“Yeah?” she answered, her voice muffled by almost half a taco.

“Tate, sweetie, cover for me tonight? I'll make it up to you, I promise,” a voice whined over the other end. Rachel. Another friend, who worked for a catering business. Tate temped with them on occasion, so Rachel would call her to cover every now and then.

“I don't know, I had kind of a late night last night,” Tate grumbled.

“This'll be easy. Drinks and hors d'oeuvres at some swanky building downtown, seven to ten; get there at six, done by eleven. Please, please, please, I will owe you my life,” Rachel begged. Tate rolled her eyes.

“Keep it, it's not worth anything anyway. I'll do it, I'll do it,” she responded. She could always use more money.

“Eeeeek! You're the best, Tatey-Watey, the absolute best,” Rachel gushed, and then passed along the address and event info. Tate hung up the phone and sighed.

“Her voice is so hard to resist. Wha'd she rope you into, this time?” Rus asked, finishing off the last taco.

“Just some party, cocktails and stuff. Some new company that just opened downtown, kind of a welcome event thingy. Kraven and Dunn, brokerage firm or something. A bunch of suits, people that are rich out the ass,” Tate explained.

“Oh, so your kind of people?”

“Shut up,” Tate snapped, punching Rus in the arm when she started to laugh. “Not anymore. My mother would die if she saw the way I lived.”

“We're not so bad,” Rus piped up. Tate nodded.

“I know – it's more of a comment on them than us,” she explained before jumping off the table. “Let's get out of here. I gotta go shower and find that uniform.”

Tate showed up at the address at six o'clock sharp. The whole office building belonged to the firm, and the party was being held on the top floor. Ooohhh, big money. Could mean big tip. Or no tip. Rich people were funny that way, she had noticed.

She changed in a bathroom stall, and then examined herself in a mirror. She hadn't really been sure how cleaned up she should get – when she catered, she always tried to score more low key events. She hoped her heavy eye makeup wasn't too much, she didn't want to go through the hassle of scrubbing it all off. She pulled her hair in to a high ponytail and made her way in to the kitchen.

All the servers were gathered together and walked through the event space, a large conference room that had been cleared of all its furniture and set up for the party with little tables everywhere. No guests were there yet, but some guys in suits were wandering around, looking things over. Tate sighed and picked at her nails, ignoring the run through; blah blah, serve the drinks, blah blah, don't talk to the guests, blah blah, drop a tray and instant death. It was always the same.

There wasn't a whole lot to do till guests got there, and Tate was a mover by nature. She didn't like standing around doing nothing. She began prepping drink trays, preloading some with champagne glasses that had been designed special for the occasion – there was supposed to be a toast at the end of the night, and all of the glasses had a large, cursive K etched in to the glass. She set them up in the kitchen, and then carried them to a table where the other trays were filled with food, ready to go. She was on her last tray when she turned around and rammed right in to somebody.

“What the shit!” she exclaimed, dropping the tray and falling to her knees.

“Excuse me,” a man's voice floated down to her. She grumbled and began grabbing at the broken glasses, slamming them onto the tray.

“Walk much!? Or is this your first time as a pedestrian?” she snapped. The guy squatted down next to her.

“Sorry, I didn't see you there,” he repeated, though his voice sounded anything but sorry.

She flicked her eyes to his face, giving him her most severe glare before concentrating on the glass in front of her. She frowned. Light eyes. Dark hair. He had been staring at her. He was very good looking, and wearing an expensive looking suit. God, had she just told off one of the guests? What was a guest doing in the kitchen?

“Sorry, I shouldn't have snapped. You just startled me,” Tate mumbled an apology. He laughed.

“That didn't exactly sound genuine,” he chuckled.

“Just doing my job, sir,” she managed a tight lipped response.

“You work here?”

“No, I just like to wear aprons and run around kitchens for fun,” she said before she could stop herself. He laughed again.

“Ah, a caterer. C'mon, get up. Ignore those, I'll get someone to clean it up,” he said, and then grabbed her arm, forcing her to climb to her feet. She was a little shocked at the audacity of just grabbing her like that, but she didn't say anything. Couldn't. His fingers felt like they were burning holes through the oxford shirt she was wearing.

“But I can't just leave that, I -,” she started, trying to bend back down. He kept his grip on her.

“Leave it,” he ordered, and a shiver ran down her spine. She finally looked at him again.

“You can't just tell me to leave a mess there, and it's okay. Who are you?” she demanded. He smiled down at her, and something fluttered in her chest.

No. Not possible.

“See the K on those glasses?” he asked. She glanced down at the tray.

“Yeah?”

“That's me. I'm the Kraven in Kraven and Dunn,” he explained. She managed a nod.

“Oh.”