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review.”
    “You’ll review it,” she said confidently. “You’ve just got to hit the place on a normal night. You’ll see.”
    One more chance, Lina told herself. Then she could say adiós to The Cookhouse and Mr. Married Kahlua Eyes with a clear conscience.
    *
    “This is nothing new for me—I’m used to dating older women.” Bob Flanagan reached up to smooth his neatly trimmed blond hair. “Girls my own age lack maturity. Once they find out my income, I begin to wonder if they’re more interested in me or in my money, you know what I mean?”
    “Yeah. You said that.”
    Lina cursed herself anew for letting Bon Vivant ’s executive food editor, Etsuko Flanagan, choose her dining companion: Etsuko’s nephew. At the time, Lina had had no problem with the decision. As ambivalent as she’d been about returning here and facing Eric, she couldn’t have cared less about who shared her table. Little had she known this self-important twit would view the excursion as a Date.
    Bob leaned back and straightened his red paisley power tie. His smile was a bit lopsided and more than a bit suggestive. “In my experience, older women have very definite ideas about what they want—ideas that don’t include wheezing, potbellied, middle-aged guys with receding hairlines.” He chuckled and smoothed his flaxen tresses once more.
    She drummed her fingernails on the white tablecloth and looked for the waitress. That made six times so far this insolent pup had used the term “older women.”
    He gave her the once-over. “Nowadays, older women are so—”
    God help him if he says...
    “—well preserved.”
    Lina briefly closed her eyes. It was going to be a long evening.
    She and Bob had just been seated in the largest of The Cookhouse’s three dining rooms, a long, airy space called the “gallery.” This was the room one entered from the street, and at the moment all the tables were filled. Last week she and Joy had sat in the smaller “dining room.” The cozy “library” next door featured floor-to-ceiling bookshelves and only one large table, and was reserved for parties of six to eight. Utilizing all three rooms, The Cookhouse could accommodate close to forty patrons at a time on a Saturday night. Lina had chosen a late seating and made the reservation in Bob’s name.
    “I still can’t believe I had to bring my own booze,” Bob grumbled, one manicured hand caressing the bottle of cabernet sauvignon he had brought—a vintage of dubious distinction. “I hope the waitress comes soon. This should be opened a half hour before it’s served, to let it breathe.” He scanned the paintings and bright decor, his handsome, tanned features twisted into a smug sneer. “Cute place, but if they can’t even manage to get a liquor license...”
    She tried to summon patience. “The Cookhouse is less than a year old, Bob. It takes time to get a liquor license, and besides, many fine restaurants choose not to serve alcohol.”
    His jaw dropped. “That’s crazy! You know what the markup is on booze? That’s what keeps a lot of places afloat. I know what I’m talking about. My law firm has a few restaurants as clients. If fact, we were discussing one of them, La Colombe, at the last partners’ meeting. You ever review La Colombe?”
    How many times was this guy going to bring up the fact that he’d made partner at age twenty-seven? Of course, it didn’t hurt that his daddy was a founding partner.
    “Yes, I reviewed it about six years ago.”
    La Colombe was an elegant, well-known French eatery in Manhattan. As she recalled, its public relations man had tried to bribe her with free meals and several cases of expensive French wine. As always, she’d rebuffed the offer and evaluated the place on its merits. The irony was that La Colombe was an exquisite restaurant, more than deserving of a Bon Vivant review. She’d never gotten used to the fact that many restaurateurs offered bribes as a matter of course, on the