“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.

Dammit.

“Look, I almost forgot,” Suzie said. “I came to tell you, Mitch wants to see you before the show. He wants to go over today’s dialogue.”

“We’re going to plan our dialogue?”

“Apparently.” Suzie grinned. “Make it as hot as yesterday, and we’re all on easy street for the season.”

Dimi thought of yesterday, and how she’d nearly melted watching Mitch handle the food, the cooking, everything, with a masculine flair that had left her…hungry.

And not for food. “I can’t do this,” she muttered, but Suzie was already gone, so she took herself down the hall to tell Mitch that very thing herself. She wouldn’t follow his dictates. She would dress and walk and talk however she wanted.

Only as she went, no less than six male crew members dramatically fell to the floor when she passed.

“Very funny,” she told them, getting more and more righteous and worked up, until finally she stood right outside Mitch’s office door with damp palms and a racing heart.

What if he gave her that look again, the one that scrambled her brain and made her want things she couldn’t even think about without getting all hot and itchy from the inside out?

Just as she lifted her hand to knock, Mitch opened the door, startling her into a very unrighteous squeak. “Do you have radar or something?” she demanded.

His gaze traveled the length of her, heating up from a mere smoldering to full-blown sizzle by the time it met hers again. “The outfit is good.”

“Tell me again, exactly what does being a sex goddess have to do with cooking?”

He grimaced at her loud voice, took her arm and pulled her inside his office. She had to stalk the length of the room a few times because it was hard to gather her temper again after that brain-cell-crunching look he’d just given her, but not impossible.

“I didn’t say sex goddess,” he said.

“Leo said-”

“I said sex kitten.” He grinned when she whipped around, practically snarling.

At least he wasn’t wearing black leather or those dark, dark sunglasses today. At least they weren’t outside where his nearly black hair gleamed and so did his smile, not to mention the motorcycle that had given her quite the interesting fantasy the past few nights.