For the First Time

Nancy lifted her head and smiled. “Hi.”

Again, Mark was struck by the sweet nature of her smile. So open and friendly and welcoming. So unlike the woman who was coming for dinner tonight.

I want to mesh....

Where in the hell had that come from? It had been her word, but to him it conjured all sorts of lurid images. Mostly involving naked bodies and what happened to them when they meshed.

He wasn’t even sure why the images arose. It wasn’t like he was attracted to her. She was so far from what he wanted in a woman she might as well be a man. Any thoughts of meshing should be irrelevant.

That was what he needed to do. He needed to think of her as a man. A man, a fellow detective, a coworker. A hey-buddy-let’s-get-a-beer-after-work dude. Or a go-watch-the-game-and-burp kind of man.

Did JoJo burp?

“What’s that?” Sophie asked him.

Shifting his thoughts away from his she-man coworker, Mark set the bags in the kitchen. “This is lasagna. Homemade. Well, at least homemade by someone else. But we’re going to pretend tonight. What are the odds I have a dish remotely this size?”

He started foraging through his cabinets, where he knew he’d stashed the pots and pans and serving dishes he’d bought. When he first realized that it only made sense for Sophie to live with him, he’d gone out and bought everything he thought a home should have. Things like kitchen implements. He was a man who owned a grater, a juicer and a whisk.

Not one of those tools had ever been used in this kitchen.

“Ah-ha!” Mark pulled out a square white ceramic dish and a saucepan and held them up to show off his discovery to the two ladies seated at the island.

“Yeah, so you have pots? I don’t get it.”

Mark opened the bags and pulled out a container of red sauce. He dumped the contents into the pot and put it on the stove, setting the heat level to warm.

Next action item: the delicate surgery of removing the lasagna from the aluminum container and placing it into the serving dish. What might a man need for that? Spatula. Yes! That was a kitchen tool he was familiar with. A man had to have eggs and pancakes after all.

Sophie followed his activities with a bemused expression. “What are you doing? What is the point?”

“I think he’s trying to impress someone.”

Mark glanced at Nancy and saw a sad smile on her face. It was crazy, but he had the feeling he’d disappointed her by being interested in somebody else. The crazy thought occurred to him that his daughter’s tutor might have a crush on him.

If so, it was flattering. She was a woman in her early thirties and attractive in a no-nonsense way. Long, ash-blond hair, pretty green eyes. Soft in all the right places. She was a woman any man would find it easy to be around. Hell, if she wasn’t his daughter’s tutor, he might consider asking her out.

Because wasn’t that what he wanted? A nice woman. A steady woman. A woman with a lovely smile.

But she was his daughter’s tutor and Sophie liked her. That was something he wasn’t going to mess up. There were boundaries that couldn’t be crossed if he didn’t want to see Nancy storm off, leaving him hanging over something as silly as her broken heart. After all, what were the odds he could actually make a relationship work long-term?

Given his track record, his odds were on par with being able to cook lasagna on his own from scratch. And since he had no clue about what went into lasagna, those odds were basically none to none.

“Not impressing anyone,” he clarified. “Just proving her wrong.”

“Her.” Nancy nodded. “I sort of figured.”

“Who is it?”

Mark looked at Sophie. “JoJo is coming over.”

He watched her face instantly change from suspicious to excited. “Awesome. Why, though? I thought you guys were working together. Mark, you do know you can’t date someone you employ, don’t you? It’s totally not cool.”

“It’s not a date. It’s a work thing. But she made a crack about me cooking and well...”

“You would rather set up an elaborate scene with pots and dishes than tell her the truth. Which is that you don’t cook.”

“Exactly.” Mark smiled. “You know, Soph, I really feel like we’re getting to know each other.”

“Well, I’ll be going,” Nancy said as she closed the book. “Let you do your...work thing. Sophie, I’ll expect that report next week. See you around, Mark.”

Mark ignored her doubt about the intentions behind tonight’s activities. While he might appreciate her attraction, he certainly wouldn’t feel obligated to explain any part of his life to her. If that put her nose out of joint, then it was her issue. He wasn’t sure whether he wanted her to pursue him or not. Because when it came to him and women, it only ever went two ways. Either they chased him until he was ready to be caught, or Ben, his former rival and now friend, showed interest in a woman who Mark would then actively seduce.

It had worked every time, until Mark met Anna. Because Ben and Anna had been in love.

Love. Mark had never truly been in love. He used to worry what kind of person that made him. After years of dissecting his relationship with Helen, he’d concluded that if he’d loved her, really loved her, then staying with her and Sophie would have been more important than pursuing any life dream.

But she had betrayed him. In the worst way. She lied to him about taking birth control while actually trying to get pregnant. Trying to find a way to cage him. To keep him from doing the thing he told her he’d always dreamed of doing. They had been together for what, eight or nine months? Two young kids enjoying college and steady sex.

They hadn’t even lived together. Their entire relationship consisted of bars, beers, late-night calls and finding secretive places at parties to have sex.

From that she had wanted forever. Had tried to make it happen by tricking him. A fact he would never share with Sophie.

He didn’t regret the course of events. He couldn’t. He had Sophie now. How could he possibly be sorry when she was so spectacularly amazing? But had Helen lived, when he returned to the States to build a relationship with Sophie, there would have been nothing but a cordial friendship between him and his ex-girlfriend.

After Helen, Mark’s ideas about love and relationships changed. He was totally up front about what he wanted from a woman. Harshly, that meant sex and only sex. He liked the game. He liked the chase. Whether he was doing the chasing or someone was chasing him. And he liked sex.

There was no love involved in any of that. But lately he’d been rethinking his position. Maybe finding someone he could actually try to develop...what? After so many years of playing, he couldn’t actually say he understood what a real relationship was. He couldn’t fathom a scenario that he would be willing to subject not only himself to, but Sophie, as well.

“What’s the matter?”

Mark shook himself out of his reverie. What the hell was his problem anyway? There was no reason to be thinking about love and sex now.

It was only JoJo who was coming over.

He transferred the lasagna to the dish then splashed the sides of the ceramic with sauce. He turned on the oven and put aluminum foil over the dish, hoping ten minutes of heat might permeate the apartment with the smell of home cooking. He didn’t have to pretend with the bread. Who came home and made fresh bread? As soon as he had the garlic and butter coating ready he could throw the loaf under the broiler. Surely that would give off enough smell to convince anyone that major work had transpired in the kitchen.

“Are you serious about this?” Sophie asked as she watched him methodically set the stage.

“Like a heart attack. Here.” Mark handed his daughter the garbage bag containing all evidence from the restaurant—the receipt, the trays the food came in, even the menu that had been included. “Take this to the trash shoot. Be careful on your return. If she’s already at the door, double back, walk the long way around the hallway and then pretend you’d forgotten to pick up the mail.”

Mark walked to the dish where Sophie had already placed the day’s mail and handed it to her.