Free Falling for Sir by Cat Kelly

brat alright. Despite the fact that they
had so little in common and she confused the hell out of him, Ms. Miller's
spunkiness was a pleasant surprise, no denying it. He hadn't felt this energized
in years.
    "You want your usual, Mr. Marchetti?"
the store manager called out from behind the counter.
    No. He didn't want his usual. He was ready for
something new, different and exciting.
    And even if Marianne kept her distance, he knew
where to find "Claudia" again.
    Or so he thought.
     
     

 
    Chapter
Six
     
    Mr.
Woody Gets a Set Down
     
    That evening he went to The Club, but she wasn't
there and no other woman present caught his eye. No one else came close to what
he wanted, so he stopped in the restaurant and had his usual steak.
    Where was she tonight?
    On the way home he took a detour to check out
her apartment building. He'd gotten the address from Mrs. B, of course. Driving
slowly by the place he felt like a stalker again, but he had to know where she
was, if she was home, who she was with. It was worrying that she thought she
could handle herself. She seemed to think she had everything sewn up.
    Of course he thought he knew everything too when
he was her age.
    So what did the prim Ms. Miller do with her
evenings? Why she hadn't come back for more at The Club? Like he didn't make
her happy? Maybe he was out of
practice.
    And just like that, questions about this
unsuitable, difficult young woman had begun to monopolize his thoughts.
     
    * * * *
     
    "You need to get out on a date," her
brother had exclaimed merrily over beer and pizza in his kitchenette one night.
"You ain't gettin' any younger, sis. The biological clock must be
tickin'."
    "The biological clock? I'm twenty
three."
    "Twenty four soon."
    "Big deal."
    "You still gotta find someone to get
serious with and marry first. These things take time...and effort... and you
just sit home waiting for James Bond to come knockin' at the door."
    "James Bond?" She'd laughed. After
three beers her brother always had a tendency to pluck the weirdest things out
of the air and start getting all "concerned" about her future.
"I'll settle for Inspector Gadget."
    But they both knew she wouldn't settle. She was
picky.
    "Do you even know what sort of man you
want?" he'd said to her. "All I ever hear from you is what you don't
want."
    It was true, she supposed. Marianne knew a lot
about what she didn't want. Not so much about what she wanted. She'd met too
many "metro-sexuals" in New York— men who were used to being trampled
by women in Jimmy Choos. On the other end of the spectrum there were
self-absorbed, Wall Street suits she wouldn't trust to water her plants while
she was away for the weekend. There were moronic, sweaty, middle-managers like
Bob Rawlings, grasping out for anything they could get to play around with
while the unsuspecting wife was out of town. Somewhere in all that there were a
few, normal guys like her brothers—good, steady, hard-working men who were
kind, honest and faithful. Problem was they always overlooked her because one
of two things happened: either she struggled to stay silent so as not to scare
them off with her opinions, and then faded away in the crowd; or she got
nervous, opened her mouth and said the wrong thing at the wrong time. Men were
funny about women with intelligence and she wasn't a natural flirt who could
work her way around that. Her brothers' friends saw her only as
"Mikey's" and "Benny's" little sister and therefore
considered her out of bounds. Around them she was more likely to get her nose
pinched than her ass.
    With a sigh, she explained to her brother,
"I guess I want a man who likes the fact that I have a brain and isn't
afraid of it. A man that still finds me attractive at five in the morning and
doesn't spend our time together looking over my head at other women. A man
who'll still find me sexy when my ass spreads. A man I can be a woman
around—who makes me feel good, safe, loved." Afraid she was starting to
sound like