Chapter 4

Kate had never met any man like Rick, one who'd so quickly sent her into tizzy from which she could find no escape, and yet, despite the list of his qualities that already had her ruffled, she still felt an unrelenting urge to pin his body up against the nearest wall with her own and to explore every inch of fresh territory. The dark chocolate and bourbon delight on her plate might well have been a slice of heaven, but it had nothing on the sort of treats her imagination was quietly cooking up.

It was really starting to piss her off.

"Are you really that delusional?" Kate said in accusatory tone. "Do you honestly think I'm going to sleep with you just because you poured me some expensive wine and fed me some fancy cake?"

The corner of Rick's mouth twitched.

"You know, that's the second time you've put words in my mouth in, like"-he feigned looking at his watch-"less than a minute. First it was the suit and now this. I'm sorry, but I don't seem to recall asking you to sleep with me. Are you sure I'm the delusional one here?"

Shit, Kate thought, playing the minute back in her head. He hadn't.

"It's…I'm just saying, whatever it is you imagine is going to happen between us isn't going to happen. Not a date, nothing."

"Sorry," Rick offered in acknowledgement of the ensuing long-drawn pause, "my old pal, Willy S., was whispering something in my ear, something about protesting too much." Off her sneer he kept on. "Okay, fine, I heard you, but if you're going to shoot me down in my own restaurant in front of my boys, at least tell me why. Tell me your reasons. I can take it, whatever they are."

Kate sensed a softening as he worked to swallow the bitter pill she'd administered, and though the shift inspired a twinge of regret for the frost in her rejection, she still put up a fight.

"I don't want to do this. Why does it even matter?"

What she didn't want to do was put on more of an act than she already had, and she knew that's exactly what she'd have to do. She wasn't about to burden a total stranger with any of her baggage, no matter how much-or strangely-he didn't feel like one. Or maybe it was that she'd had so little practice unburdening herself, she didn't really know how.

"For one, if I know your reasons, it'll be easier for me to point out how wrong they are. It'll also keep you at my table for a while, which I like. Not that I hope there are so many reasons that it takes a while. I would not like that very much."

He wasn't going to let her get out of it. That was clear. They were just going to keep talking and talking in circles.

"Look, Rick, the fact of the matter is that I'm just not attracted to you. You're just not my type."

Rick left his fork on his plate and crossed his arms, studied her a beat.

"And that's something that's important to you?" he said in jest. "Okay, you know what, then let's say that I believe you, that I believe you haven't thought about what it would've been like if I'd really kissed you earlier, or about why it is, for two people who've just met, that it feels like we're already a long way down the road. I'm going on the record here to say I don't, but let's pretend I do. Set me up then."

Kate's brow dipped. And good god had she thought about it.

"What does that mean?"

"Match me, whatever, however you say it." Her face read confused, but she really wasn't. "You're not interested? Someone else will be. I'm saying that you're matchmaker Kate and I'm single Rick, so find me that someone else. Work your match-ic, so to speak. See what I did there? That's right good-looking and witty. You're passing up on quite the package."

Somewhere along the line, the evening had taken a truly bizarre turn, and Kate seemed to be the only occupant of the car. She should've just agreed to go on the stupid date, and then it all would've been over with. One night and out, as she was well practiced. Then she could've gone right back to her uncomplicated apartment and her uncomplicated life.

Now what the hell was she supposed to do? Now she was going to have to spend time with him, get to know him, carry that voice of his around with her in her whole damn body for who knew how long.

"You want me to be your matchmaker?"

"No, I want to take you out on a date Saturday night that lasts until forever, but you said you don't want that, so here we are. Come on, you already know my money's good. It's feeding you one of the best desserts on the planet. What, do you have some objection to working with me, too?" he questioned off her blank stare.

It was another bad idea in a night of bad ideas, and yet, again, Kate found herself agreeing to it.

"No. Why would I?" she replied defensively, filling her mouth with too much cake.

"Great. So, how does this work?" Rick started to go for his phone. "If you need photos, I have plenty to choose from."

"Why doesn't that surprise me?" Kate muttered behind her napkin. "I don't need your photos. You'll have to come to my office."

He angled backward, canted his head. "I can't wait to see your office," he said in a way where office carried a very different meaning. "When?"

"I'll have-"

"I'm free tomorrow." His thrill in knowing he'd be seeing her again trampled on her response. "Wherever. Whenever."

Kate grabbed her clutch and pulled out one of her business cards, handed it over reluctantly.

"After 2PM," she told him, setting loose dozens of butterflies in her stomach.

Rick may not have been alone in his excitement, but he was the only one willing to show it.

xxxx

Kate answered the knock at the door early the following afternoon knowing whom she'd find on the other side, but that helped to bring no calm to her busy mind, which had been locked all morning in a state akin to a buzzing hive of bees. Soon that knock would belong to someone else, and that was everything she could think about.

Before even a word was said, the whistle equivalent of a catcall, equal parts loud and obnoxious, came shooting her way, and it immediately sent her retreating to the safety of her desk.

"Why, Katherine Beckett, who may I ask are you all dolled up for today?" Lanie, Kate's closest friend and a woman who rarely kept a thought to herself, shut the door behind her, a bag dangling from each hand. "Does someone have a hot date tonight, I hope, maybe one she actually wants to go on for a change?"

For more than a year running, the pair had a standing lunch appointment every Friday, one they always enjoyed in the relative peace of Kate's office.

"Don't ever make that sound again, first of all, and there's no hot anything. I'm just…this is how I dress, for work. Can you stop staring at me like that, Lanie, please? It's normal clothes. It's what I wear."

It wasn't, and they both knew it. She never wore skirts that rose that high or tops that plunged that low. Not for clients, at least.

"Girl, please, I'm in this office every week, and I have never once seen that much leg or that much of your twins." She dropped the bags of Chinese food onto Kate's desk. "You say 'no hot anything' but you're looking foxy, that work BS you're trying to sell or not. Hell, if I had legs as long as a city block, I wouldn't be hiding them, either."

"Thanks, I guess, for that and for the food. Did you remember the-"

"Yes, I remembered, Kate. I always remember. Go on, get in there. I'm starving."

Kate removed the cartons from the bags and set them out on her desk. They had it all down to a science: the passing, the pouring, the soups, and sauces. They were like their own little serving machine.

"How's work?" Kate asked, digging in.

"Lots of bodies. All of them dead. I swear, the things people do to people in this city. Be glad you never have to see any of it is all I'm going to say."

Relieved at being spared any details that surely would have ruined her favorite meal, Kate bestowed thanks.

"What's up over here in Love Central? I sure hope there's more going on in your clients' bedrooms than in mine."

Kate started to laugh, but the vision of a certain new client abducted her mind and brought that to an abrupt end.

"Yoo-hoo. Anyone home?" Lanie snapped her fingers and won her back. "Where did you go just now?"

Hiding in the food a few breaths, Kate gathered herself.

"Sorry, nowhere. I, um, I have a new client, actually. He's coming in this afternoon."

"He? Nice. Spill. What's his deal and is he foxy, too?"

"Every time, Lanie? Really?"

"Humor the single girl, okay? Most of the guys I meet don't have a pulse."

Kate had to decide-and quickly-how much of what'd happened with Rick the night before she was going to share. Too much and she'd never hear the end of it. Too little and she'd never hear the end of it.

The mental coin she flipped came up 'too little'.

"I stopped at il Castello to have a drink on the way home last night. He came over and we started talking. It turned out he owns the restaurant." She paused. That pause was her mistake. "Yeah, we just started talking. He's coming in this afternoon."

Lanie put down her fork and cleared her mouth. After years of friendship, it was obvious to Kate an earful was coming.

"Excuse me, but could you possibly have made that story any more boring? I practically fell asleep in my fried rice. Also, I know when you're hiding something, and you should've learned that by now. You get all sputtery and start repeating yourself. Give it up, Katherine. What's the rest of it?"

"Would you relax?" The irony of that ask wasn't lost on her. "It's not a big deal, Lanie. All right, so maybe there was wine, too, and maybe we ate dessert in the restaurant's kitchen." Lanie's eyes widened. "Then maybe, at some point, he might've asked me out." She raised a finger in the air. "But I said no. I said no, so he asked me to set him up."

"I guess that answers my question," Lanie said. "He's not hot." Kate tried and failed to disappear behind her water bottle. "He is, isn't he. The man got your juices flowing and you weren't going to tell me. And I'm sorry, back up, you ate what where now?"

"I told you he owns the restaurant," Kate responded coolly. "He brought me back to the kitchen and we had dessert. It was kind of weird, but the cake was incredible."

Lanie snickered. "By 'cake' did you mean the man's ass, because the way you said it sure didn't sound like any Betty Crocker business. What's this guy's name?"

"Everything isn't always about sex. Jesus. His name is Rick." Lanie threw her a set of eyes she knew well. "Fine, he's handsome. Are you happy? He knows it, too. That was the problem."

"Since when? Give me a break. Like that's not the type you go for. Like Will didn't walk around knowing he was a fine, fine man. Please. Confidence is candy for you."

Lanie wasn't wrong. Something in Kate was drawn to that sort of boldness, to the assured air of a man who enjoyed being the man he was, and Rick had been playful about it more than anything else. That only added to the appeal.

"Yeah, well…"

What could she say?

"I'll go out with him," Lanie announced.

"What?"

"Yeah, this is a perfect opportunity to find out what the man is like. Set us up, me and him. It's not like it would break your rule about not doing the matching thing with your friends because it'd be strictly business. The two of us go out, I find out what's what, I come back and share all the juicy details. I get to play dress-up, which you know I love and don't get to play often enough, and you get the skinny. It's a win-win."

"Do you have any idea how gross that sounds, Lanie? I don't need you to be some, like, little spy that I send out on fake-date recon missions. I told you I wasn't interested. I don't need-or want, for that matter-any of his juicy details."

Lanie reached for one of the cartons. "What color are his eyes?" she asked as she spilled a pile of its contents onto her plate.

"Blue, but like the ocean," Kate answered without need of thought, falling straight into the trap that'd been set for her. "Okay, that doesn't mean-"

"My mother used to tell me it's not what you say, it's the way you say it. The way you said it, ooh honey, you want his details alright, the juicier the better. You should let me do this for you. We could both use some fun in our lives."

Kate's phone buzzed on the desk, and the interruption couldn't have come at a better time.

"Hi, it's Rick," it began innocently before promptly pivoting, "the man you haven't stopped thinking about since last night, the man you're now picturing naked." There was a pause. "Hopefully my power of suggestion class has paid off. I'm running ten minutes late, but I'll make it up to you at 2:10PM. See you."

With a rush of heat coursing through her body, Kate turned her attention back to her lunch, grateful he wasn't there to see her in that moment. Otherwise, he might've understood just how little suggestion it was she needed.