Must Love Wieners (2 page)

Leaning over, she pressed the button for the fortieth floor, choking on the cloud of Old Spice cologne from the man next to her. His eyes followed the bounce of her cleavage as she stood back up. She wanted to tell him to take a picture, but instead she gave him a wink with her honey brown eye.

“Howdy.”

He grunted in disapproval. Frowning, he turned away, studiously ignoring the reflection in the doors. She bit her lip to hide a smirk.

Floor by floor, the elevator thinned out. Old Spice continued the ride with her to the top, fixing his sad comb-over in the reflection. When the doors opened for the last time, he waved the balloons away and stepped out. Piper followed him into a modern foyer. She often delivered telegrams to offices, but never one this nice.

Wrangling her balloons, she crossed the high-gloss tile to the glass desk in the middle of the reception room. A girl a few years younger than Piper’s twenty-six sat behind it, poised like a model for spray tan products.

“Hi there,” Piper said.

The receptionist’s eyes scraped over Piper’s costume. She held up a finger while speaking into her Bluetooth. “I’m sorry. He’s not available at the moment. He’s in a meeting. Uh-huh.”

Piper’s gaze flitted around the room, taking in the expensive paintings and the bouquet of hydrangeas bulging from a giant crystal vase that probably weighed a ton—and cost as much.

“Okay. I’ll tell him. Thank you.” She ended the call and smiled; well, maybe it was supposed to be a smile, but it looked more like a sneer. “Hello,” she said to Piper, although she was staring at the horse. “Can I help you with something?”

“I’m here with Sam’s Old World Singing Telegrams.”

“A singing telegram? For who?”

“It’s for an Aiden. Aiden Caldwell?”

“Aiden?” She practically choked. As though with new eyes, she took in the sight of Piper again and smiled. But Piper didn’t get the impression she wanted to be friends. “This should be interesting.”

“Interesting? Why?”

“Go on through.” She flicked her orange hand toward the glass doors to the side of the desk, bracelets jangling. “Third room on your left. Just head right in.”

“Sure. Thanks.”

The girl pushed a button behind the desk and the doors unlocked, allowing Piper access to the offices. She followed the directions, balloons trailing behind her, until she stood in front of a sign that said:
Boardroom One
. She reached out and gripped the door handle, but then she hesitated.

“Come on, Pipe,” she whispered to herself. A few more weeks of tuition fees to pay off and she could quit the damn job.

The bigger the act, the better the tips always were, so she reached into her bra again and pulled out her phone. Cuing up the cheesy Western-themed music, she hit
play
and burst through the door. A single guitar, a warbling harmonica, and the rhythmic clip-pity-clop of horse hooves blasted through her phone speakers.

Shoving the horse’s wooden pole between her legs, she yelled, “Yee-haw!” and skipped into the room, tassels swaying, heels clicking.

The lights were dimmed, the curtains closed. Unable to see where she was going, her foot caught on something. It sent her stumbling forward. She reached out to catch her fall. The horse clattered to the floor. Her knees took the landing hard, but her hand fell on something soft. When the lights flicked on, she saw it lay nestled in a man’s lap.

Gasping, Piper fell back and stared up at the man. He held a dripping coffee cup, a brown stain spreading across his expensive white shirt and tie. And then she saw his face.

Of course he was gorgeous. He had to be gorgeous. That was so damned typical.

“I–I’m so sorry,” she said.

“What the hell is this?” She turned to the angry voice. Old Spice.

Oh God. She hoped he wasn’t the one she was supposed to sing to—if they didn’t call Security to kick her out first. Delivering a telegram to a crotchety old guy like him? There was nothing worse.

She swallowed hard and struggled to untangle her boot from a cord that snaked across the boardroom floor. “I’m looking for Aiden Caldwell?”

When she glanced up, the hottie with the coffee-stained shirt was holding out his hand to help her up. A shadow of a smirk danced across his perfect lips. “I’m Aiden.”

Correction: that was worse.

He wasn’t the wrinkly, old businessman Piper had imagined. But he wasn’t simply cookie-cutter young and attractive, either. He was the kind of hot you would join a gym class for just to work out in the row behind him. Five days a week! And Piper hated the gym. But by the fit of his suit she could tell he was a devoted member of one.

She hesitated. “You’re Aiden Caldwell?”

He ran a hand through his ruffled bedhead hair that looked due to genetics rather than styling. His ears blazed a flaming pink, and he held a finger in front of his lips to try to hide an embarrassed grin. Suddenly, she wished it had been Old Spice she was sent there for.

“Yes,” he said. “That would be me, unfortunately.”

The music still clip-pity-clopped, and all the constipated-looking business types were staring at her from around a massive table. The presenter stood at the head of the room in front of pie charts and graphs, laser pointer frozen in his hand.

“I, uh, I’ve got a telegram for you.” Piper tried to act peppy, like Sam paid her to be, but it was hard to rally after her most epic failure. The room filled with titters and chuckles. She kept her eyes on Aiden, waiting for some cue.

Old Spice huffed through his nose and gave Aiden an arched eyebrow. This seemed to sober Aiden up. Taking a seat, he gestured.

“Well. We might as well get this over with.”

“Right,” she said.

After a deep breath, Piper cleared her throat. With a country-western twang, she began to sing, looking at everyone in the room except for the intended subject.

“This ditty’s for Aiden;

It comes from a fair maiden,

Who sent me to tell this to you:

Yer funny and sweet,

You swept me off my feet,

This I am tellin’ you true.

Yer eyes they do glimmer,

Makes my heart start to simmer,

Every time that I see yer face.

My smile grows big as the ocean,

Sets my heart into motion.

It takes me to a higher place.

So you’ve got me down kneelin’,

Beggin’ that you’re feelin’

What I know is true in my soul.

So if we’re meant to be together,

Like cowgirls and leather,

You’ll give a call to Nicole.”

By the time Piper finished, the blood had drained from Aiden’s face and he was no longer trying to hide a smile—although everyone around him certainly was. He didn’t appear impressed with receiving the love note, any more than Piper liked giving it.

His clean-shaven jaw clenched. She had a fleeting moment of pity for poor Nicole, who would probably never hear from him again. But then, it was Nicole’s fault Piper was there embarrassing herself. So really, she didn’t feel too bad.

“That was very entertaining. Thank you…,” Aiden trailed off, glancing at her left boob where a gold star badge held a false name, “Amber.”

Old Spice snorted next to him. “‘Entertaining’ is not the word I would use. This”—he waved a derisive hand at Piper—“is not appropriate for the workplace.”

Piper’s own lip curled in response to Old Spice’s sneer.

“No. You’re right,” Aiden said. “I’ll have a talk with the admin assistant. This is an animal-free environment, after all. It’s not appropriate to have horses in the building.”

The tension in the room evaporated, and everyone relaxed in their ergonomic seats, laughing.

Piper was used to the laughing. People got a kick out of this sort of thing. But this time, it felt different. This time, it felt like it was at her expense. Like she had any choice. This was her job, after all. Not everyone could work for a Fortune 500 company.

She wondered if they would still laugh at her if they knew why she was doing this, that it wasn’t her lifelong dream to be a slutty singing-telegram girl. She wanted to be a veterinarian. And she was working damned hard for it too.

But it didn’t matter what they thought. She knew why she was doing this, and nothing else mattered. Who were these people to her, anyway? Who was this Aiden Caldwell? You know, besides an Armani ad come to life.

Nobody. That was who.

Shoving the balloons and box of chocolates at him, she swiped her phone off the table, wheeled her horse around, and galloped out of the room. She could hear Aiden call her fake name, but she kept her eyes forward and her head up until she was in the elevator.

When she saw him round the corner, she punched the button for the ground floor and tapped the
close doors
button repeatedly until his face disappeared. It wasn’t until the elevator was descending and she stared at her pathetic reflection that she noticed the company logo stenciled on the mirrored doors for the first time.

It said:
Caldwell and Son Investments
.

Piper buried her face against the stuffed horse head and groaned. Aiden must have been the
and Son
. And she practically just gave him an over-the-pants hand job.

So much for not being a prostitute.

And he didn’t even tip.

2

The Fur Flies

Piper half-ran, half-limped all the way back to her taxi where Colin greeted her. Letting him comfort her with kisses, she leaned back in the seat to find her breath. And her dignity.

She rubbed her throbbing knee and stared out of the windshield where sporadic raindrops began to spatter. That was one of the worst singing-telegram experiences yet. Maybe not as bad as the time some frat boy mistook her for a stripper, but this time left her feeling more humiliated than usual. And that was really saying something.

The cab’s back door opened and a customer slid in, rocking the vehicle.

Piper cradled Colin close to hide him from sight. “I’m not in service right now,” she said over her shoulder. “Sorry.”

“You’re a taxi driver too?”

She glanced in the rearview mirror to find a pair of dark, minty green eyes smiling in the reflection.

“You’re a woman of many talents.”

She spun around. “Mr. Caldwell.”

“Aiden’s just fine.”

He looked strange in her cab. Like someone that successful and poised didn’t fit in her awkward world. People like him didn’t stare at her as if, well, as if they were seeing her, Piper, and not giving directions to a cabbie, or paying a pizza delivery girl, or eyeing up a telegram singer.

He appeared professional and collected in his designer suit and stylish narrow tie—even with the coffee stain—but in a way that she thought they might look even better coming off. Like when you’re tempted to step on the grass that says:
Keep off
or to scream in a library. Aiden’s composure certainly reminded her of an orderly, self-possessed librarian. A hot one that you wanted to dishevel behind the stacks.

Her eyes unconsciously drifted down to his lap where she’d had her hand not fifteen minutes earlier. The memory jarred her like a bucket of cold ice over her crotch.

“I’m sorry,” she said. “You’ll have to find another taxi.”

“I wanted to apologize, Amber. I didn’t exactly make that easy on you.”

“The name’s Piper. And don’t worry about it. I’m used to it.”

“No, really. That took a lot of courage. Especially after how things started.”

Piper winced. She laid her forehead against the steering wheel, wishing an out-of-control streetcar would derail and plow into her in the next three seconds.

Three … two … one …

But he continued on. “I thought the whole thing was hilarious. But I have to maintain a certain professional attitude in the workplace. I don’t like mixing business with pleasure. You understand.”

“Then you should probably tell that to Nicole.”

“Who?”

Piper snorted. Just your typical privileged playboy. Probably had so many conquests every week that he couldn’t remember their names by Monday morning. She knew his type. And he wasn’t hers.

Sure, he was rich, but in Piper’s opinion that was more of a con than a pro. Money created a different sort of man, and she wanted no part of it; otherwise she’d be living in Washington with her family rather than living paycheck to paycheck on her own in San Francisco.

She heard Aiden sniff in the backseat. “Does it smell like pizza in here to you?”

“Sorry about your shirt, by the way,” she said to change the subject.

As if he’d forgotten about it, he ran a hand over the dried stain. “No problem. I have two dozen of them that look exactly the same at home. I won’t miss it.” A teasing smile tugged at the corner of his mouth. “But I thought you’d be more sorry about falling into my lap.”

“Oh, I wasn’t sorry about that.” Which was a complete lie. “But I forgot to tell you that I charge extra for lap dances.”

He was being friendly enough, even flirting a little. Okay, so was she. Shamelessly. But Colin was struggling in her arms to greet the newcomer, she wanted to put some clothes on, and as cute as Aiden was, she planned on blocking the whole experience from her memory. It’s not like he’d be interested in her, anyway. Or if he was, she would just be another girl whose name he couldn’t remember.

“Look. I have to go,” she said. “I’m on the clock.”

“Well, if that’s the case, I’ll take a ride.” Laying his briefcase down next to him, he loosened his tie and relaxed into the leather seat. She could see a cocky grin spread across his lips in the rearview mirror, daring her to refuse a customer.

The clock on the dash informed her she was already late. Her volunteer shift at the Dachshund Rescue Center started soon and she still had to get the taxi back to the depot.

“I’m sorry. I don’t have time.”

“Please? You can’t say no to this face.” He batted his eyelashes. “I’ve been told that my eyes glimmer.”