CHAPTER FIVE
Kate appeared on the doorstep of Cornucopia Books precisely at eight just as a woman with a nose ring and a bright-pink pixie cut was flipping the door sign from Open to Closed.
Kate’s surprise must have registered, because the woman smiled and pushed the door open. “Are you Kate?”
“That’s me.”
“Come on in. I’m Beth. The boss man’s in the Cat Café. He’s elbow deep in some project in the kitchen, so he asked me to let you in.”
“Oh. Thank you.” Kate ran her hands down the front of her navy striped T-shirt dress and wondered if she should have dressed down more. Maybe skipped the blazer or gone for casual-casual instead of business-casual.
“Come on,” Beth said. “It’s right this way.”
The young woman led her across rustic wood floors through a spacious lobby filled with racks of postcards and reading glasses and bright mugs printed with phrases like Never judge a book by its movie, and My book smells better than your tablet.
They continued past a barista station with a gleaming espresso machine and tap handles boasting the names of breweries Kate had never heard of. Then again, she wasn’t a beer drinker, though it was clear from the chalkboard menu listing a dozen kinds of beer that it was a popular choice here.
At a red door marked Cat Café Beth halted and turned to Kate. “You can wash up at that sink right there and go on in. He’s either in the kitchen or in the lounge area already.”
“Thank you.” Kate pushed up the sleeves of her jacket and turned on the taps, wondering if she looked like someone who might have cat diseases.
“It’s because I’m letting you into the food-prep area,” Beth said, reading Kate’s mind. “The boss is really strict about OSHA stuff. Things you wouldn’t even think about. Like anyone who’s had litterbox duty that day isn’t allowed in the kitchen during the same shift.”
“Oh. That does seem like a smart policy.”
“Yeah.” Beth smiled. “You have a cat?”
“No. I like cats, though. I guess I just travel too much for work.”
“We get a lot of folks like that here.” Beth whipped a rag out of her back pocket and started dusting a waist-high steel sculpture of a cat. “Can’t have a cat of their own, so they come here to get their feline fix. It’s good for the animals, too. Helps them get comfortable around people so they’re more adoptable.”
“That’s a great idea.”
Beth smiled. “The boss man’s full of ’em.”
The pride in the young woman’s voice was evident, and Kate lathered her hands and stole a glance at her. Beth straightened a black-and-white cat photo on the wall as Kate pumped a little more soap from the dispenser shaped like a cat.
“Have you worked here long?” Kate asked.
“Since the day he opened. It’s a great place. Indie bookstores are dying off by the dozen, but this place is doing okay. Jonah’s a smart businessman.”
“So I’d gathered,” Kate said, remembering what he’d said in Alki Park. How he’d chosen to cast aside his cerebral self to fill the Average Joe persona. How much would it suck to think you could only be one or the other? A military counterintelligence expert and bookstore owner, or a straight-talking, blue-collar handyman known for writing hilariously brash sidebars in a self-help book?
One or the other, but not both.
Then again, hadn’t Kate faced the same conundrum? More than once, really. An art-minded actress or a family-focused female with a stable career. A documentary filmmaker or a money-making reality TV producer.
What a dumb choice to have to make. To have to decide at all.
“I should get back to closing out the till,” Beth said. “Could you let him know the restrooms are clean and we’re getting low on cold brew?”
“Clean restrooms, almost out of cold brew,” Kate repeated. “Got it.”
“Thanks! Have a good night.”
Beth turned and vanished back through the lobby, making Kate grateful for a few moments alone to compose her thoughts as she dried her hands on a paper towel. She dropped it into a black metal wastebasket engraved with silhouettes of cats whose tails were intertwined. Then she took a deep breath and pushed open the door marked Cat Café.
She heard the singing before she saw him. The voice was coming from the other side of a huge stainless-steel oven, and sounded vaguely like Jonah. The tune sounded like Meghan Trainor’s “All About That Bass,” but the lyrics were something else entirely.
“I love to stuff my face, stuff my face, more kibble—”
“Jonah?”
The singing stopped, and Jonah poked his head around the oven. Kate expected him to look embarrassed about being caught in an off-key serenade, but he just grinned at her.
“Hey,” he said. “Thanks for coming.”
Kate smiled back and stepped around the oven to join him at the bright-red enameled counter. He was stirring something in an industrial-sized stainless steel pot, and steam billowed around him like marshmallow fluff.
“Beth said to tell you the restrooms are clean and you’re almost out of cold brew,” Kate reported. She watched as Jonah continued stirring the pot. “Don’t let me stop the concert. By all means, keep singing.”
He laughed and flipped off the gas burner. “I hadn’t gotten very far with the lyrics yet,” he said. “This one’s in honor of Porky.”
“Porky?”
“Yeah, he’s one of the cats we’ve had here the longest. Everyone thinks since he’s a little overweight, he’s not as desperate for a home as the other guys. The vet suggested we switch up his diet to see if there’s a food allergy going on, so that’s what I’m working on.”
“You’re cooking him a meal?”
“Sort of. It’s just some chicken. Trying to work in a little lean protein to balance out his regular food.”
“And a song to go along with it.”
Jonah grinned and stirred the pot again. “I hadn’t made it past the first couple lines.”
“I love to stuff my face, stuff my face, more kibble?” Kate only meant to speak the words, but found herself singing the last few in her best Meghan Trainor voice. She laughed and continued on, leaning against the counter as Jonah wiped his hands on a dish towel.
“My mama, she told me to always eat all your foooood,” Kate sang. “If you don’t lick your bowl clean, the humans will think you’re rude.”
Jonah laughed and tossed the dish towel on the counter. “You know I might be a thick kitty, but I got lots of heart.”
“So just feed me some chicken, and don’t mind it makes me fart.”
Jonah cracked up, shaking his head as he tossed the dish towel onto the counter. “I can’t believe you just said that,” he said. “That was awesome.”
“Thanks,” Kate said, irrationally proud of the compliment. “Maybe if this TV production thing doesn’t work out, I can become a professional cat composer.”
“It’s good to have goals. Come on. You hungry?”
“A little bit,” she said. “That smells really good.”
“It does, but that’s not our dinner. That’s for Porky, remember?”
“Porky’s got it pretty good.”
“Not yet, but he will. As soon as we find him a home. Come on, I’ll show you the Cat Café. We’ve been trying to get some of these guys used to being in a room with people eating and not jumping up on the table, so this is good practice.”
He reached into a compartment above the oven and pulled out a pizza box.
“Would you mind grabbing those plates?” He nodded at a pair of paper plates rimmed with pictures of cartoon cats, and Kate scooped them up and followed after him.
“Careful,” he said as he held the door for her. “There are a couple escape artists in here and one new girl who’s not too sure about things yet.”
“I know the feeling,” Kate said. “Which one’s new?”
“Judgey-eyebrow cat over there.” He pointed to a fluffy black-and-white tuxedo kitty on the windowsill. The cat lifted her impressively arched brows and studied Kate with a look of intense scorn.
Kate laughed. “I see what you mean.”
The cat had the most unusual markings she’d ever seen. Her body was black fluff with white socks, and her face was white, too. She had a little black spot on one side of her face and eyebrows that gave her a permanently skeptical expression. The brows lifted a bit as Kate approached.
“If you could caption her right now, she’d be saying, ‘Lady, I don’t think so,’” Kate said as she stroked a hand down the cat’s back. The cat allowed it, but her expression suggested serious doubt about Kate’s petting skills.
Jonah grinned and pulled the door shut behind him. “She’s been looking at everyone like that today. I heard a guy this morning say, ‘If I wanted someone judging my every move, I’d get a wife. At least then I wouldn’t have to clean a litter box.’”
“Very nice.” Kate set a plate on each side of a bright-blue table and pulled out a chair as Jonah set the pizza box in the center of the table. She moved a chrome napkin dispenser out of the way and sat down. A fluffy orange tabby hopped into the center of the table, then jumped down as Jonah made a psst sound.
“Sorry, but it’s how they learn,” he said. “We want them to have manners when they go to their new homes. That way there’s less chance of them getting returned to the shelter.”
“Sort of like cat finishing school.”
“Exactly.”
He opened the pizza box, and Kate breathed in the heavenly aroma of pepperoni and sausage. A little gray cat with white feet stretched up to bat at the box top but didn’t make any moves to jump for it.
“I’m impressed by your commitment to animal welfare,” she said as Jonah handed her a bottle of iced tea that didn’t feel particularly iced. “Have you always been such an advocate?”
“Nah.” He sat down across from her and twisted the top off his own bottle, taking a swig before he continued. “I don’t even like cats that much.”
She blinked at him. “Then why—” She stopped, remembering their conversation in Ashland. “That’s right, you said your sister runs a pet rescue center?”
“Yep.” He set down his drink and grabbed a piece of pizza out of the box. “She owns Clearwater Animal Shelter. She also owns me, come to think of it.” He grinned and took a bite of pizza, but there was something in his eyes that Kate couldn’t read. It was somewhere between pride and sadness, which seemed so incongruous that she knew she wasn’t reading him right at all.
Kate slid a slice of pizza onto her own plate and wondered if it would be weird to ask for a fork. Probably. She needed to just go with the flow. If she wanted any hope of persuading Jonah to do the show, she needed to come off as friendly and unassuming.
Requiring flatware to eat pizza wasn’t very unassuming.
“I have to admit I don’t know a whole lot about reality television,” Jonah said. “What’s your job in all this, exactly?”
“For this show, I’m the executive producer,” Kate said. “But I’ve also asked to be on-site as a field producer.”
“Is that unusual?”
“Sort of. The executive producer is the one with the big-picture vision for the show, and the field producer is on the ground helping to capture footage and steer the day-to-day filming. In this case, I wanted to do both.”
“That sounds like a lot of work.”
“It is, but it’s important work.” She smiled, feeling a little awkward as she spread a few paper napkins over her lap. “This show is kind of my baby.”
“I caught that.” Jonah helped himself to another slice of pizza.
“So,” Kate said, taking a small bite before she continued, “you’re open to hearing about the TV show.”
“Yes. May I first tell you what I’m not open to?”
“This isn’t sounding like a good start for openness.”
He shrugged and took a big bite of pizza, chewing and swallowing before he spoke again. “I just don’t want to waste anyone’s time here, so I need to put this out on the table.”
“By all means.”
Jonah cleared his throat. “I’m not willing to fake it,” he said. “I’m not going to make up handyman projects or talk about NASCAR or scratch my junk on TV or anything else they think will help me look more like an average, blue-collar guy.”
“Okay.” Kate nodded and made a mental note to put No junk scratching in an e-mail to the network execs. “Would you be okay with continuing to offer the sort of blunt, no-filter commentary you gave in On the Other Hand? That’s the part of Average Joe that everyone fell in love with.”
“Maybe,” he said. “I’m not willing to play dumb. And I don’t want to be made to look dumb.”
“Understandable.” She took another bite of pizza as she waited for him to continue. “What else?” she prompted. “What are your other conditions?”
“I’m willing to collaborate and be friendly with Viv because we are friendly,” he said. “More or less.”
“I got that from the kind and tender way you told her to fuck off.”
Jonah offered a small, chagrined smile. “Sometimes exes bring out the worst in us.”
“Can’t argue with that.”
Jonah leaned back in his chair and took a swig of tea from the bottle. A cat the size of a small automobile took it as an invitation to jump up onto his lap.
“Get down, Porky,” Jonah said as he eased the enormous beast onto the floor. “Your dinner is cooling.”
The big gray cat growled and sauntered away. Jonah turned his attention back to Kate. “I suppose Viv would say you can’t blame someone else for making you act a certain way,” he said. “That people control their own words and actions.”
“You don’t agree?”
He shrugged. “You can’t blame others for your actions, but you also can’t help how you feel. And sometimes certain people bring out the worst kind of feelings in you. It’s up to you whether to act on them, but feeling like shit never brought out anyone’s best personality traits.”
“I suppose that’s true.” Kate took a sip of tea. “So is that it for your conditions?”
“No, that was my preface to the biggest one.”
“Which is?” Kate braced herself, hoping it wasn’t a demand she couldn’t meet. Hoping the network would agree to it, whatever the hell it was.
“I won’t pretend Viv and I are still married,” he said. “I don’t know if that idea has been tossed around or if the TV people are jonesing for the happily married vibe they got from us in On the Other Hand, but I can tell you right now I won’t do that. I won’t pretend we’re in love or that there’s some kind of undercurrent of unrequited emotion between us. There’s not, and I refuse to fake it.”
Kate nodded as relief sluiced through her. She told herself it was relief that his condition was fairly minor. The network would agree to it, she felt pretty certain.
But she knew there was more to her feelings of relief. That deep down, she was cheered by the vehemence in Jonah’s denial of feelings for Viv.
“I hear what you’re saying.” Kate dabbed her mouth with her napkin, even though she’d taken only a couple of tiny bites of pizza. “It’s true that networks love arced stories when it comes to reality tel—to unscripted TV.” She paused there, wondering if he cared one way or the other whether they called it reality television or something else. “I can’t make any promises, but I can definitely make it clear to the team that you’re not willing to fake a relationship that isn’t there. Under the circumstances, I feel confident they’ll be fine with that.”
“Good.” Jonah chewed thoughtfully for a while. Kate watched as his gaze drifted to the windowsill where judgey-eyebrow cat sat watching them with disdain. A lean little tiger-striped cat tried to jump up onto the sill beside her, but eyebrow cat stuck out one paw and whacked the kitten on the forehead.
Jonah laughed. “Denied.”
“You know, her eyebrows aren’t her only striking feature,” Kate said. “That little spot on her cheek makes her look a little like Marilyn Monroe.”
“Marilyn.” Jonah looked at the cat. “That’s a good name for her.”
“She doesn’t have a name?”
“She just came in. Owner surrender. When that happens, we usually come up with a new name for the cat in case they have negative associations with the old name.”
“That makes sense.” Kate wiped her hands on a napkin and reached for her own bottle of tea. She took a slow sip and wondered why the hell he’d served it warm. “So your conditions sound reasonable. Is there anything you’d like to know from me about the show? About what the network has in mind?”
She expected him to ask something obvious. The format, the timeline, the way his name might appear in the credits.
She didn’t expect the question he really asked.
“Why are you doing this?”
“Me?”
“Yes, you. Why are you so fired up about the TV show, first of all? And why do you give a shit whether I’m part of it?”
Kate thought about how to answer. She picked up her pizza and took a small bite, surprised to find it still warm. She chewed carefully as she considered how much to tell Jonah about her reasons for wanting to make this show.
Bravery, openness, transparency, honesty, Viv coached in her head. The acronym is BOTH, and it’s your key to connection with another human. Your ticket to understanding and being understood.
Kate cleared her throat. “My father used to hit my mother,” she said.
Jonah blinked. “Jesus.”
“It was a long time ago. He died in a car accident when I was fifteen, so my mom has been safe ever since.” Kate fought the urge to look down at the table, wanting Jonah to see why this mattered to her. To understand the importance of this TV show beyond a paycheck. “I was really angry about it for a long time. All the way into my late twenties, actually. I was angry at my mother for putting up with it, and angry with my father for doing it in the first place. Angry with myself for not doing something about it.”
“But you were just a kid.”
“I know. I understand that now. And I understand the dynamics of abusive relationships. I also understand how to move past all that. How to break the cycle. I owe that to Vivienne Brandt and the words she wrote in her first book about escaping an abusive relationship. I read that book when I was twenty-eight, and it was like someone shining a flashlight into my brain.”
She watched his face for a reaction, wondering if he heard the reverence in her voice. Wondering if it bugged him to hear his ex-wife referred to as some kind of life-altering shaman.
But she was that to Kate, and she needed Jonah to understand.
Jonah nodded, all traces of the flippant bravado erased from his face. “That book helped a lot of people,” he said. “But Not Broken was Viv’s best work.”
“I disagree.”
Jonah frowned. “What?”
“I think the next book was. The one you wrote together. On the Other Hand was more than just a memoir or a trendy self-help guide. It made the issues relatable. It wasn’t just a woman on a pedestal giving her advice on communication strategies. It was two people—two very different people—giving their perspectives on communication and relationships and all the messy stuff that comes along with human connection. Jonah, that book changed lives. You were a part of that.”
Jonah stared at her for a long time. When he spoke, his voice was softer. “That wasn’t me. That was Viv.”
“It wasn’t just Viv.” She shook her head, needing him to believe this. “Your contributions may have been smaller, lighthearted pieces of the equation, but they were equally vital. They’re what got people buzzing about the book. They’re what made men pay attention and actually read instead of rolling their eyes when their wives brought home a silly relationship guide.”
Kate’s voice had gotten louder, and she watched Marilyn, the judgey-eyebrow cat, shift positions. The cat’s brows lifted a fraction of an inch, and Kate imagined her remarking, “You’re laying it on pretty thick, lady.”
She was, but she didn’t care. She needed Jonah to hear this. Needed him to understand. He still hadn’t said anything, and she wondered what he was thinking. Were her words having an impact at all?
“Thank you,” he said softly.
“For what?”
“For what you just said. About the book mattering. About my parts of it. I know I’ve been acting like sort of an asshole about the whole book thing, but it means a lot to hear you say that. That it mattered.”
Tears pricked the back of her eyelids, but she fought them off. “It did matter. It still does.”
She looked down at the table, struggling to get her bearings. She couldn’t afford to get too emotional over this. It was business, and she needed to stay professional. She thought about picking up her pizza and taking another bite, but she wasn’t sure she could get it past the lump in her throat.
The rumble of Jonah’s voice made her look up again.
“Who was he?”
Kate blinked, her expression so startled Jonah knew he’d hit a nerve.
“Who—what do you mean?” she asked.
“The guy who broke your heart. Who was he?”
He watched her take a few steadying breaths, watched her glance up and to the left. A neurolinguistic indicator, sometimes an indication that the subject was accessing a part of the brain that forms fabrications.
Or maybe she was looking at judgey-eyebrow cat again.
“His name was Anton.” Kate’s words were soft, and Jonah could tell she was speaking the truth. “I mentioned him over dinner in Ashland.”
“Did he hit you?”
Kate shook her head, but she blinked when she did it. Something was off here. “No,” she said.
“But?”
He watched her swallow, and he kept his gaze on hers, channeling all his energy into using the subtle elicitation skills he’d honed in his counterintelligence training for the Marines.
“Abuse takes more forms than fists,” Kate said. “I’m quoting Viv again, I know. But I’m trying to tell you how much those books meant to me. How much I learned about what a healthy relationship looks like. But Not Broken may have taught me to recognize signs of an unhealthy relationship, but it wasn’t until On the Other Hand that I understood what a healthy one looked like. That I shouldn’t settle for anything else.”
Something tightened in Jonah’s chest. A pang of guilt, or maybe regret. He remembered the first meeting he and Viv had with the editor contracted to work with them for On the Other Hand.
“You two have such an amazing relationship,” the editor had gushed, folding her hands on a polished ebony desk as she beamed at Jonah and Viv sitting across from her. “You have an important gift you can give people here. The gift of seeing what a healthy relationship should look like.”
Viv had smiled and twined her fingers through Jonah’s, and Jonah had squeezed back as the lump formed thick in his throat. By then they were already sleeping in separate bedrooms, already talking quietly about “taking some time apart.”
Deep down, he’d known then that they were past the point of no return. He hadn’t wanted to believe it, but it had sat there between them like an angry cat. Even if Viv had been the one to pull the plug, he’d known where things were headed.
“We’d love nothing more than to set a positive example,” Viv had told the editor while pressing the tip of her toe against his instep. “To help other people.”
Even then, Jonah knew she’d meant it. That was Viv for you. Maybe her words weren’t always genuine, but her desire to be of service never wavered. Her urge to help others, even at her own expense sometimes.
It was the thing he’d always admired most about her.
Jonah shook himself back to the present. Back to the woman sitting across from him with wide toffee eyes and a calico cat on her lap. She’d barely touched her pizza, and he wondered if he should have cleared his choices with her before ordering.
But now wasn’t the time to be fretting about pepperoni. He reached across the table and touched her hand.
“Hey,” he said, keeping his voice low. “Thank you for sharing that with me.”
She nodded, then gave a small smile. “Yeah.”
He thought about sharing his own story then. Telling her everything about Jossy and that horrible day eighteen years ago. He looked down at his plate, trying to form the words.
“Owl.”
Jonah looked up at Kate. “What did you say?”
“I didn’t say anything.”
“It sounded like you said owl.”
“I heard it, too, but it wasn’t me.” She glanced toward the window. “I think it came from over there.”
But there was no one there. Just the weird-looking black-and-white cat with the judgey eyebrows and the Marilyn Monroe beauty mark. Jonah looked back at Kate.
“Weird.”
“Very.”
“So this TV show. Would we be filming at Viv’s house?”
“She suggested it, and the network seems to like the idea. Some of it comes down to licensing and insurance. That’s Amy’s department, so she’s looking into—”
“Ooowl!”
The voice was more forceful this time, and it was definitely coming from the window. Judgey-eyebrow cat seemed to lift one brow, or maybe it was Jonah’s imagination. If a cat could speak, would it really choose to say owl? Her expression looked more like, “You people are fucking idiots.”
He was probably reading too much into this.
“I really think it’s the cat,” he said. “Judgey-eyebrow cat.”
“You have to stop calling her that,” Kate said. “She’s not judgey. Just misunderstood.”
Jonah laughed. “Funny. I think I said that to my sister the first time she met Viv.”
“That’s nice,” Kate said. “That you stuck up for her. Viv, I mean.”
“Sure,” he said, wishing he hadn’t said that. He needed to watch his mouth, especially around a woman who made a living in reality television. It was juvenile to be hanging up their dirty laundry so long after the divorce.
He looked at the cat again, wondering what the hell her deal was. She had a sweet face, regardless. The cat stared back at him, then opened her mouth.
“Owl!”
Jonah shook his head. “Apparently she has something important to say about Strigiformes.”
“Strigiformes?”
“It’s the order owls belong to,” he said. “In the animal kingdom. It includes a couple hundred species of solitary, nocturnal birds of prey known for an upright stance, a broad head, binocular vision, binaural hearing, sharp talons, and feathers adapted for silent flight.”
“Wow.” Kate did her own eyebrow raise, though it wasn’t nearly as impressive as the cat’s. “You really are kind of a geek.”
Jonah grinned. For some reason it sounded like the best compliment anyone had paid him in a long time. “Thanks.”
“Have you always been such a nerd?”
“Pretty much.”
Kate laughed and took a bite of pizza. She seemed ravenous all of a sudden, and he watched her wolf down the rest of the slice in just a couple of bites. Then she wiped her hands on her napkin and stood up.
“Look, I know it’s important to you to get out of the shadow of the Average Joe thing.” She carried her plate to the trash can and dropped it in, then smoothed down the front of her dress. “To have the opportunity to be known more for your brains than your favorite sports team.”
Jonah started to nod, then stopped. That wasn’t it exactly. “It’s not as much that I care how other people see me. It’s more about how I see myself.”
“How do you mean?”
“I know I’m a smart guy,” he said. “Intellectually, I know that. But I haven’t always felt smart.”
“How do you mean?”
“I grew up with dyslexia,” he said. “I’m still dyslexic, of course, but I’ve learned ways to manage it.”
“Wow,” Kate said. “And you co-wrote a bestselling book and own a bookstore?”
Jonah nodded and watched Kate’s face. He waited for the barrage of questions. The gentle probing he’d always get from Viv about how he felt about his disability or what motivated him to overcome it.
Instead, she smiled. “That’s impressive. I worked on a documentary about dyslexia a long time ago. The people we interviewed talked about being made to feel stupid or lazy.” She smiled, and Jonah’s heart twisted. “I think it’s pretty obvious to anyone who spends more than five minutes with you that you’re neither of those things.”
Jonah swallowed hard and wondered if she knew she was saying exactly what he needed to hear. He wasn’t sure why he’d volunteered that information in the first place, considering he didn’t know Kate all that well.
But there was something empowering about being the one to share it. About telling the story on his own terms, in his own way.
Or maybe it was just Kate. There was something about her that made him want to open up his chest and his brain and the whole big mess of himself and let her have a look at whatever might be in there.
“Right,” he said, feeling a little sheepish. “Opening a bookstore had been my goal for a long time. I didn’t have the balls to do it until things started winding down in my marriage.”
“It’s pretty admirable,” she said. “Talk about confronting your fears.”
Jonah smiled. “Yeah. Anyway, besides the dyslexia, I’m forgetful as hell. It’s partly an ADD thing, partly just me being—well, me.”
The way she looked at him with eyes flooded by admiration made Jonah’s chest ache.
“That’s the you people fell in love with in the books, Jonah,” she said. “The guy who’s self-aware and eager to fight his own demons.”
“Thanks,” he said, his heart snagging a little on the word love.
Kate looked at him for a while, leaning back against the counter. Then she nodded. “I hear where you’re coming from,” she said. “For what it’s worth, if you agree to do the show, I’ll do my best to make sure you’re portrayed in the best light.”
He stood up, feeling dumb for sitting on his ass while she was on her feet. She was probably itching to go. Waiting for him to ask more questions about the TV show or to give her an answer or something. She hadn’t come here to make idle chit-chat.
He stepped into the space next to her and rested a hand on the counter, making a gray-and-white cat growl from the center of a round pet bed he’d set there. “Thank you for coming here tonight,” he said. “For sharing everything you’ve shared this evening. You’ve given me a lot to think about.”
Kate looked at him, her gaze holding steady. “Do you have any more questions about the show?”
He shook his head, captivated by her eyes. Had he noticed before how many colors they held? Copper, cinnamon, something that almost looked like amber.
“Are you—leaning one way or another?” Kate asked. “About the show?”
“I think so.” Jonah didn’t say anything else. He knew what he wanted to do. What he needed to do. He’d take a night or two to think about it, maybe look at some contracts or something. But the money alone was enough to consider it. And even without the money, getting to work with Kate—
No. Don’t think that way. You already know what a mess it is to do this sort of work with a woman you’re sleeping with.
That was the wrong thought to have. The idea of sleeping with Kate, touching her and holding her and sliding into her—
Jesus Christ, knock it off.
Kate’s gaze was still locked with his, and Jonah wondered if she’d blinked at all in the last few seconds. She was standing close enough for him to feel her breath against his skin. For him to reach out and slide an arm around her waist if he wanted to, which he did want, but he couldn’t, and he really ought to stop thinking about—
Suddenly, she was kissing him. Or he was kissing her. No, she was definitely kissing him, but he was kissing back, and they were all tangled up with fingers and tongues and breath and little sighs of pleasure that Jonah wasn’t sure were coming from him or her or one of the cats.
He slid his hand up into the curve of her waist and she leaned into him like she craved his touch as much as he craved this—all of this. He heard a soft purr behind him, or maybe it was coming from Kate. She was soft all over and tasted like something spicy and warm.
“Jonah,” she murmured as he broke the kiss to place a trail of kisses down her throat and across one collarbone. Her hands cupped his ass and he could feel her nails digging in. Is this what it would be like to have her? So much dizziness and passion and forbidden heat?
Forbidden.
The word stuck in his brain. Jonah froze. He drew back slowly, his body screaming at him to keep going while his brain screamed at him to knock it the hell off.
He looked Kate in the eye and swallowed. “We can’t do this. Not if we’re going to be working together.”
Kate blinked. “We’re going to be working together?”
“I—”
“Did you just say yes?”
He hadn’t meant to. Or hell, maybe he had. He was a little mind whacked with Kate still pressed up against him like this. Jonah took a breath.
“Yeah,” he said. “I guess I did.”
Kate broke into a grin. She gave a delighted little bounce and let go of his ass to place her hands on his shoulders.
“Oh my God, Jonah! I’m so excited.”
“Yeah,” he muttered, already slipping back into Average Joe mode as he thought about his raging erection. “You and me both.”
Lucky for him, Kate seemed to miss the crude joke. Or maybe she was too polite to say anything, which was probably just as well. He’d meant what he said. There was no place for screwing around if they were going to be working together, along with his ex-wife.
Like magic, Jonah’s hard-on went down.
But Kate was still bouncing like a giddy kid, so he had to feel at least a trace of her enthusiasm.
“This is going to be great,” she said. “You’ll see. I promise to do my best to portray you as a multifaceted guy with dignity and wisdom.”
“Owl.”
Jonah tore his eyes off Kate to see Marilyn eyeing him from the windowsill with a look of silent distaste.
Well, not so silent. “Owl,” the cat insisted, standing up and stretching. She hopped down off the sill and padded over to him. She sat down at his feet and looked up at him for a moment, then butted her head against his shin.
“I think she likes you,” Kate said.
“Yeah, I could tell from the head-butting.” Of course, he knew enough about cat psychology to recognize it was probably true. Cats bumped heads against anyone or anything they saw as their own. As a member of their tribe or a possession to be claimed.
Something warm spread through Jonah’s chest as he looked down at that weird little whiskered face and those judgmental brows.
“Marilyn,” he said, testing it out. He liked the way it sounded.
Apparently, so did the cat. A low rumble sounded in her chest, and she rubbed her face on the leg of his jeans as she continued to purr.
“Do you ever end up adopting the cats you have here?” Kate asked.
“I never have. Yet.” He thought about what his sister had said the other day about Viv being the reason behind his pet-free life. Did Jossy have a point?
“I think this cat is trying to tell you something,” Kate said.
Jonah studied Marilyn, mostly because he couldn’t bear to look at Kate with her flushed cheeks and kiss-stung lips.
“Marilyn,” he said again. “Would you like to come home with me?”
The cat narrowed her eyes, unimpressed by the offer. Then she head-butted him again, the queen of mixed messages.
“Typical woman,” he muttered, tearing his eyes off the cat to meet Kate’s gaze again. “Not you; the cat. Though I guess if I’m doing the Average Joe thing again, here’s where I call you a cock-tease and suggest you get your sweet ass home unless you want me to grab it again.”
Her eyes widened. She licked her lips, and he got the sense she didn’t find his piggish behavior nearly as offensive as he did.
“Is it wrong to admit I kinda want that?” she asked.
“Go on,” he said. “You should get out of here.”
“I suppose so.”
She seemed to hesitate, and he watched her open her mouth like she wanted to say something else. Instead, she closed it.
“And we probably shouldn’t do that again,” he said.
“The kissing?”
“Yeah. Not a good idea, under the circumstances.”
“Okay.” Kate pressed her lips together. “Thank you, Jonah.”
“For the pizza you hardly touched?”
“For saying yes to the show. I promise you won’t regret it.”
He looked at her, fighting the urge to tell her that a small part of him already regretted it. That he’d been fueled by regret for most of his adult life.
“Don’t mention it,” he said, then bent down to pick up his cat.