Piaget checked her watch another time. She was being stood up. Or maybe he’d been hit by the proverbial bus. He’d better be in critical, have a broken leg or something. It was nearly four in the afternoon. There was no way they were going to have time to get him a suit now. They might not even make it in time for dinner. Fashionably late was one thing, late late was another with Piaget’s mother.
She had known this was a bad idea. Love her? Ha! He couldn’t even be on time. Finally, Piaget grabbed her suitcase and locked the apartment door behind her. Lugging it down the stairs, she managed to bruise the back of her legs with the silly thing. It felt like she had packed bricks instead of a few necessities. That’s one thing she missed about having a man, or money in her life. Before now, Piaget had always had someone else to handle the bills, the arrangements, the suitcases. It was a lot easier.
A businessman was getting out of a cab and asking it to stay. She made a beeline for it. Perhaps she could bribe the cabbie to leave the guy behind and take her fare instead. With what money? her brain asked. Okay, so she would ask him to call another cab on his radio thingy. It would be the quickest she could get one.
“Hey, taxi!” Piaget skidded to a halt and once again the rolling suitcase banged into the back of her legs, causing her to stumble.
With a grin, the guy she had mistaken for a businessman gently grabbed her elbow to help keep her upright. Piaget simply couldn’t believe it. Shiny black loafers, dress pants, belt, tucked in ironed dress shirt, tie, shaved, hair freshly cut, showered, and what was that? Cologne? It had to have some sort of pheromones in it, it smelled that deliciously male on him. Her lips parted in a breathless word, “Max?”
Josephine Beintema 