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he wouldn’t admit it when Cato was there.
    I turned to Cato and tried to be affectionate. “Babe, can you excuse me for a moment?”
    “Sure.” He walked away, probably glad to be rid of me.
    Once he was out of earshot, I turned to Joey. “What’s going on, Joe?”
    “I don’t understand your meaning.”
    “You’ve been weird since we had lunch. What’s the deal?”
    “Deal?” he asked. “Nothing.” He put his hands in his pockets and kept looking at different things, the floor, people nearby, anything but me.
    “Did I do something to offend you?”
    He stared across the crowd like I wasn’t there. “He’s good-looking. Where did you find him? At a gym?” His voice was full of loathing.
    “No. Why do you ask?”
    “Because he looks like a jackass meathead.”
    “You met him for two seconds…”
    “I can just tell.” Joey never said anything mean about someone else. It was completely out of character. His behavior was so unusual I didn’t know what to make of it.
    “Seriously, what’s your problem?”
    “Problem?” He released a fake laugh. It almost sounded maniacal. “I don’t have a problem. You’re the one with a problem.”
    I was clearly getting nowhere with Joey. He was obviously too upset to tell me what was really on his mind. Since I didn’t have any magic up my sleeve to pull it out of him, I gave up. “Have a good night.”
    “You too,” he said coldly. “Enjoy pretty boy.”
    I gave him one final look before I returned to my date.
    Cato was leaning against the bar, looking like a model waiting for his picture to be taken. He had the body fit for an athlete and the face a photographer would kill for. “Told you so.”
    “Told me so what?”
    “He’s so into you, Katarina. I hardly know the guy and I can tell.”
    I was starting to wonder if he was right. I couldn’t figure out any other cause of his behavior. “I’m ready to go.”
    He set his drink down quickly, like he’d been waiting for this night to end just as much as I had. “Then let’s hit the road.”
    ***
    Cato walked me to my door, and I was surprised he even did that. After the way he discreetly insulted me throughout the night, I was surprised he had any desire to make sure I got to my door in one piece.
    “Thank you for tonight,” I said politely, hoping to kill him with kindness.
    “Yeah…” He kept his hands in his pockets and didn’t seem interested in looking at me. “Let me know when you need me.”
    His detachment was getting annoying. His lack of maturity was getting under my skin, and now I wanted to sink my claws into him and rip him apart. “If you hate your job so much, why do you do it?”
    “Who said I hated my job?” He turned his blue eyes on me.
    “You don’t act like you enjoy it much.”
    “Perhaps it’s just the company,” he said coldly.
    “Seriously, what did I do to you? I’m a pretty nice person.”
    “That’s debatable…”
    I pushed him hard and he stumbled into the opposite wall. “I’ve been nothing but polite to you from the start. When we first met—”
    “You don’t even remember when we first met.”
    “Excuse me?”
    He shook his head and didn’t say anything.
    “What am I missing here?”
    His blue eyes looked colder than an ice-berg. “You seriously don’t remember?”
    “Remember you from where?” I demanded. “Maybe if you told me it would come back to me. You do look familiar but I can’t place you.”
    He held up his hand then lowered it. “Forget I said anything.”
    “No, there’s obviously something bothering you.”
    “And I doubt you give a shit. You only care about your own feelings, not mine or Joey’s.”
    Why was he being dragged into this? “If you hate me so much, maybe you should just quit.”
    “I don’t bail on a client who needs me. And we both know you can’t afford to lose me. You’ve already introduced me to everyone. There’s no going back.”
    “Well, if you aren’t going to tell me how you know me