“I wouldn’t know about that,” I reply, placing his salad on the counter. “I don’t have the greatest mom either.”
He cocks his head as he sits. “Interesting. I pictured you as a beloved only child, cosseted and fawned over daily.”
I laugh outright. Nothing could be further from the truth. “Hardly. I’m in the middle of three girls.”
“Three daughters?” he asks, pinching the bridge of his nose. “Jesus. That would drive a man to an early grave.”
My heart tightens into a clenched fist. Even now, even after waking up three hundred days in a row with the same set of facts, it still doesn’t seem real. Sometimes I dream the past months were a mistake, and I wake stunned anew.
I carry the cutting board to the sink, feeling fragile as blown glass. Don’t think about it. Not here.
“Tali?” Hayes says, eyes open now and worried. “Shit. I’m sorry. You’re so young. I just assumed…”
I force a smile. “Well, three daughters, early grave…you kind of called it. He died last summer.”
“Jonathan told me you’d had a rough year,” he admits, looking away.
I frown. Jonathan isn’t the type to go around spilling other people’s drama unnecessarily, so I can’t imagine what led him to spill mine.
“Well, I hope he didn’t tell you too much. I’d like to sustain the illusion of having my shit together a little longer.”
“Have you seen the car you drive?” he asks. “I never thought you had your shit together.”
I laugh. He’s awful, and I like that about him.
“If it makes you feel any better,” he adds, “I think half of adulthood is pretending to have your shit together when you clearly don’t.”
My gaze flickers to his, briefly. There is something bleak in his eyes, something alarmingly honest, and suddenly I ache for him. Hayes, on the surface, seems to have everything he wants. Too much of everything he wants. I’ve been judging him for the way he lives, assuming it’s a reckless disregard for what he has.
But maybe it’s just a reckless attempt at being content with it.
11
I’m bent over the dishwasher when Hayes enters the kitchen the next morning. I glance up in time to catch his eyes on my ass, and there’s something so dirty, so deeply male in that look, that I feel a stab of unwelcome desire in response.
I close the dishwasher and go to the Vitamix, pouring the contents into a glass, which I place before him.
He stares at it. “This is the worst-looking daiquiri I’ve ever seen.”
“They’re called vegetables. I’m surprised you didn’t hear about them in medical school, but I guess that would have taken valuable time away from learning about breast implants.”
“I was actually aware of vegetables before medical school,” he says, lifting the glass and regarding it with suspicion. “I was precocious in that way. I just don’t know why you’re giving them to me.”
“Because you eat like shit, you drink like a fish, and you get almost no sunlight, You’re like a vampire, only one who’s ambivalent about his survival.” I turn to rinse the blender. “And speaking of bad habits, someone named Angela texted and asked if you’re still on for dinner.”
“Angela?” he repeats blankly. The name clearly does not ring a bell. “Go through the texts. Is there a photo of her? I need to know what I’m getting into.”
My eyes roll so hard I’m scared they’ll get stuck that way. I dry my hands but don’t reach for the phone. “Do you actually want me to scroll through your exchange with Angela to find out? Because I’m worried there will be dick pics.”
“I seriously doubt Angela sent me a dick pic, but if she did, you can go ahead and cancel.”
My mouth twitches. “I meant your dick, Hayes.”
“Mine? You should be so lucky.” He reaches across the counter and grabs the phone for himself, thank God.
“You know,” I say, wiping down the counter while he swipes through texts, “a great deal of what you need me for could be solved by not drinking yourself into a stupor.”
“Please, by all means, keep telling me ways to make your job easier.” He stops swiping—I assume he’s found her picture—and then returns the phone to me with an especially weary sigh. “Get us a reservation at Perch at seven and let her know for me?”
I grab the phone and pretend to type. “Top o’ the morning, Angela!” I say aloud. “Bloody good show, getting a free meal out of our exchange of bodily fluids. I normally just buy ladies a drink and wait for the roofies to kick in. Toodles, for now!” I look up to see if he finds me as amusing as I find myself.
“Honestly, the hangover is bad, but your British accent is now the most painful thing about my day.”
Then, despite his hangover, he smiles, and it feels as if the sun’s just come out after a long winter. It makes me far happier than it should.
I’m in bed that night, answering a question Sam asked about the book and ready for sleep, when Hayes’s name appears on my phone. I try to summon some indignation but can’t find it.
Hayes: What was the expression you used the other day when you were pretending to be British but sounded like a chimney sweep from Mary Poppins? I’m telling the girls about it.
I roll my eyes. Girls, plural. I assume that means I’ll be taking them both to breakfast in the morning. And why is he texting me when he has what must be far more entertaining company?
Me: Was it “go the fuck to sleep”?
Hayes: No. Keep trying.
Me: Was it “this is inappropriate workplace behavior”?
Hayes: That line must be from the off-Broadway rendition of Mary Poppins. Definitely not from the movie. Also, someone didn’t read her employment contract carefully.
Me: Yeah, that someone is your lawyer. There’s no way that contract would hold up in court.
Hayes: Ah. Always good to know an employee is *already* contemplating the feasibility of a lawsuit.
I laugh as I set down the phone. If men were placed on a continuum from ideal to disastrous, Sam would fall on one end and Hayes precisely the other. So why is it Hayes, of the two, I wish would text again?
“So, what happened?” I ask when he arrives in the kitchen the next morning, unusually cranky, even for him. The last text I received—at one in the morning, I might add—said the girls, plural, were tedious and I could probably skip the flowers. “What did your lady friends do wrong?”
“Your concern for my sexual needs is appreciated, but unnecessary,” he growls. “The night ended just fine.”
His mood—and the fact that neither of them is here—leads me to think otherwise.
And the strangest part is that he seems to resent me for it.
12
The positive side of having asked Sam to read my book is I know he will tell me the truth. The negative side is...I know he will tell me the truth.
I’m already on the cusp of giving up on it entirely, and I worry his criticism will be the death blow.
“Well, I think I’ve identified the first problem,” he says by phone Saturday night. “Ewan is kind of a douche.”
“A douche?” I repeat, somewhat incredulously. I got accustomed to harsh critiques in grad school, but I want to go to the mat over Ewan. Because he’s just a sweet, kind-hearted farm boy who’s been led astray.
“Yeah. I mean, he starts off okay,” Sam says. I begin to pace. “He helps Aisling with stuff on the farm and he’s protective of her when they first get to Edinad, but then he turns into a selfish dick.”
“Well, he’s swayed by the opulence,” I argue.
“I get that,” Sam replies. “But the way it’s written, it feels more like his true colors are coming out. Also, that hole they climb through to enter the kingdom—why’s it there in the first place?”
“Poor workmanship?” I ask.
He laughs. It’s nice to finally get a reaction out of someone beyond a twitch of the mouth. Hayes seems determined not to react at all, most of the t
ime.
“It’s your book,” he says. “But it’d be a cooler book if we knew why the hole was there.”
The conversation moves on to other topics—to my trip back to Kansas at the end of the summer, and Sam’s trip up the California coast in a few weeks. When he asks if I want to grab dinner while he’s in LA, I agree. I don’t know if this is a dinner between friends, or if he expects something more…but would it be so terrible? Sam is exactly the guy I should want: He’s cute and kind, and we’d never run out of common interests.
Yet I’m weirdly relieved when the next text I receive is from Hayes.
I’m in the middle of a run Sunday morning when Jonathan texts.
He’s sent a photo of him holding Gemma, with Jason standing behind him, and they’re both beaming at her as if she is everything they hoped for and more.
I step off the path and into the sand, blinking back tears. They’re so fucking proud as they stare at her. I had one amazing father and Gemma will have two.
I hit Jonathan’s name on speed dial. “She’s so beautiful,” I tell him. My voice rasps.
“You’re totally crying, aren’t you?” says Jonathan.
“No.” I brush a tear off my face. “I’m out on the beach completely not crying. She’s beautiful.”
“She’s something, isn’t she?” he asks. The utter pride in his voice hits me right in the chest and has me tearing up again.
“Dammit, Jonathan,” I rasp. “I’m in public. Stop making me cry.”
He laughs. “I’d better change the topic so you can get ahold of yourself. How’s work?”
I dry my face on the hem of my shirt like the classy little lady I am. “Ugh,” I groan, walking down toward the shore. “Well, yesterday he seemed to blame me for the fact that he didn’t get laid by his two dates the night before, so that was fun.”
“Tali,” Jonathan says, with the strained patience of a father talking to an overwrought teenage girl, “I’m sure he didn’t blame you.”
“You didn’t see him,” I reply, dodging an errant volleyball. “At least I got spared the indignity of buying them flowers and taking them to breakfast afterward.”
“He’s had you take them to breakfast?” he asks. There’s no way to miss the unhappy astonishment in his voice. “That’s…unusual. He doesn’t typically have people over often.”
My tongue prods my cheek as I process my irritation. “Wait. What? All this bullshit is for my benefit?”
He hesitates, which means that yes, Hayes is doing all this shit intentionally, and it hurts. I sort of thought he was past wanting me to quit.
“Sometimes Hayes wants you to believe the worst of him,” Jonathan says, “and it’s not at all for the reason you think.”
I sit in the sand, hugging my knees to my chest. There are a few guys in the water surfing. It’s the kind of thing I thought I’d do a lot more of, living in California. But then, I also didn’t think I’d be here alone. “What do you mean?”
He sighs. “Do you remember how annoyed I was with Hayes last summer? We were upset that we kept getting passed up on the adoption list, and he always seemed so ambivalent about it?”
I do remember, mostly because I was surprised Jonathan expected anything of Hayes in the first place. Ambivalence about an employee from Hayes seemed par for the course.
“Hayes gave them a hundred grand. That’s why our adoption finally came through. The letter thanking him was submitted with his taxes. I’m not even supposed to know.”
My throat swells. I’ve barely cried at all over the past year, and here I am about to cry for the second time in one morning—and over Hayes, no less. “That’s...nice.”
“It’s more than nice. We’d still be sitting on the list if it weren’t for him.”
I clear my throat. “I guess I’ll give him a pass for most of his nonsense. But he still shouldn’t be texting in the middle of the night.”
Jonathan hmmms quietly. “Weird.”
“What’s weird? Aside from the obvious fact that an employer shouldn’t drunk-text his staff in the middle of the night.”
“What’s weird,” he replies, “is that he’s never once drunk-texted me.”
13
During the one year I was with Matt after he got really famous, there was a specific role I was supposed to play at events—the sexy-yet-sweet girlfriend. I was subtly informed that any sign of my brain or personality would be considered a turn-off to the general public. I went along with it, trying to be supportive. It was only after our relationship ended that I admitted how deeply I’d resented it, how sexist I found it and how much it hurt that Matt never objected on my behalf.
If bonfires were legal on the beach, I’d probably have burned the entire hot, dumb girlfriend wardrobe from those events by now. Instead, I’ve shoved it all to the back of my closet, buried like a shameful secret…until today. I can’t keep cycling through the same four outfits every week.
I throw all the clothes on the bed, desperate to wear something different, and choose a cream-colored dress, crafted of a stretchy fabric that skims my figure without clinging to it, hinting at curves I normally keep hidden. It’s sexier than I’d like, but beggars can’t be choosers.
I tell myself, as I wait for Hayes to come downstairs, that I don’t care what he thinks. But anticipation whispers over my skin as I hear him approach, and he doesn’t fail me. It only lasts a second, but I see it: the way he comes to a momentary stop in the middle of the kitchen, his gaze predatory before he blinks it away.
I like it far more than I should.
He picks up the small, clear pill I’ve placed beside his coffee, and he holds it to the light, frowning. “You realize if you successfully poison me, you no longer get paid, yes?”
“There are things in this world more satisfying than money,” I reply. “It’s Vitamin D.”
He eyes it with suspicion a bit longer, then swallows it. “What did you do this weekend?”
I turn from the Vitamix to him. “This feels like a trick. Was I supposed to have done something for you and forgot?”
His mouth curves. His eyes are the color of autumn leaves in sunlight. “Is it that astonishing when I ask a friendly question?”
My answer is to stay silent and continue staring at him. Because yes, yes it is.
“And your reluctance to answer leads me to believe it was something illegal or controversial,” he continues. “If you have a sex webcam, I’d like to be made aware of it posthaste.” His tone is entirely too casual for someone who practically asked to see me naked.
“No, I do not have a webcam. I was, uh, working on something.”
Something I do not want to discuss with him. Saying you’re writing a book is like saying you want to be a rock star. You can plainly see the other person’s desire to pat you on the head and tell you not to quit your day job. I turn on the blender, grateful the noise prevents meaningful conversation.
“It’s worse than a webcam?” he asks the moment I turn off the blender. I should have known he wouldn’t let it go. “There’s nothing to be ashamed of. Everyone winds up getting fisted on Pornhub eventually.”
“Everyone? Your dating history may have skewed your ideas of normal sexual behavior.”
“Ah,” he says, leaning back in his seat. “God, it’s even worse, isn’t it? Was it sex with a family member?”
I give up, at last, because Hayes clearly doesn’t intend to—though I’m not sure how much lower he can drag this conversation. “It’s a book,” I reply. My face feels too warm. “I’m writing a book.”
I set the smoothie in front of him, but he barely notices. He’s too fascinated by my humiliating admission. “If it’s a tell-all about a devastatingly handsome doctor, let me remind you of the NDA you signed. Although if he’s bringing all your sexual urges to the surface, I’d still like to read it.”
If he were anyone else, I’d almost think he was flirting with me. I fight the urge to encourage him, though my ego could do with a little s
troking. “Any tell-all about you would focus on why I decided to quit men altogether.”
“My Life as a Lesbian by Natalia Bell. I’d definitely read that one.” He flashes me his filthiest smile. It’s absolutely pathetic how that smile works on me, worming its way through my blood, replicating in every cell like a virus. I want to forget every principle I hold and start undressing when he looks at me that way. He tilts his head. “I’m not sure why you’re acting like writing a book is a mortal sin, however.”
I begin shoving fruit back into the freezer with unnecessary force. “Because I signed a contract and spent the advance, and now I can’t seem to finish it. And I’m not good at anything else, so I don’t know what I’ll do if I can’t pull this off.”
“I’m sure you’re good at plenty of other things. Consider the webcam, for instance. You’d be your own boss, at least.”
I snicker, grateful he hasn’t asked the obvious question—how could you have been so irresponsible? “I’ll take it under advisement.”
I cross the kitchen to the printer. The clipclipclip of my heels is all business, signaling a close to the conversation.
“Tell me about your book,” he says, as I reach for his schedule, and my shoulders sag. Yep, by the end of the morning he’s going to know every unfortunate fact about me. Shall I go ahead and tell him now about the time I wet my pants in kindergarten, or wait for him to ask?
“No.” I turn, leaning against the printer cabinet, my arms folded across my chest. “Because you’ll laugh, and then I’ll be forced to poison you. Which I’m more than happy to do, but as I have both unlimited opportunity and motive, I’ll be the first person the cops look at.”
He gives me his most winning smile. Dimples popping and white teeth gleaming. “Lots of people want me dead. You’d be third or fourth on any list of suspects, I promise.”
I look down at my necklaces, nervously wrapping one chain around my index finger. “It’s a fantasy,” I tell him, imagining the looks I’d get revealing this to my peers in grad school. A whole room full of twitching mouths and sidelong glances. “This young couple enters a fae kingdom, and the queen decides Ewan, the boy, is the answer to this prophecy and traps him in the castle, so the girl, Aisling, has to save him.”
A Deal With The Devil: A Steamy Enemies-to-Lovers Romance Page 6