Blind Date Disasters & Eat Your Heart Out

“You’re stealing my clothes.”

“Okay, I’m stealing your clothes. But God, Sis, you have an amazing set of designer stuff now. Not a Kmart item in the bunch. You don’t mind, do you? After all, you always steal my food.”

“But you sew all your own clothes.” Dimi rubbed her temples. “Never mind. Take what you want. I’ve got to get back out there.”

“Hmm.” Cami looked her over. “Your headache wouldn’t be Mitch-induced by any chance, now, would it?”

“Of course not.”

Cami shook her head. “If you let him go, especially after I humiliated myself to help you catch him, I’ll be mad at you.”

“You’re always mad at me.”

“Okay, I’ll sic Mom on you.”

Dimi shuddered. “Not that.”

“Remember all my blind date disasters?”

“How could I forget?”

“If you let him go,” Cami vowed, “that’s what’ll happen to you.”

“If I let him go…” Dimi shook her head. “What are you talking about? I don’t have him.”

“By the crook of your little finger, Sis. You’ve got him by the crook of your little finger.”

That was when Dimi realized her sister had truly lost it. She was so in love with Tanner her brain had turned to mush.

Running to the set just in time to get her nose fluffed and to repin her mike to her shirt, Dimi caught Mitch’s dark, questing gaze.

By the crook of your little finger, Sis. You’ve got him.

Yeah, right! She’d never caught anything-by the crook of her little finger or otherwise. And even if by some miracle it could be true, did she even want him?

Suzie adjusted Dimi’s mike, caught the strange connection between host and producer and smiled knowingly. “By the way, Dimi, you can’t lose your assistant.”

“What? Why?”

“Only seconds after you suggested it on the air, the phones went crazy.”

Mitch’s mouth curved, but wisely, he kept it shut.

Suzie said it all for him. “People are freaking out that maybe you’ll get rid of him. They’re begging you to reconsider.”

“Fifteen seconds, people!”

Suzie backed off the set, leaving only Dimi and Mitch, and given Mitch’s superior, triumphant glow, there was nothing left to say.

She was stuck with him.

BY THE END of Mitch’s second week, Food Time’s dramatic turn into a rating and critical success had been cemented. In the eyes of everyone around him, all of whom had thanked him repeatedly, he was a hero.

In everyone’s eyes except Dimi’s, that is, and as it so happened, she was the only one he worried about, which concerned him for various reasons. One, that he cared for her at all, when she was an entire world away from what he’d always gone for. Hell, make that a galaxy.

And two, that she didn’t care for him back, not even a little.

Oh, she lusted after him, he’d made sure of that. Lusted even while she fought it. But getting her there had been work, and work only.

Which brought him to troubling fact number three. He never mixed business and pleasure, so this entire train of thought was moot.

Completely moot.

Yet here he was, heading out on his bike toward some small pizza joint in the middle of nowhere to join everyone for a staff dinner to celebrate their success.

Chilly wind froze his face. The smell of the mountain air assaulted his senses as he rode through the streets. The majestic Sierra peaks all around him were tall, dark. Huge. Nothing like the bright, noisy streets of Los Angeles, but for some reason, he suddenly couldn’t think of anyplace he’d rather be.

Power drummed between his legs, the power of his Harley. It was a release to drive through the black night with only the stars and one lone headlight guiding his way, but not the kind of release he needed after so many weeks of hot and heavy sexual innuendo and teasing.

No, what he needed now was a woman beneath him. Or over him. He wasn’t picky and would take either, but it wasn’t going to happen.

Expecting to be the last to arrive, he pulled into the parking lot, but there was a lone woman getting out of a car. At the sound of his bike, she whipped around, blond hair flying around her face.

Dimi. The only member of Food Time who hadn’t yet thanked him for saving their careers.

His heart took off like crazy as he imagined her taking the time to thank him tonight. At just the thought, his body tightened.

The thrill of the ride, he told himself, and swung his leg off the bike. He pulled the rolled-up newspaper out of his back pocket and strolled toward her.

“What do you have?” she asked, her voice sounding suspiciously breathless.

Great, so they were both frustrated no end. Well, as that was his own doing, he had no one to blame but himself. “Nothing,” he said, strangely not willing to give her something else to get upset about. Not yet, anyway, because he knew she’d find out soon enough.

Putting his hand on the small of her back, he nudged her inside the noisy, musical, smoky pizza joint, feeling oddly reluctant to remove it as they came to the staff’s table.

Everyone was there. Gracie with her husband. Leo with a date. Ted and his wife. Suzie, single and on the prowl. And all the others. Even Cami had come, she had Tanner with her, and a dopey grin on her face that announced to the world she’d very recently had wild, satisfying sex.

“Hey, did anyone catch today’s headlines?” Leo called.

Mitch shook his head in warning, but the man was egged on by too many pre-pizza beers and the need to impress his date. With great ceremony, Leo stood on his chair, wobbling enough to make Mitch worry about the man’s hard head.

Leo then cleared his throat, smoothed out the wrinkled newspaper he held and waggled his eyebrows. “We’ve all been talking about how we’ve made it,” he announced. “And while we’ve thanked Mitch, I think most of us have forgotten to thank the other party responsible for our success.” He pointed to Dimi. “This is for you, baby.” With great ceremony, he shook the paper and read the headline out loud. “Sex Kitty Can Really Cook!”

7

THERE WAS one second of stunned silence before everyone broke out in cheers and laughter, all directed toward Dimi.

Mitch winced, then looked at her, and yep, no big surprise, she wasn’t cheering. Or laughing. In fact, it was safe to assume, given the daggers she was at this very moment silently sending him, that she was nothing short of furious.

Sighing, he moved close. Amid the hooting and hollering of their boisterous crew, he bent and spoke into her ear. “You know it was meant in a complimentary way.”

“Really?” With mock sweetness, she nodded. “So I’m assuming, as the coach of said sex kitty, you’re proud.”

Turning his head to look into her fiery gaze, he realized what he’d really done was perfectly line up their