over.

She tried to convince herself that showing up early was simply the professional thing to do. But her time had always been important and expensive. She rarely showed up early for anything. On time, definitely, but her work life rarely allowed her the luxury of waiting for an appointment. Especially one outside of her office.

But professionalism was the theme of the day, and that was why she’d shown up early—the only reason she’d shown up early. It had nothing to do with her needing to seat herselfbefore she saw Jamie again or why she had to choose the table farthest from the door in the hopes of getting to watch Jamie’s sashay one more time.

No. None of that mattered. They were just perks of being a consummate professional.

She regretted that her seating meant the cafe clock taunted her, being directly in her line of sight, but she refused to get up and move again.

“This is ridiculous,” she muttered to herself as she finished her first cup of coffee. It really should have been her only cup, but she still had ten minutes before she expected Jamie to show up, and she just couldn’t concentrate on the work she’d intended on doing while she waited.

After ordering a second cup of coffee and pulling out her calendar to go through next week’s meetings she needed to prepare for, her nerves settled. Siena looked up when she felt eyes roaming over her. She was halfway through her second cup and had worked out her schedule for next week within an inch of its life. Jamie smiled and gave a small nod when Siena’s eyes met her own.

Siena watched as Jamie eased her way through the cafe crowd, and for a moment, Siena forgot how to breathe.

Jamie truly was exquisite.