Flirting in Traffic Read Online Free PDF Page B

awareness for the first time that evening.
    What did she really know about Finn Madigan? Since when did construction workers live in expensive, luxurious, tasteful Streeterville condominiums with prime lake views?
    Since when did Dr. Esa Ormand have sex with a complete stranger on the floor of his foyer?
    Suddenly the whole situation since she’d danced with Finn at One Life seemed surreal. She knew nothing about the man she’d just made shameless, passionate love to.
    Panic flared in her chest, momentarily stealing her breath. God, at least he’d worn a condom. She’d have that thought to soothe her in her future sessions of self-mortification and mental cursing in regard to her promiscuous behavior tonight.
    Esa tightened the belt of her trench coat with shaking hands. The water faucet shut off in the bathroom. Her eyes went wide in panic.
    She bolted for the bedroom door like she thoroughly believed lightning was about to strike Finn Madigan’s bed.

Chapter Four
    Finn didn’t speak when Jess walked into the trailer at eleven-fifteen the following morning, but he guessed he didn’t have to by the sheepish look on his younger brother’s face.
    “Sorry I’m late.”
    Finn scowled and let the blueprints on his drafting table roll closed. He wasn’t in the mood for Jess’ excuses. Not this morning he wasn’t.
    As the second-oldest Madigan, Jess would have been the obvious choice for shouldering at least part of the burden for the welfare of the Madigan family. Mary Kate was the next oldest but she worked hard as a foreman for Madigan Construction and had three rambunctious children under the age of nine to consider as well.
    The previous owners of Madigan Construction, Uncle Joe and their father Ed, had died within three months of each other this past summer. It had been a brutal double blow for the Madigan clan, one that had indelibly changed the trajectory of Finn’s life. Finn’s mother knew woefully little about the details of running Madigan Construction, even less about its financial workings and building contracts.
    Molly Madigan had always been a busy housewife. Her husband, extended family and seven children kept her more than busy at home. Any spare time she possessed was spent volunteering at her church and in the community.
    The shocking, unexpected death of her husband of thirty-four years had hit her the hardest of all, of course. Finn had taken one look at his mother’s bewildered, shattered expression as he went through his father’s office the evening after the funeral, trying to make sense of Ed’s haphazard bookkeeping system, and known that his life was about to change forever.
    That same night he’d made the decision to sell his shares in the architecture and engineering firm he’d established with his good friend and partner Jason Prevast. The firm had only been up and running for a few years and hard-won, lucrative contracts had just started to come pouring in. Jason had given him more than a fair price for his shares but Finn was no fool. He knew he’d walked away from not only an enormously fulfilling career but a financially rewarding one as well.
    But if he didn’t do something to whip his father’s business into shape, Madigan Construction was not only going to end up floundering, but taking down the Madigan family with it into the murky depths of bankruptcy and monetary hardship.
    He’d hated that he had to at least temporarily give up on his dreams. But life was a bitch sometimes, right? No reason to moan about it. He still had two younger sisters in high school, two brothers in college, his mother and his elderly grandmother to think about supporting.
    He’d tried his best to plan for the painful, drastic alteration in his life. But fate wasn’t satisfied until it threw him another unexpected blow. His live-in fiancée Julia, the woman with whom he’d believed he would spend the rest of his life, had been dead set against his decision to sell his firm and run the family