Blind Date Disasters & Eat Your Heart Out

wanted it with a sudden, shocking yearning that he wasn’t going to question right now, not with Dimi looking at him with a little heat of her own in her eyes. Heat and curiosity and lingering embarrassment. “We could just get it out of the way, you know,” he suggested, stepping toward her.

“Get what out of the way?” But she licked her lips and glanced at his mouth, giving herself away.

“You know what.”

“I don’t even know why you’re here, in my kitchen, getting yourself sexually harassed by my sister, much less anything else.”

“I’m here to pick you up.”

“Ah.” She nodded in sudden understanding. “You thought after your little shenanigans yesterday that I wouldn’t show up for work. Good. That means I’m not fired. That you need me.”

“Oh, I need you,” he murmured, a bit surprised at how much.

At that, she took a step back, so that she was caged between the dishwasher and the oven.

He followed.

“Sexually aggressive men annoy me,” she said.

Sliding his hands to her hips, he turned them around so he was the one caged in. “Okay. You be the sexually aggressive one, then. I’m an equal opportunist when it comes to-”

She put a finger on his lips. “Don’t say the word sex.”

“Why not?”

“Because when you say it, it does something funny to my knees.”

“Yeah?” He liked that. She was close, her mouth softly parted, her eyes slumberous. He liked that, too. “Kiss me, Dimi.”

“Uh.” She swallowed, hard. “That would be extremely unwise.”

“Why?”

“Why?” She looked lost for a moment, as if she couldn’t quite remember why.

“We both want it,” he said.

“Do you give yourself everything you want?”

“Absolutely. That’s the bonus of being all grown up. I can break curfew, not eat my spinach…and kiss whomever I want, even if it’s extremely unwise.”

She stared at him, actually considering.

“Think of all the fire it will give the show today,” he coaxed, but that was where he made his mistake. He knew it as soon as her eyes cooled and her mouth hardened.

“That’s right,” she said, straightening away from him. “The show. This is all for the show.” She gave him a tight smile. “Let’s just save it for the camera, then, shall we?”

Grabbing her purse off the counter, she walked out the door without another look at him, back to the serious, quiet, original Dimi, not a cooking sex kitten in sight.

“Note to self,” he muttered. “Next time you get Dimi in your arms, don’t open your idiotic mouth.”

5

DIMI HAD JUST applied her lipstick when the knock came to her dressing room.

“Costume!” Leo’s voice called.

There were no costumes on this show, and Leo knew it. She wore her own clothes. In fact, she’d been given a budget for a new wardrobe but hadn’t as yet spent time figuring out what that new wardrobe should be. Prepared for one of the cast’s usual jokes, she cautiously opened the door.

Leo stood there holding a hanger. Swinging from it was a little black push-up bra beneath a gauzy, completely sheer long-sleeved chartreuse blouse and a pair of black…pants. She used the word loosely, since they were cut so low she doubted they’d ever cover any normal woman’s hips, of which hers were more normal than most. Hanging from Leo’s fingers were a pair of high-heeled, open-toed sandals, designed to torture some poor woman’s feet.

“Made just for you,” Leo informed her. “Look.”

Indeed, when she leaned forward and squinted at the see-through top, she could see the words Food Time engraved in black letters high on the left side.

“Good one,” Dimi said, laughing. “Now take it back to whatever poor delusional teenybopper you got it from and tell everyone I appreciated the joke.”

Leo shifted on his feet, a look of hesitation on his face.

“Leo?”

“Um…it’s not a joke. Mitch had this sent over for you to wear on the show today.”

“Funny.”

But Leo didn’t so much as smile, and a sinking feeling began in Dimi’s stomach. “Leo, you’re not laughing.”

“That’s because I like it. The outfit, that is.” He shot her an apologetic smile. “It’s cool, it’s hip, and you’ll be able to move more freely than you can with those wide skirts you prefer.”

“But…”

“The new image, remember? Fun and sexy.”

“But-”

Leo thrust out the clothes.

But she so wasn’t this person that Mitch apparently thought she could be. She wasn’t! Didn’t he know that by now? Hadn’t everyone told him? Hadn’t she shown him over and over? She was serious. Intense.

Not sexy.

And anyway, even if she wanted to be, she didn’t know how.

“Dimi, believe me. You’re young enough to pull it off, and after seeing the response from our viewers with Mitch, you’re also hot enough.”

“Oh, no.” She backed up, laughing in horror. “I’m not…hot.” Though she’d felt it, she really had, for that one little flicker of a moment in Mitch’s arms.

Hot to the core.

“It wasn’t an insult, Dimi. Demographics show we can pick up more men if you keep on doing what you’re doing.”

“But my apron has more material than that shirt!”

“Um, yeah, about the apron.” Leo looked at his shoes. “Mitch said to lose it.”

“What?”

“Actually, what he said was burn it so that you couldn’t use it to hide behind, because a sex goddess in the kitchen would never wear a full apron. And with the new direction of the show-that being you as a sex goddess in training, and him being the trainer-you needed to have your clothing selected for you.”

“Sex goddess in training,” she repeated carefully. “And him being the trainer. He said that.”

Leo winced. “Oh, jeez. Look, I’m pretty sure I wasn’t supposed to repeat that part, so if you could not tell him-”

“Oh, okay.” She nodded agreeably. “I’ll just let him take over my show, pick out my clothes and run my life. Does that work for you, Leo?”

Leo rolled his eyes. “Now, Dimi-”

“No argument, no fight. In fact, I’ll just roll over like a puppy. Is that the right response? Is that what you meant by not telling him-”

“Cool clothes,” Suzie said, coming around the corner and snagging the hanger from Leo. “Love the material on this blouse. Oh, man. Feel it, Dimi. It’s so soft-” She finally caught the expression on Dimi’s face. “What? Did someone die?”

“She doesn’t like the outfit,” Leo said.

“But it’s fabulous. Those pants must have cost a fortune.”