AN: As seems so often the case, I find myself here again, jumping without a parachute, so I'll thank you in advance for your patience as I work this thing to its end. As always, you have my humble appreciation for your indulgence, and I hope these days of summer (perhaps winter for some) are treating you kindly.

Chapter 1

As it too often did of late, Kate Beckett's morning alarm reached out and struck her like a mallet to the head, its insufferable hiss a racket she couldn't possibly ignore. She had the radio's dial purposefully parked between stations, the volume ticked up to a level that bordered on sadistic, and the most aggravating part of it wasn't the daily jolt to her heart, but that she only had herself to blame for the self-inflicted rack, having allowed her sleep pattern over the past few months to become as erratic as a blindfolded man riding a bicycle.

Despite repeated accusations of having an obsession with her work-namely from a best friend who rarely had opportunity to see her anymore-Kate preferred to think of herself as simply committed. After all, a person couldn't throw a rock without hitting an attorney it seemed, in her city or any other, and at just three years into her own practice, she had to do whatever it took to keep the clients she managed to woo away from rivals who shamelessly plastered their faces across benches at bus stops. Without them, all she had was a cat and a shitload of debt.

She slid an arm free from beneath her pillow and flung it wildly in the direction of the clock, the stack of pleasure-reading books beside it on the nightstand an unintended casualty of her wayward limb. It crashed to the floor with a clatter, her groan of frustration in its wake evidence of a sequence she wasn't entirely unfamiliar with.

On second effort, her swat landed its mark and the unbearable-for-one-more-second rasp silenced. Kate rolled onto her back, her resentful eyelids open but a sliver, the bedroom around her still bathed in the color of night.

"What do you care? You get to sleep all day," she nipped at Clyde the cat, who stretched with a disapproving squeak at his body's compelled shift.

Kate roused the muscles of her legs with a flex, and a pile of papers crinkled at her feet. She'd taken a case to bed with her again-sadly, a more satisfying partner than any man in recent memory-and its files remained scattered about the end of the bed. Buy a desk was still number one on her new apartment to-do list. She'd been there four months.

Rubbing the sting from her eyes, she switched on the light, her focus landing with disdain on the treadmill in the corner. She engaged in battle with the machine every morning, cursed it for its existence, berated it for robbing her of thirty valuable minutes of sleep, and every morning she surrendered to its You'll thank me later for these three miles, Kate pledge, smug though it was. To be honest, on most days, she was loath to admit it but it ended up being true.

She loved the law, loved her career. It required an absurd amount of time and energy, but she loved it. It challenged her, inspired her, excited and fulfilled her. Most important and closest to her heart, being a lawyer was a bond she shared with her mother, who was once a prosecutor and now a judge, and who never let Kate go one day without a reminder to live a life outside of it. She understood how consuming that chosen course could be, and the toll the sacrifices it often required could take. Those conversations didn't always go smoothly. Kate was just as stubborn as she.

A wisp of hair that'd eluded her elastic band's capture tickled her eyelashes as her feet pounded against the treadmill's belt. She read as she ran, none of the pleasure books she habitually bought yet made no time for, but rather notes for her morning meeting with the attorney representing James Sullivan, the current husband of her newest client, Claire Sullivan. She'd been recommended to Kate via Kate's father, a longtime friend of Claire's parents.

Claire and James's marriage had apparently been a tumultuous one from the beginning, kicking straight off on the wrong foot with a rather soap opera-esque row in front of the hundreds of guests in attendance at their wedding reception-a forewarning from the universe, if ever there was one. Unlike her soon-to-be ex, Claire hadn't entered the union riding a wave of millions in family money. But, she sure as hell wanted to ride her share out of it.

"Why can't all men be as good as you, huh?" she huffed to Clyde when he jumped off the bed and gifted her an adoring glance before wandering off. "Yeah, impossible, I know."

xxxx

It was 9:07 a.m., and she was late. Kate Beckett hated being late, especially absent a worthy excuse for it. She approached the door to the firm at a definitive jog, impressive enough that she'd scaled five flights of stairs with little physical aftereffect, even more so that she'd chosen her four-inch Louboutins-the sort of material splurge she didn't often allow herself-in which to do it.

Regardless of the hour, and as she did each morning, she paused to take in the polished gold of the Katherine Beckett Family Attorney at Law nameplate that greeted her, to give thanks, to recognize and appreciate it. Three years later and she still felt it every time she looked at it, the thrill of the achievement, of what she'd dreamed of for so long.

The door suddenly flew open in front of her with a whoosh, Kate's fingers already outstretched for the handle. "Where have you been?" asked the flustered young woman standing beyond the threshold. "You choose today of all days to be late?"

Morgan had been with Kate since the firm's opening. Without her, Kate would be utterly lost, and both of them knew it. Morgan pulled her into the office with greater force than her petite frame suggested she should possess and Kate stumbled, her bag and her bottle of veggie-blended juice both ending up on the carpet.

"Yes, Morgan, I chose to be late," she replied with sarcasm as subtle as the summer sun. "I always enjoy finding ways to add even more stress to my life." She bent to retrieve her belongings, but was waived off. "Thank you. Traffic on 95 was a total bitch this morning," she snarled in explanation, though hardly a defense. When was it not?

"Okay, I don't know how many times I'm going to have to tell you this before you decide to hear me, but you really need to find yourself a man to screw you silly in the mornings, because that treadmill of yours is doing absolutely zero for you. I swear to God, Kate, traffic or not, you're always wound as tight as a spring."

Morgan eyed the juice, handed it over with the sneer she felt anything that healthy deserved, and nudged Kate in the back toward her office.

"Do assistants always talk to their bosses this way or am I just lucky?" The pair had grown the closest of friends, so the offense was merely an act. "He's coming at 9:30 a.m., right?" she asked, settling into her chair, her morning coffee already waiting for her.

"You're nervous to meet him." The corners of Morgan's lips curled in celebration of an appraisal she deemed astute. "I drove past another one of his billboards this morning. He's hot, and from everything I've read about him, he likes screwing people. Usually it's in court, but maybe it spills over. You should ask him to help loosen you up."

Kate downed a sip of her latte. The moment called for caffeine over kale. "You're worse than my mother, you know that? And why would I be nervous, just because the guy has some billboards and a flashy smile? If he's anything like his reputation, I hope this'll be the first and last time I have to see the guy."

Morgan arched an eyebrow. "You're such a liar. This is me you're talking to. He's exactly your type with that hair and that jaw and that..." On Kate's expression, she cut her points of evidence short and turned with a snicker to go. "This is going to be so much fun," was the last thing Kate heard before the thump of her heart kicked up.

xxxx

She used the few minutes she had to read over her notes one more time, or pretend to, as the case was, because she couldn't seem to get beyond a sentence or two with any true focus. Morgan finally buzzed to alert his arrival at nearly twenty-five minutes beyond their arranged time, and though unquestionably hypocritical, since she'd done the very thing that morning, his tardiness nevertheless didn't sit well.

The two didn't travel in the same clientele circles, so Kate had never had occasion to meet Richard Castle, but she and everyone else damn sure knew of him. He made certain of that, and to an almost nauseating degree. One couldn't drive anywhere within a 50-mile radius without passing by one of his cheesy advertisements, or sit through an entire commercial break without hearing his voice and that awful tagline of his. Her eyes practically rolled just thinking about it.

And it really pissed her off, but Morgan wasn't entirely wrong. She wouldn't grant her the satisfaction of admitting it, but there was something about his face that did whet Kate's appetite. Even the used-car-salesman smile he wore to try and rope clients into his Don't want a hassle, call Richard Castle nonsense wasn't enough to quash that.

It was his eyes. He had kind eyes, she thought. Kind eyes couldn't be faked.

"Mr. Castle," she greeted him with a handshake and an enthusiasm bordering on suspicious. "Thank you for coming in this morning. I'm Katherine Beckett." All at once, her throat began to parch like it was being stuffed with cotton. In her stilettos, her eyeline virtually equaled that of the King of Billboards, and despite her myriad of preconceived notions, something about him had her inexplicably spellbound.

"Can I get you some coffee or water to drink?" Morgan asked, insinuating herself into Kate's notable hesitation. When he declined, she kept on in the lead. "I'll just show you into the conference room then. Follow me." She slid her eyes to Kate, and along with her words shot an unambiguous look. "That thing I needed signed I just put on your desk, if you could take care of that before you get started."

"Uh, yes, of course, the thing," Kate responded catching the pitch. "I'll take care of that and I'll be right with you, Mr. Castle."

Not thirty seconds later, Morgan scurried into Kate's office and immediately shut the door behind her, stood with her back pressed up against it.

"Holy shit, did you see him? He's even more beautiful in person. It's been a while, so it's hard to remember what it feels like when a man gives me one, but I think I might've actually had an orgasm."

Kate audibly puffed the air in her lungs out through her nose. "You can't be serious. We are not doing this right now. Or ever."

"Oh, do not even try to deny it. He made eye contact with you and you couldn't speak. What's going to happen when you're sitting across the table from him? Maybe I should be in there for the meeting, kick you under the table if you start doodling his name in little hearts on your legal pad."

"Shut up. Remember that raise you asked me for? Forget it. I'm going in there now and you are definitely not," Kate said and hipped her assistant aside to get to the door handle. "And, for chrissake, keep your orgasms out of my office."

xxxx

"I'm sorry about keeping you waiting, Mr. Castle," Kate told him but through a grit of her teeth. She dropped into the rolling chair across from her opposing counsel and his eyes of crystal blue, hooked her fingers around one of its armrests when it threatened to tip with her awkward landing. "It's been a morning," she said following an exhale of blended embarrassment and relief.

He sat there watching her in silence, with a grin absent teeth yet spilling over with amusement. "You're a very tall woman, Katherine Beckett," he commented finally. "Probably the tallest I've ever been up against."

Kate swallowed, cursed herself for forgetting to bring her coffee into the room with her because the cotton came roaring back with a vengeance-for that and for allowing her brain to take his plain observation for a prompt stroll down Salacious Street.

"It's just… It's the heels," she replied, kicking off a fruitless search for the pen it turned out she'd also left in her office.

He reached into the inside pocket of his suit jacket. "Yes, I noticed them." He pushed the spare pen he'd plucked across the table toward her. "You should call me Rick. Don't steal that. I know where you work now."

"Thanks. I told you it's been a morning. I'm not usually this disordered." The shake of her head came screaming through in her voice. "I guess you should call me Kate, and I'll try to resist the urge," she quipped.

"Well, that doesn't sound like much fun, Kate, but we can talk about that over dinner. I've gone ahead and drawn up a list of items that reflects what my client is prepared to offer your client. There's a copy there for each of you. Discuss it, and get back to me if you have any objections."

It was like he'd hit Kate with a car and sped off.

…talk about it over dinner? She wasn't even sure he knew he'd said it.

"That won't be happening, Mr. Castle," she returned with a snigger for an exclamation point.

Rick flipped closed his leather portfolio and tapped it with a pleased fist. "Perfect, I love a divorce without any hassle." He pushed back from the table and popped up out of his chair.

That goddamn tagline, she thought.

"I meant dinner, and I assure you, my list of objections is considerable."

He extended his arm across the table, held flat his palm. "I don't think so," he said and waggled his fingers until she gave him back the pen. "In the meantime, maybe I could get your assistant's number. What was her name again?"

Flustered by the "Who's on first?" conversation she seemed to have found herself in, she blurted "You were late," and shoved the pen into his hand. "And her name is not interested."

Rick moved for the door, turned back and smiled that billboard smile. "It's been a pleasure, Kate. You really are incredibly tall. My private office number's there. I'll see myself out."

Kate sat there alone for a few minutes and gathered herself. He was even more obnoxious than she imagined he'd be, and she more aroused than she could possibly make sense of.