Rick Cerruti was having a bad day.

First there was the power failure at his loft, which left him coffeeless and unshaven after a hard night and very little sleep. Then there was the fact that his bedroom was a windowless cave, and he didn't realize until he was in the supermarket that he was wearing a polo shirt with his boots and leathers. Hell.

Now, here was this woman, talking on a cell phone, standing right in front of the Frosted Flakes, right where he needed to be. Bitch. He hated those damn cell phone junkies. She had her back turned to him so she didn't notice him glaring at her. Nice ass, he thought, dispassionately, as long as he had to be staring at it. A little more voluptuous than he usually went for, but a nice, grabbable ass, nevertheless.

He shifted his weight from one leg to the other, cocking his hip, preparatory to verbalizing his disgust.

"No, you will not use sour cream instead of clotted cream."

Her voice was hard, and clearly the issue was not negotiable. What the hell is clotted cream, he wondered, sounds disgusting.

Safira Janis had just begun shopping when her assistant, Susie, called to ask if they could use sour cream for clotted cream in a photo shoot. After squelching that suggestion, her mind wandered to her shopping list so she missed Susie's next comment.

"What did you say?"

"The cats ate the clotted cream," Susie repeated from the other end of the line.

"Oh...my...god." Safira felt faint. "Please tell me you're kidding."

"Uh-uh."

"How could you let that happen?" She realized she was shouting and moderated her tone. "You know what happened the last time they did something like that." Visions of hours of throw-ups followed by a week of the runs cha-cha'd through her head. "You're on cleanup, Susie, and no excuses," she ordered in her best take-no-prisoners voice.

Feeling something like a laser boring into her spine, Safira glanced over her shoulder to see a big hunk of a guy, eyes burning holes through her. Whoa. Very tall, very brooding, very long, dark auburn hair, shoulders out to here, s*xily unshaven jaw...Danger! Danger, Will Robinson!

It only took a second for Safira to recover her poise. Ignoring the irate babbling coming from the cell phone still clutched to her ear, she looked him up and down, noting the odd fashion statement, then glared back at him. "Interesting look," she said, "biker golfer?"

As soon as the words were out of her mouth she realized that there was something familiar about those...dark blue eyes. I know those eyes.

Rick was about to blast the woman when he realized that there was something...oh, god...something in the face...he got a sick feeling in his stomach and felt like crying. "Safira?" He sounded poleaxed; he felt poleaxed. Seventeen years and he wasn't over her yet. Damn!

Safira's heart did a little bop in her chest. Obviously, I do know this guy. Who..."Rickie?"