Unanticipated Consequences

(Beware the Wrath of Paula)

7:00 AM

Castle loft.

Richard Castle was on the verge of falling asleep alone, after spending the entire night cleansing all possible (and some imaginary) traces of Kristina Coterra from the loft. He'd called a guy he knew who sent men over to haul away the couch she had straddled him on. He told them to send it to goodwill, along with its matching coffee table. The new ones would arrive that afternoon. He scrubbed clean every surface she had touched that night, thrown out the dinner she had brought, even taken the clothes he had worn that night down to the incinerator in the basement and burned them, including the shoes socks and underwear.

After tearing the loft apart, thoroughly cleaning every surface...twice, then putting it back together again, he took a long hot, nearly scalding shower, almost removing a layer of skin from his face to get any lingering traces of the oversexed tabloid reporter's lipstick from his skin. Even as he toweled himself off, he still felt unclean for allowing that manipulative woman to even touch him.

The look of hurt he had seen on Kate's face as she sent him home alone haunted his every thought that night. The realization that he had made such a terrible mess of things robbed him of a peaceful slumber as tears ran slowly down his face.

She was letting him off the hook...just like that. He didn't deserve to be let off the hook, and he knew it. He would rather deal with her anger. He wanted her to scream and yell and slam doors say hateful things. He could understand that, could take it like a man, but her forgiveness...he didn't deserve it, he never would. Spending the night alone in the empty loft was his penance, the only price she would exact from him over this and the guilt over his stupidity was eating him alive.

Just as his body was beginning to succumb to a fitful, restless sleep, he heard a loud pounding on the front door. He ran a hand through his hair, dragged the hand down the front of his face, then pulled on a t-shirt and sweat pants as he stumbled for the door.

….

"Richard Castle what the HELL were you thinking?" Paula Haas shouted angrily as she barreled past him into the loft, shoving a mockup of The Examiner into his hands, Kristina Coterra's article about her so-called romp with him, broken up by his jealous secret girlfriend, NYPD Detective, Kate Beckett featured on the front page.

"Never mind you obviously weren't, at least not with the body part you should have been, or you would have called me before agreeing to an interview with her. Or anything else for that matter!"

Rick's face burned with indignation for a moment at Paula for bursting into his apartment at seven in the morning, but it was quickly swallowed up by guilt as saw his picture on the front page alongside Kate's, their budding relationship laid bare for all to see. The very thing both of them were trying to avoid...at least for now.

"You have absolutely no idea how lucky you are that I have friends on the editorial staff of the Examiner, or THIS would have hit the news stands this morning!"

Richard Castle turned a pale, ghostly white, soon replaced by pale green as he fled to the master bath emptied the contents of his stomach into the toilet, followed by three dry heaves for good measure. When he returned to the living room, Paula was waiting impatiently for him, tapping the toe of of her high heeled shoe.

"I'm guessing by your reaction, that "Little Miss Swimsuit Edition" is not that far off the mark? You aren't the only one of my clients who has had a run in with her lately. She should really know better than to cross me, a lapse in her education I will be dealing with shortly."

Castle saw the predatory gleam in Paula's eye, and for a brief instant almost felt sorry for Kristina Coterra. Scylla was about to meet Charybdis.

"I want you and detective hot-pants in my office at 7 PM...sharp." Paula drilled him with a death glare and poked a well manicured fingernail into his chest. "If the two of you really intend to keep up this farce that you aren't jumping each others bones, then you are damned well going to do it the right way...MY way.

"And no more interviews, you moron! Leave the publicity stunts to me from now on. It's what you pay me for."