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It was cold outside. It took her a few moments to notice it – the wine probably helped with the slower reaction time, to be honest – but now she was acutely aware of the fact that she was freezing her ass off and questioning whether leaving the warmth of Abby's place had really been the right decision.

'Kate!'

She tried to ignore him as she scrambled in her bag for her phone.

'Kate!'

It didn't work. He was standing directly in front of her now, almost forcing her to look at him.

'What Tony?' she snapped. 'You thought you'd come outside and see if you could ruin my night further?'

'Hey, it's not my fault you buddied up to a guy who barely has one functioning brain cell.'

Her eyes darkened angrily and he held up his hands in defeat before quickly hurrying on. 'Anyway, that's not why I came out here.'

'Then why did you come out here Tony?'

'I-' he paused for a moment and Kate frowned in confusion. He shrugged off his jacket and handed it to her, noticing the arms she was hugging to herself were shivering in the cold.

She hesitated for a moment before taking it from him. 'Thanks,' she muttered reluctantly, rolling up the sleeves which were miles too long for her.

'I wanted to check if you were okay.'

'You wanted to check if I was okay?' He gave a small shrug of confirmation and tried to hide a smile as she stepped towards him and one of the sleeves she'd just carefully rolled up unravelled and swallowed up her hand.

'Maybe I would have been okay if you had just left me alone and not picked the woman standing right next to me to flirt with. Maybe I would have been okay if you didn't use tonight as an opportunity to tell strangers about the wet t-shirt contest.'

She took a step back, pushing the sleeve up again and focusing on her handbag. 'And maybe I'd be okay if I could just find my damn phone to order a ride home and get away from here!'

'Let me give you a lift.'

She looked at him sceptically. 'I haven't had as much to drink as you. And my car has heating. I don't know if you've noticed, Kate, but it's kind of cold out here. Especially now that I'm down a jacket.'

She hesitated for a moment before the allure of heating won over. 'Fine.'

She followed him to his car in silence and turned away from him to look out the window as he started the engine. It took a few minutes for the heating to kick in but there was no denying it was much more comfortable to be in the car rather than hanging around outside.

He should have been focusing only on driving but he couldn't help but steal a quick glance over at Kate. She looked cute in his jacket – the whole thing was too big for her, which made her seem more vulnerable somehow. She'd rested her head on a hand, giving up on rolling the sleeves back, so that they fell big and clumsy on her small arms. He knew, though, that if he told her any of this they would probably be the last words he would ever speak.

He gave her silence for most of the car ride which, really, was not the easiest thing in the world for someone like Tony to do. But when they were a few streets away from Kate's place, he decided to take a gamble and break the silence.

'So, you didn't like me flirting with another woman?'

If he was trying to get her attention it worked. Her head immediately snapped around to face him, mouth open in surprise. 'What?'

'Well, you did say that you might have been okay if I hadn't flirted with Nurse Sarah.'

'Because she was standing right next to me,' Kate reminded him, through gritted teeth.

'But if you weren't bothered by me flirting with someone, then it shouldn't matter if they're there next to you or on the opposite side of the room.'

She wanted to think of a quick reply but her mind was filled with the fact that she'd just dug herself into a hole that she couldn't get out of, so she settled for snapping 'you're impossible, Tony,' before turning to look out the window again.

Of course Tony would pick up on her tipsy slip of the tongue. And of course Tony would use it against her. She could feel the blush rising to her cheeks as she wondered how many ways he would find to remind her of this in the future and keep the humiliation she was feeling right now fresh.

For the millionth time, she found herself wondering why she had to fall for Tony of all people and thinking of how much easier her life would be if she could just fall for one of those boring, stable guys her friends and family were always trying to set her up with.

But 'easy' wasn't part of Kate Todd's vocabulary. She'd spent her whole life proving herself, pushing herself, refusing to settle and always aiming for those things that were just a bit more difficult or out of reach. So of course that would have to translate to her not being able to fall for a 'suitable' guy and instead finding herself obsessing over her womanising, immature co-worker who would never fall for someone like her.

She sighed in frustration before realising that the car was slowing to a stop outside her apartment. As soon as Tony put the car in park, she opened the door and got out as quickly as she could before realising Tony was doing the same.

'I'll walk you up to your apartment,' he offered.

'Don't worry about it,' she muttered, eager to put some distance between them.

Clearly, he wasn't so eager to put distance between them since her words hadn't appeared to have deterred him in the slightest and he was now walking right next to her.

'I'm not worried,' he said cheerfully. 'I just figure this way I can get my jacket back once you're inside rather than making you strip it off on the street and freeze again.'

'Oh.' She'd forgotten she was wearing his jacket, to be honest. Which was surprising, considering it was so big she kept on having to pull the shoulders up to stop it from falling down. Humiliation seemed to have a way of overshadowing smaller annoyances like that.

'You know,' he said, as they climbed the stairs to her floor, 'you really should think of upgrading your apartment. There's this fantastic invention called elevators which means you can actually get to your floor and be able to breathe at the same time.'

'It wasn't my idea to have you follow me up to my place, Tony.'

'Probably not a good idea to climb all these stairs alone after a few wines, though. What if you fell?'

'I'm not drunk.'

'I didn't say you were. Tipsy, maybe. Unable to operate heavy machinery, definitely.'

'Okay,' Kate said, turning around to face him. 'We're at my floor now, you can go home.'

Tony shook his head. 'I don't think so. What if your gladiator friend is hanging around waiting for a late night hook up? Or –' his eyes widened in pretend shock, 'what if Nurse Sarah is with him and they're after a ménage a trois? I should definitely walk you to your apartment to make sure.'

Kate rolled her eyes and walked to her door, swinging it open as she unlocked it. 'There. No gladiator. No nurse. Just my empty apartment. Happy?'

She placed her handbag on the table and turned to find him walking towards her. 'Well, not really, Kate.'

'What now, Tony?' she sighed, her hand resting on the chair next to her to support herself.

'You know how you didn't like me flirting with Nurse Sarah?'

She opened her mouth to protest but Tony continued speaking before she got the chance to. 'Did you ever think that maybe I was jealous of seeing you flirt with that gladiator?'

Whatever she had been expecting him to say, it definitely wasn't that.

And whatever she had been expecting him to do, it definitely wasn't him closing the distance between them after he said those words, placing his hands on her waist and bringing his lips down to meet hers.

She hadn't meant to react – or at least, it had happened so fast that all she really knew was that she didn't think she had meant to react – but the feel of his lips brought something to life in her that she hadn't felt in a very long time. And the next thing she knew, her hands were resting on his neck and she was bringing her body in closer to his and her mind was full of Tony.

When they finally pulled away, she opened her eyes to find Tony looking at her with one of those infuriating smiles of his.

'Night, Katie.'

And the next thing she knew, he'd walked out her door.

It took a few moments to gather herself together, to realise she was staring at the now closed door and gaping like an idiot.

It was still a few moments after that she realised she was still wearing his jacket.

Will Tony come back and demand the return of his jacket? Or was it a deliberate ploy to bring Kate (and his jacket) to his place? Or will neither happen and will Kate let the jacket lie forgotten in her closet forever?

To find out the fate of Tony's jacket and to keep Tate alive in 2019:

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