Brittany made her way home, to her apartment on the 7th floor with arms full of groceries. She walked in to find her roommate lounging on the recliner with a beer.

"Hey Brit. What the hell's all that?" she asked, gesturing her beer toward all the bags.

"Kristen Cooper is coming here for dinner tomorrow night," she explained.

"Oh. Why?" she wondered.

"Cause I'm up for partner and Natalie brown nosed her way to having her over for dinner so now we have to have her over, also," she told her, starting to unpack the groceries. Santana headed over to help her, taking a long pull of her beer.

"You're up for partner? Congrats! Wait…you said…we? We have to have dinner with her?" Santana asked curiously.

"So you know how you're my best friend ever, right?" Brittany pouted adorably, giving Santana her puppy dog eyes.

"What do you want me to do?" Santana chuckled, amazed at how much power that damn pout had over her.

"Just cook. Please, Sanny? I'll owe you big time but you're such a good cook and I really need to impress her," she begged.

"Fine, I'll cook. But I don't get why she doesn't just give you this job. You've been her personal slave for 4 years now," Santana brought up.

"I know. I guess she just has to play puppet master. Anyway, I bought all the food already…you cook, I'll clean and this time next week I'll be partner!" she jumped up and down excitedly.

Brittany was actually pretty stoked for the evening. Between Santana's cooking and their spacious, gorgeously decorated apartment, she couldn't help but feel confident. And besides, people could say whatever they wanted about Santana, and they did. 'Bitchy', 'Cocky', and 'Too gay too function' seemed to be among the most popular, but Brittany knew she had an ace in the hole because Santana was funny, well spoken, charming, and fact was, the girl knew how to entertain. Plus she was one of the top CPA's in the city and she was filthy rich, and there was nothing Kristen Cooper respected more than cold hard cash.

The next morning Brittany went over every detail in her mind for the evening. She had been up half the night cleaning, and sure she was exhausted but the apartment was flawlessly clean with fresh flowers on every end table. Santana had agreed to leave work early to pick up a good wine and start cooking. Everything had to be perfect.

"Pierce! Good morning!" her boss greeted her as she stepped in the office.

"Good morning. You're in a good mood. Have a nice time at Natalie's last night?" she asked handing Kristen her breakfast and her messages.

"It was decent…though if I wanted to have boring small talk over low grade beef I would've had dinner with my mother," she admitted.

"Oh," Brittany replied, starting to do a mental victory dance and congratulating herself for shelling out the extra cash for the filet mignon.

"But afterwards I hit this bar by her place and met this cute law student and believe you me, Pierce. She was anything but boring," she winked, showing Brittany the scratch marks on the back of her neck.

"So are we still on for tonight, Pierce? Don't you tell me no," she asked.

"Oh, yeah. Everything's all set. 6 sharp. Santana and I are looking forward to it," she grinned.

"Looking forward to finally meeting your girlfriend," her boss commented, throwing all the messages Brittany had handed her into the trash.

"Oh, Santana's not my girlfriend. We're just best friends," Brittany explained. Her boss arched her eyebrow at the statement and chuckled.

"Okay, Pierce. Hold my calls, okay? I have a meeting. Finally going to land the Kaplan account," she said.

"The Kaplan account? I thought we were giving up on that once we scored the Hawthorne project?" Brittany commented.

"Well what can I say, Kaplan still wants Cooper. I'm meeting him and his daughter in the village for sushi this afternoon to seal the deal," she explained.

"His daughter?" Brittany asked.

"She's his budgeting executive. And bonus, she's a fucking fox. Looks I have two deals to seal today, huh?" she winked at Brittany. Brittany just chuckled and shook her head. She couldn't believe how her boss was already thinking about her next hook up when we was still sporting the battle wounds from the last one. She could only hope the meeting would go well this afternoon so her boss's good mood would last until dinner tonight.

Brittany swayed back and forth in the elevator uncomfortably on the way up to her apartment. She was running a little late due to bad traffic and her boss was due for dinner in fifteen minutes. She wasn't going to have time for a shower, but she at least wanted to change into something a little classier and double check that everything was perfect.

When the doors slid open Brittany ran to the door anxiously, practically throwing herself inside.

"Hey San! Is everything okay? Is everything ready?" she asked frantically, running toward the kitchen.

"Hey Brit. Everything is almost ready. I got a beautiful bottle of Merlot, the food is simmering and hey…don't be nervous. You've given your whole life to this job, and I'm sure Kristen sees that. You're clearly the right choice," Santana grins at her.

"Thanks. You look nice, by the way. Very classy," Brittany commented on Santana's black strapless dress and heels.

"Thanks Brit. Let's get you partner!" she exclaimed, wrapping Brittany in a hug.

"I just want to get dressed. She'll be here any minute," Brittany scampered off to her room to choose an outfit.

Within moments she heard a knock at the door. Six sharp, just like she promised.

"Okay, here we go," she breathed out nervously.

"You got this! Stand up straight, smile, confident!" Santana encouraged her while stirring the risotto at the stove. Brittany grinned and opened the door.

"Kristen, hi. Right on time, come in, please," she stepped aside allowing her boss to enter the doorway.

"Scored the Kaplan account, Pierce. What did I tell…" she started, freezing in her tracks when she saw Santana across the room.

"Hello there. I don't believe we've met," she made her way across the room, sliding her expensive leather jacket down off her shoulders and holding it behind her for Brittany to grab. Santana left the confines of the kitchen and approached Brittany's boss.

"Santana Lopez, I'm Brittany's roommate. So nice to meet you, Ms. Cooper. You're a legend," Santana greeted, holding out her hand for Kristen to shake. She cracked an amused smile and shook Santana's hand slowly, yet firmly.

"You can call me Kristen. And the pleasure is all mine," she replied.

"Well dinner's almost ready, how about a glass of wine?" Santana offered.

"That would be lovely. Pierce, how about some wine?" she called, not taking her eyes of Santana's.

"Oh, I'll get it. You two should probably sit and talk," Santana offered.

"Don't be ridiculous. You slaved over this meal, the least she could do is pour you a glass of wine," Kristen commented, taking a seat at the dining room table.

"Yeah, Santana it's fine, I'll get it," Brittany commented, pulling three glasses down from the cabinet.

"So this place is gorgeous. I was surprised to see it was such a well kept building. What do you do Santana?" she asked.

"I'm a CPA, actually. At Wilkinson Reid, a firm down town," she told her. Brittany came in from the kitchen, setting down their glasses of wine.

"Thanks Pierce. Can you grab me a mineral water while you're up? So, Wilkinson Reid, huh? I've known Reid for years, I designed his loft. Can we plan to see Lopez on the end of that billboard anytime soon?" she commented. Brittany rolled her eyes lightly and headed back toward the kitchen.

"Um, who knows? No word of me making partner anytime soon, but I'm pretty happy right now. I have a bigger clientele than the rest of his staff so the future looks good," Santana admitted, swirling her wine glass in her hand to give it air.

"I bet you do. Maybe I'll have you tackle my finances," she purred and Brittany's jaw dropped as she listened in from the kitchen. Was her boss seriously hot for Santana?

"Please, a multi millionaire like you? I'm sure you have all kinds of people watching your pennies," Santana chuckled. She was seemingly unphased, but Brittany knew when her boss was flirting. And this was flirting.

"Here you go, mineral water. So you were saying about the Kaplan deal?" Brittany asked desperately trying to snap her boss out of it and bring the focus to her.

"Yeah, scored it. So Santana, where did you go to school?" she asked, causing Brittany to roll her eyes again.

"Um, Columbia. Hey, you two sit here and talk business, I will go plate up dinner!" she replied, scampering toward the kitchen.

"So wait until you taste Santana's risotto. It's like my favorite thing ever," Brittany grinned, trying to keep her boss's attention.

"I bet it is. Is she seeing anyone?" Kristen asked, hardly taking her eyes of Santana roaming around the kitchen.

"Um, no…no she isn't," Brittany answered.

"Interesting…" she commented, taking a sip of her wine.

Later…

"So I wake up, and I'm like…where the hell am I? I look next to me and there's this red headed broad still fast asleep, and there's fucking cats…everywhere! Still don't know how I ended up going home with a loony like that. Fuckin tequila, right?" Kristen laughed as the three had retired to the living room for coffee. Brittany was still on edge, having hardly got a word in most of the night and Santana was trying hard not to fall asleep at all of Kristen's stories.

"So Santana, surely you must have an interesting romantic life?" she pondered.

"Oh…um, not really. The last girl I dated was kind of all wrong for me. And I've got the whole married to the job thing going on, you know," Santana explained, praying to God Brittany's pompous boss would run out of things to talk about soon. After being subjected to three hours of this, Brittany better make partner.

"A young, attractive, wealthy professional like you? You know Santana, I think you and I are a lot alike. We're both powerful women who get what we want out of life and have talent coming out of our asses," she commented. Santana sighed, annoyed that she was comparing them as similar.

"The world is yours, kitten. Don't ever feel like you have to put something on the back burner. Us successful types…we can have everything in this damn world we want," she winked at Santana and stood up.

"Santana, thank you for a wonderful evening. The food was delicious and the company was stunning as well," she reached for Santana's hand again.

"You're welcome. It was great having you over," Santana commented, shaking her hand. Brittany had already made her move to the coat rack and was ready to hand her boss her jacket.

"Pierce, walk me to the elevator, please," she said, not breaking eye contact with Santana as she held their handshake a few seconds longer. When she turned around and headed out the open door Santana gave Brittany a grin and a thumbs up.

"Well thank you for coming. I hope you had a good time," Brittany said as she followed her to the elevator.

"Let's cut to the chase, Pierce. I'm interested in Santana," she commented, taking her jacket from Brittany and sliding it on.

"I got a vibe from her as well. She's interested in me too, isn't she?" she continued. Brittany fought the urge to giggle, because she could read Santana's body language throughout their entire evening and it definitely did not demonstrate that Santana was at all interested in Kristen. But she also knew that no matter what the circumstances were, Kristen Cooper always got her girl. Or else there would be hell to pay.

"Um, yeah. Yeah she's totally into you, I could tell," Brittany lied.

"I knew it. I could tell, she was smitten with me. Set it up, Pierce. Tell her I want to have dinner with her tomorrow night. Balthazar at eight," she directed as she stepped into the elevator.

"Um…what if she already has plans?" Brittany asked, starting to panic.

"Pierce, you make this date happen, and you're partner. Any more questions?" she added in her signature cocky tone.

"She will see you there at eight!" Brittany exclaimed just before the elevator door closed. She regretted it as soon as it came out of her mouth.

"Shit!" she whispered to herself. How the hell was she going to pull this off?

"Relax Santana, you just have to go on one date with a girl you're not even a little bit interested in so I can get a promotion I should be able to earn on merit, but since my boss is a psycho I have to use you as hot girl bate and if you could let her get to like at least second base with you that would be amazing," Brittany played her part of the conversation in her head, already knowing how ridiculous it was going to sound. She was going to owe Santana huge if she could get her on board with this.

"I'm screwed," Brittany sighed as she headed back into her apartment.