From behind him, the singing got louder as Dimi moved closer, and suddenly she was in the doorway, eyes wide and on him.

“Oh!”

Mitch rose to his feet. “I’m sorry. I knocked and called out. You didn’t answer.”

She had a hand to her chest, but she no longer looked frightened. More like intrigued, which amused him.

“You could have knocked again,” she said.

“Could have, but you were singing pretty loud.”

She shrugged. “Secret rock-star fantasy.”

Yesterday she’d done everything in her power to stay away from him. Now, surprisingly, she stepped closer, smiling easily. Easily. Not Dimi’s usual tactic. “Aren’t you going to ask me why I’m here?” he asked.

“Okay. I’ll play.” She looked him over with sleepy, inviting eyes. “Why are you here?”

It wasn’t until she had him in the corner, her hands on either side of him against the counter, that he realized the truth, that there was a very good reason that she’d been singing so loudly without a care, that she was smiling so unlike Dimi, but he decided to play, too. “I’m here to make sure my chef gets to the studio.”

Cami narrowed her eyes and studied him for a long moment, during which it took all his control not to laugh and blow her cover.

Then, after that long stare, she leaned in close, lips slightly parted.

She obviously wanted him to kiss her.

“How far are you going to take this?” he wondered, his mouth a breath from hers.

Those expressive eyes blinked, but before she could do anything else, another voice came from the doorway.

“Cami!”

The woman in front of Mitch jerked back, turned red as a beet and whirled to face…a horrified Dimi.

“What are you doing?” Dimi demanded.

Cami wrung her hands, then must have decided to tough it out, because she shot Mitch an embarrassed glance and shrugged. “I figured if he thought you wanted to kiss him, he might make the first move so you wouldn’t have to.”

“Oh, my God.” Dimi covered her eyes. “This isn’t happening. You aren’t making a move on my producer.”

“Hey, I didn’t actually kiss him!” Cami complained. “You don’t have anything to be mad at.”

Dimi dropped her hand. “I’m telling Mom on you. And then Tanner! My God, what would Tanner think?”

“Fine. Go right ahead and tattle, just like always.” Cami hightailed it to the kitchen door. “Get me in trouble just because I was trying to help you get a little lucky.” Turning to Mitch, she gave a self-deprecating smile. “I’m sorry I had to use you for that, but surely you can see I was just trying to help things along.”

Mitch bit back his grin. “I understand.”

“See?” Cami spoke to Dimi. “He understands.” She stepped out and slammed the door behind her, but in a flash the door was flung open again. Cami stormed in and grabbed the bowl of chips off the counter.

“Hey,” Dimi protested, gaze glued to those chips.

Without another word, Cami slammed out. Again.

The silence was deafening. “I suppose I should apologize for that,” Dimi finally said.

“No.”

“No?”

Mitch didn’t want her apology, he wanted the kiss he’d almost gotten, and he wanted it from the real Dimi. He 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.”

“Mitch picked them out,” Leo said meaningfully.

“Oh.” Suzie fingered the material of the pants. “Which of course makes them cheap, ugly and unwearable, right?”

Dimi just glared at her, making Suzie sigh. “Hon, look. Hate the man if you must, but he’s got great taste. This is exactly what the young, gorgeous, amazingly talented chef and host of a cooking show should wear.”

“They won’t fit,” Dimi assured them both, but Suzie set Leo free and pressed Dimi into her dressing room.

“Show me.”

“Gladly.” Dimi stripped. Muttered about the temperature in the room. Swore at the new clothes. Beamed at Suzie when she could barely get the pants up.

Then stopped in defeat when she looked in the mirror.

Because it fit, all of it. Like a second skin, but it fit. The pants didn’t cover her belly button, but they did cover her hips, just barely. The bra fit, too, and gave her generous breasts more…generousness. “Holy smokes,” she muttered, staring at her reflection.

Suzie handed her the blouse, which covered exactly nothing and had only one button.

“One button!” Dimi wailed, closing it between her shoved-up-and-out breasts. “I need more buttons, Suzie.”

“It drapes closed perfectly.”

“Yeah, because what does it matter when you can see everything right through the shirt!”

“It’s not that see-through, Dimi. You’re perfectly covered.”

“I can’t show my belly button on the air.”

Suzie laughed good and long over that. “You do realize this is the twenty-first century, right?”

“Said by the woman who’s five foot two and one hundred pounds. You could get away with this, but not me.”

“Have you seen a Brittney Spears video lately?”

“A little sympathy would be nice.”

“Okay,” Suzie agreed. “I’m sorry you’re so tall and curvy and gorgeous. What a curse.”

Dimi rolled her eyes. But after she applied her makeup and took a brush to her already curled hair, she had to admit, she looked…well, pretty damn fine.

“Whoa, baby, who knew you were hiding such a great set of breasts,” Suzie marveled. “And that tush. Good Lord, girlfriend, you should have been wearing pants all along. Good thing no one can see that you prefer plain white cotton panties.”

“I like cotton.”

“You know they make it in colors now, right?”

“Everybody’s turned into a comic.” Dimi tried pulling the pants up a little more, to no avail. “This is crazy. If I so much as bend over, I’m going to expose my butt like a damn contractor.”

“So don’t bend over. Dimi, can’t you feel it?” Suzie’s eyes were lit with excitement. “The new direction of the show. We’re going to go big. We’re all going to make it.” She hopped off the chair she’d plopped into and twirled around. “No more unemployment threat looming, no more scanning the classified section in the newspaper.”

Her earnestness had Dimi biting back her disgruntled reply. She wasn’t that selfish as to take away Suzie’s hope and joy, and she knew it wasn’t just Suzie. In fact, she knew exactly how many people depended on the success of this show.