She had finalized arrangements with the hairdresser, Sonja, to come over and cut the Primal Guy's hair. Julia had surfed the Internet and thumbed through magazine after magazine to find the perfect style for Rocco's long blond tresses. He still had to look sexy, but he also had to look respectable and responsible. She had landed on the perfect style-a cross between a young Pierce Bros-nan and a not-too-messy Tom Cruise. Only blond.

She'd also gone to the Fashion Place and gotten a whole slew of men's attire.

Julia paced back and forth excitedly, ready to get started. When the doorbell rang, she raced to the door and yanked it open before the chimes stopped ringing.

Ben hung up the phone. Everything was set. He was going to attempt to get into Morales's compound Saturday night. The plan was for backup to be in place by eight p.m., and Ben would show up shortly after that.

For now, all he could do was work the online aspect of this.

Over the next hour, he read through more than fifty responses to the posts he had placed Sunday night on the dating sites. Some were funny, some were pathetic, and several were disturbing. He decided that several of them needed further inquiry-though not regarding his pursuit of Henry's killer.

He forwarded the e-mails in question to a buddy in sex crimes division. Then he focused on three e-mails that brought up the need for money. He sent e-mail responses back, probing the issue. He'd find out soon enough if they wanted money from him, or if they were offering him ways to make some extra cash.

He had just fired off the last response to the three e-mails when the doorbell rang. He heard Julia talking to another woman. Seconds later he heard Todd and Rob arrive, and shortly after that he heard another man's voice.

He didn't know why Julia's choice of Rocco pissed him off so much. Something about the man bothered him. Despite what Julia said, he didn't have anything in common with Rocco. Just because the guy answered many of the questions on the questionnaire as he would have wasn't what bothered him. So he liked jeans, leather, and boots. And so what if he liked hot and fast women, and wasn't interested in settling down. There was more to him than that.

But seeing Russo strut around and eye Julia really got his blood boiling.

Though that wasn't why he headed for the other side of the house. Really. He wanted to see Todd.

When he walked into the kitchen, Todd was videotaping while Rob loaded his own camera. Rocco sat

on a high stool without his shirt on, looking Julia over. Julia was eyeing him back.

The woman who had shown up offering her hair-styling services was there as well. Sonja. No question she was a knockout. Drop-dead gorgeous. And the minute he walked into the room, she stopped what

she was doing and looked at him. She ran her eyes over him, then smiled at him with promise. Six weeks ago he would have been interested. But a lot had changed in six weeks.

"What do you think of this style?" Julia asked the hairdresser.

Sonja smiled for one last second before she turned to Julia. "It's perfect. He'll look like a totally hot

banker."

Rocco grunted. Ben would have sworn Julia grimaced over the grunt.

"When you finish his hair, I'd like you to give him a manicure and a facial," Julia instructed.

"I don't need no wimpy manicure," Rocco scoffed.

Julia got a look on her face-the kind the old Julia used to get. "You signed a consent form saying that

you would do whatever I said as long as I didn't cause you any bodily harm."

"All right, all right," Rocco conceded. "But no pansy-assed polish or any crap like that."

Julia whipped out a notepad. "Work on cursing and appropriate language."

Rocco groaned, and for half a second Ben actually felt sorry for the guy.

"And we wonder why men make such lousy dates," Sonja observed.

Julia eyed her curiously, then put her hand on the woman's arm. "You just haven't met the right man yet."

"Hey, Ben!" Todd enthused, his new camera rolling.

Ben instantly put his hand up. "I'm not the one you need to be filming."

Todd laughed. "Don't tell me you're camera shy."

"That's me," he responded, using his fingers to pry a cinnamon roll off of a plate-causing Julia to slap

his hand and Todd to laugh as, despite instructions, he caught it all on tape.

By Saturday morning, Julia's excitement had grown tenfold. The audience was going to be wowed by the before and after shots of Rocco Russo. After less than twenty-four hours of cleaning him up, he already looked like every mother's dream date for her daughter. That is, as long as he kept his mouth shut and his eyes staring straight ahead instead of ogling female body parts.

Today she was going to work on the rest of him. After doing a great job with his hair, Sonja had returned, offering to do whatever else she could to help in the mornings that she had free. Julia was happy to have her around. She missed her friends, missed the time they spent laughing and talking. While Sonja would never take Chloe's or Kate's place, she was a lot of fun and made Julia laugh.

"What's on the list for today?" Sonja asked.

"Dancing. Speech. Polite behavior. By the end of the day, our newly groomed bad boy needs to know how to treat a lady." Sonja arched a brow. "Good luck. Yesterday all he had to do was sit there and get pampered. Today he'll have to do some work." She smiled at Julia. "But if anyone can do it, you can."

"Thanks. I hope you're right. I haven't been so great dealing with men recently."

"Like who?"

"My boss, for one. Ben, for another."

Sonja looked toward the door, as if she expected someone to walk in at any second. "How long have

you and Ben been together?"

"Together?" She about spit out a sip of tea. "You mean as in together together?"

"Is there any other kind?"

"Well, ah, no, we aren't together. He's just staying here for ... a while."

Sonja glanced back at the doorway. "Really," she said with a purr. "I bet he's a handful," she chuckled,

"which is a good thing. He's handsome, elusive. Just the sort of man who gets a woman interested." Sitting up in her chair, Julia felt yet another bite of what she swore to herself wasn't jealousy. First the dating site, now Sonja acting interested in Ben- Interested in Ben!

The anger, jealousy, or whatever evaporated when a thought occurred to her.

Sonja was interested in Ben!

Julia had seen the way Ben looked at the beautiful woman, his heated gaze taking in her clearly great

body. And now Sonja said she was interested in him. The question was what, if anything, should Julia do about it?

The doorbell rang, and Julia heard Rocco call out when he entered.

"Good morning, Rocco," she said when he walked in the door.

He pulled out a kitchen chair, slouched into it, his knees spread, his grin wide and predatory. It gave her a chill. And not a good chill.

"Hey, babe, how's it hangin'?" Then he gave Sonja a serious once-over. "Mmmm, mmmm, you're looking

mighty fine this morning."

For a second, Julia thought Sonja, in all her Nordic glory, was going to body slam Primal Guy into the teacups on the table. But in the end, she just smiled at him like he was a troublesome child.

She might be a good match for Ben.

"Yep, that's the perfect way to impress a woman," Sonja said.

Rocco muttered something unintelligible. Julia leaped to her feet.

"That's the perfect segue into our first lesson of the day. Appropriate forms of speech."

"Great. You're going to complain about something else?"

"Now, Rocco, you want to be transformed, don't you? You said you wanted to be the sort of man who

can sweep Fiona Branch off her feet."

"Yeah, well," he grumbled. "God, she's hot."

"Rule number one, no more God, she's hot. You can use words like pretty, beautiful. You look fabulous

would work really well."

Rocco muttered something, but when she questioned him, he just grinned. "You're the boss."

"That's right," she stated.

In preparation of the day's work, Julia had made a meal to serve Rocco, one that he could eat while she

watched and pointed out his flaws.

"Rob and Todd, are you ready?" she asked.

"Yep. Everyone take your places," Rob called out.

They worked on the place setting first, which fork to use when. She had to slap his hand when he did the same thing Ben had done. He reached over to pick up a cinnamon roll with his fingers.