“No one,” he says, “and I mean no one. Not the President. Not the Pope. Not even my own mother.”
A startled laugh escapes me. “You’re not serious? About your mom?”
He lifts one tired brow at me. You’re being judgmental again, that brow says. “If she calls, just pass me the message. But have a nice little chat with her if it bothers you.”
“Excellent. I’ll use that time to work on my British accent,” I reply. “Top o’ the morning to you, guv’ner.”
My accent could use some work. I sound like a pirate on a children’s cartoon.
“No one has said that in England for, roughly, a century.”
“Throw another shrimp on the barbie. Oy, the quidditch pitch is in a right state, innit?” I cock my arm and swing it jauntily, as if I’m Captain Jack Sparrow, leading the boys in song.
There’s a small twitch of his mouth, a flicker of that dimple I’ve seen in photos. “I hope you’re not auditioning for the part of a Brit anytime soon.”
“I’m not auditioning for any part, obviously. I was living the dream as a bartender, and now I’m living the dream kicking women out of your bed and, I hope, conversing at length with your mom.” He’s already gathering his stuff, preparing to forget me for the day. I wish I hadn’t derailed the conversation about his mother with my juvenile attempts to make him laugh.
“I know it’s none of my business—” I begin.
He sighs heavily. “That seems unlikely to stop you.”
“What happened with your mom?”
He regards me long enough that I’m certain he’s about to tell me to fuck off, but shrugs instead. “She threatened to cut me out of her will if I didn’t break up with my girlfriend,” he says. “I failed to comply. Clearly, an error of judgment on my end, as my mother turned out to be right.” The word girlfriend hits me like a hammer. I never dreamed I’d hear him utter it, unless in jest.
“You had a girlfriend.”
I’m waiting for the punchline, but instead he sighs and runs a hand through his hair. “Believe it or not, I was a serial monogamist most of my life. I have, obviously, seen the light on that one.” I hear a hint of regret in his tone, see it in the lost look in his eyes, blinked away as soon as it appears.
How do you go from being a serial monogamist to being…Hayes? What has to happen to change someone that dramatically?
“And she really cut you off?” I ask.
He shrugs again, as if it was meaningless.
“I was already out of med school at that point and didn’t need her money. But then I moved here, near my father, and she never forgave me for it.”
I kind of hate his mom a bit too, now. “I guess I don’t have to ask which parent you’re closer to, then.”
A shadow passes over his face. “You’d think so,” he says, rising to leave, “but that’s because I haven’t told you what my dad did.”
He walks out and I find myself left with a small ache in the center of my chest. To look at him, you’d think he has every last thing a man could want: looks, wealth, women throwing themselves at him right and left.
But he also has a despicable mother, a father who may actually be worse, no siblings I know of, and a girlfriend he gave everything up for...one who is no longer around. Who does he turn to when things go wrong? Where does he spend holidays? He seems to keep himself so busy there’s barely even time for him to wonder if his life feels a little empty without any family. If he was anyone but Hayes Flynn, seducer of a thousand shattered actresses, I’d wonder if that wasn’t the entire point.
The small, sunny office next to Hayes’s kitchen is my happy place. Or might be, if I didn’t have to do my job.
Today, as always, I sit with the schedule open on the laptop in front of me, sinking further and further into my chair as I listen to rich, beautiful women list their flaws. It’s disheartening at best. Money, in my view, only seems to have bought them more time to discover what they hate about themselves, leading them to call in near tears lamenting crow’s feet and lines above their upper lips. There’s nothing wrong with plastic surgery, but what bothers me is their desperation, their sense of urgency, as if nothing else matters. I make their appointments wishing I could instead say look, it’s gorgeous outside, you can do anything you want. Stop weeping to a stranger about the symmetry of your nostrils.
When the calls are complete, I print invoices, then rush out to make his purchases for the day: a razor sold at a ridiculously overpriced store on Melrose, crisps and Marmite from a shop in the San Fernando Valley.
By the time I get back to my studio—which is a glamorous name for a room the size of a storage unit, and with about as much natural light—I’m exhausted.
I make a cup of ramen and finally settle down to what I consider my real job. The one I appear to be incapable of.
The first hundred pages of the book flew from my fingers. Aisling and Ewan are young lovers who’ve climbed through a hole in the wall separating fae from humans. It’s supposed to be temporary, because Aisling has a younger brother to care for, but the wealth and opulence of the fae kingdom is more compelling than they expected. When Ewan refuses to leave—having changed in ways he doesn’t recognize—Aisling has to save him from himself and get back through the hole before it closes for good.
I didn’t realize, at the time, that I was writing about me and Matt, that the small ways he changed when we got to New York bothered me far more than I was willing to admit. I was too busy being horrified by the fact I was writing it at all. In my masters of fine arts program, we were expected to pen things that were dreary and very real, like a day in the life of a secretary thinking of killing herself, or five people stuck on an elevator together, slowly unraveling. Writing a fantasy romance at night was my most shameful secret for a long time, and the thing I enjoyed most. Now that I’m supposed to write it, I no longer want to.
When the words fail to come, when I find myself thinking just give up, I close the laptop and change into running clothes. I don’t love running at night in LA, but it’s necessary. My frustration with the book is often too much to bear, and running is the only method I’ve got to shove it away.
I take the winding beach path leading from Santa Monica to Venice, dodging panhandlers and drunk tourists the entire way as I mull over the story. Why can’t I finish it? The book dies at the point where Aisling is supposed to step up and save Ewan from himself, and I can’t seem to move past it.
I increase my pace until my lungs burn and my legs are heavy. Would things have been different if I’d stayed behind to finish my degree? Would the book have come easily? Would Matt have taken me for granted a little less than he did?
Except Matt had his first big role in LA and wanted me here with him, and I’d just gotten the book deal and needed time off anyway. The choice seemed obvious to me at the time.
Like Hayes, I moved here to be close to someone who didn’t deserve me, and I gave up things that mattered for a person who’s no longer around. I guess it makes sense that he leads his life as if nothing in it truly matters.
I’m starting to feel the same way about my own.
6
On the way to work the next morning, I call Liddie to remind her about the Zoom birthday party that evening for Charlotte.
Liddie groans. “Why are we doing it so late? That’s right at Kaitlin’s bedtime, plus I’m ovulating, so, uh, Alex and I have plans.”
“Because it isn’t late where I am, and one of us has to work. Also, gross.”
I pull into Hayes’s circular drive just as a woman who looks a lot like my sister walks out his front door.
“Your doppelganger is leaving Hayes’s house,” I tell her.
“Is it you?” she asks with a laugh. I suppose I set myself up for that one. All three of us Bell girls do look a fair bit alike. “Maybe you should ask yourself why he’s fucking someone who looks just like his assistant.”
“Given how many women Hayes sleeps with, it was bound to happ
en eventually,” I reply as I hang up.
Hayes is already at the counter, waiting. “Your date looked just like my sister,” I say, placing his coffee in front of him. “Except my sister would still be here telling you what you’re doing wrong.”
He takes his coffee and sniffs it, as if assessing for poison. “It doesn’t surprise me at all to learn a relative of yours is full of unsolicited advice. But if I did to your sister what I just did to the woman who left, she’d be too exhausted to talk.”
A rusty muscle in my stomach clenches, but it’s been nearly a year since Matt and I broke up, and pretty much that long since I had sex, so I refuse to feel any guilt about my body’s innate response to Hayes…as long as I never act on it.
“I can see where a night with you would indeed be exhausting,” I reply as he rises. “I bet you don’t say please or thank you once.”
“Yes, because men who say please and thank you during sex are generally referred to as customers.”
I fight hard not to laugh. A hint of a smile slips forth but I snatch it back quickly.
He hands me a Post-It note. “I need this taken care of.”
He walks out—no please, no thank you, not even a goodbye. I go to the office, drop my bag on the floor, and ignore the ringing phone long enough to read the Post-It he handed me.
Much to my relief, he doesn’t ask me to remove a naked female from his bed, but he does want a reservation for Friday at a restaurant that books out a month in advance, needs me to fix the car he just drove away in, and asks about “brochures” without giving me any hint what brochures he’s referring to.
I give in at last and call Jonathan. I’ve been trying to give him his space, but I have no idea how to proceed here, and I’ve been dying to hear about the ten-month-old girl they’ve already named Gemma. He promised me photos when he left and I haven’t gotten a thing.
“Have you met her?” I demand immediately, bypassing all niceties.
“Not yet,” he says with a frustrated sigh. “The orphanage is putting up one road block after another.”
Poor Jonathan. He and his partner waited on an adoption list for years before this came through. “I’m so sorry. Is there anything I can do?”
“No,” he says, “but we may end up here longer than planned. I hope that’s not a problem on your end?”
I laugh ruefully, leaning back in the office chair and propping my feet on the desk. “It might be a problem on your boss’s end. He hates me. Every time I speak, he has this look of utter contempt on his face. It’s seriously making me wonder why we helped England out during World War Two.”
“Well, there was the whole bit about the Holocaust, and Hitler dominating Europe,” he says. “Maybe he’s like a boy with a crush, pulling your pigtails.”
“A guy who’s slept with half the actresses in LA isn’t that awkward with women, nor would he be interested in me in the first place.”
“Don’t sell yourself short, Tali,” he says softly. “You’re beautiful and smart and different from what he’s used to. And I think Hayes is a lot lonelier than he would ever admit, even to himself. Just don’t sleep with him.”
I’ve only slept with two people in my entire life. I seriously don’t understand why this keeps coming up. “Apparently you’ve missed the part about me hating Hayes, and Hayes hating me.”
“I haven’t missed it,” he says with a small laugh. “I’m just not sure I entirely believe it.”
With Jonathan’s guidance, I manage to acquire the sought-after reservation and locate the missing brochures. The car must be dealt with later, on a surgery day when Hayes won’t need to leave the office.
From there, it’s a million phone calls about lips that don’t “turn out” enough and uneven skin, and it’s six by the time I leave. This whole Zoom party, suggested by my sister’s psychologist, is feeling less likely to work out by the second. You can do it late, Dr. Shriner said, so you won’t have to rush home from work. Little does she know seven PM is not late when you work for Hayes Flynn.
I drive home, cursing the traffic and Matt’s billboard, and am only ten minutes from my apartment when the work phone buzzes.
Need tux, Hayes writes. Black not navy. Bring to office.
I groan aloud. Who the fuck decides he needs a tux this late in the day? I don’t even know if he means a tux he already owns. That he potentially has tuxes in navy and black seems excessive, but minimalism isn’t exactly Hayes’s style. And surely he can’t expect me to rent one this late.
Is the tux in your closet? I ask, but obviously he can’t be bothered to reply. What skin is it off his nose if I have to waste twenty minutes driving to his house to check?
With a heavy foot on the accelerator, I race back to his house and take the stairs two at a time to get to his room, which seems oppressively cold now that it’s free of clothes on the floor and women in the bed—no photos, no papers, no books, no TV. Jonathan said Hayes is not home much, but seriously…the guy has to relax at some point, doesn’t he? Other than his daily workouts with Ben and the hours he spends drinking, he takes no time for himself at all. Why is he working so hard if he’s never going to kick back and enjoy the spoils of war?
I find the tux in the back corner of his ridiculously large walk-in closet, hanging in a garment bag next to the navy blue and two others in varying shades of black, and take my best guess which pair of shoes he wants with it.
It’s only once my task is done that I actually look around. Aside from the tuxedos and his extensive shoe collection, his wardrobe consists entirely of suits and button-downs. Not that I expected a lot of Hawaiian floral shirts or Booze Crooz 2015! tees, but I’m starting to see a theme here. If Hayes was actually a robot set on earth to do nothing but inject filler and fuck, this is pretty much what his life would look like. And I know I have places to be, and he’s a millionaire with a closet larger than my entire apartment, but I stand for a second looking at it all. And feeling the tiniest bit...sad for him.
Hayes’s office is a bit more of what I expected from his house: brilliantly modern, all gleaming ebony wood floors, white furniture, enormous windows.
And coldly imperious staff.
“Sign in,” says the girl behind the desk without looking up. “We’ll be with you shortly.”
“I’m not a patient,” I say. “I’m just dropping off Hayes’s tux. Can I leave it with you?”
She finally deigns to meet my eye and then frowns. “Wait,” she commands.
She hustles somewhere back in the office and a moment later returns with Hayes himself. In a navy dress shirt, top two buttons undone, he looks too hot to be real. Even if he were playing a doctor on a soap opera, I’d still be yelling, “No doctor is that good-looking!” at the TV.
I hand him the tux, which he accepts while his eyes flicker over me, head to foot. For once he doesn’t seem to find me lacking.
“Is that everything?” I ask.
He cocks his head. “In a rush? Certainly, you’ve got time to give us a bit of that amazing British accent of yours.”
I’d laugh if I wasn’t so anxious to get home. My glance cuts over to the dour receptionist. “That’s for your ears only.”
“No accent. No pretending you’ve disposed of my date,” he says. “I’m quite disappointed in this little exchange, Tali.” His voice is so low and seductive my stomach clenches in response. I’m growing accustomed to the unfriendly, hungover version of Hayes...but this one is a whole new ball game.
The receptionist watches him walk away with her brow furrowed, like she isn’t sure what she just saw.
I guess I’m not sure either. Hayes, briefly, didn’t seem satanic at all.
I have to call into my sister’s party from Hayes’s parking garage and am still late. My mother and Charlotte sit in an office at The Fairfield Center and Liddie’s in her living room in Minnesota. Dr. Shriner said this would help “normalize” birthdays without my father, but there’s absolutely nothing normal about seeing my pale,
miserable sister and tired mother in an almost empty room while I fake good cheer from a parking garage.
“I got the gift card and the books,” Charlotte tells me. “Thanks a lot.” She’s been there for months but she’s still faking her happiness. I can tell.
“When I come home, we’ll go shopping,” I promise. “With what I’m earning at this job, it won’t even have to be on sale.”
“I still can’t believe he’s paying you that much,” Charlotte says, shaking her head. “Like, what do you even do?”
Liddie rolls her eyes. “Look at her. She’s got no body fat and a mouth made for blow jobs. I’m pretty sure we all know what he’s hoping she’ll do.”
“Lydia, that’s inappropriate,” my mother scolds, with a hint of a I’m on my third glass of wine slur, which wouldn’t be an issue if she were a little closer to home than she is at present.
“I’m not saying she’ll do it,” Liddie says. “Though I probably would if I were her. Have you seen the guy?”
“Liddie!” my mother and I shout at the same time. My mother reaches over to cover Charlotte’s ears, as if she’s still a toddler who might have missed what’s already been said.
“Mom, I’m seventeen,” Charlotte protests. “I know what a blow job is.”
“Well, you shouldn’t,” my mother replies stonily, folding her arms across her chest. “Can we please try to make keep this conversation decent? Tell us about your day, Charlotte. Dr. Shriner says there was a party.”
Charlotte’s shoulders hitch and she doesn’t meet anyone’s eye as she runs her fingers through hair the same color as mine—golden brown, streaked with hints of caramel and strawberry blonde. “There was a cake,” she says, her voice flat. “After art. But it was chocolate.”
Charlotte hates chocolate. A minor thing, but my throat swells, unexpectedly. Holidays and birthdays were always a big deal in our house, especially for Charlotte, the baby of the family. She’s too young to already be learning the way life narrows down to nothing as you grow up.
A Deal With The Devil: A Steamy Enemies-to-Lovers Romance Page 3