He wore a beautiful navy suit and a crisp white business shirt with the collar open. He had a brace on his wrist from an accident he’d had learning to surf with his bestie, another hunky movie star, and famous lover of pranks, Rylan Rumble. The gasp-inducing spill captured by someone with a drone camera and uploaded to social media.
He had perfect, thick, wavy sink-your-hands-in-it hair and satisfyingly broad shoulders, and he moved like he was never unsure of what came next. Unlike on screen, in real life, he wasn’t especially tall. Teela hadn’t had to look way up at him as he passed. He seemed right-sized for her, except the waves of charisma that came off him might’ve knocked her over, making him an unaccounted-for workplace hazard.
He’d said something to make Lynda laugh, succeeding in making her look less like she might throw up her breakfast, where Teela had failed with that particular challenge.
Gorgeous looking, attentive, charming and commanding. Plus, he wanted to make the world a better place by stopping aid piracy. There was a reason everyone on the team was a little over-excited. He might truly be too good to be true.
Sigh.
On stage during the forum, he’d bantered with the female host who baited him mercilessly to the delight of the audience. He wanted to talk refugee-aid projects and his fund raising for satellite surveillance. Chaffing at the brief, she’d wanted to focus on behind-the-scenes movie drama and his famously declared lifetime bachelor status. He won. But it was a narrow victory and Teela had felt for him as he managed that tension without losing his gracious manner with thousands of eyes and the weight of the media’s expectations on him.
He’d spent the rest of the time in exclusive meet and greets and specially selected media interviews that Lynda’s PR team had managed, and then been whisked away to see potential Delany Foundation donors.
Teela’s last chance to have her own grip and grin had been at the dinner he’d swept in late for and she was now self-uninvited to. That’s what she got for being an event uncrasher.
Doing the right thing. Rookie mistake.
That Sophie would agree with.
Teela stood on the empty balcony where the guests had enjoyed pre-dinner cocktails, struggling to come to terms with the reality of her sudden redundancy after countless twelve-hour workdays. It was an odd flattening feeling that made her body feel heavy and lethargic. The rest of her on-site team had left for the night and Lynda, the hotel staff and its famous chef had everything under control from here. There really was no valid reason to stick around.
Too tired and hungry to summon the energy for the trek to her car and the drive home, she checked her email, scrolling one more time through the event social media pages, smiling at all the selfies starring Haydn that had been posted.
When the head waiter appeared with a selection of drinks, a plate of canapés and a thank you for not making her rearrange the table settings, Teela chose a sparkling water gratefully and sipped and nibbled while reading a string of increasingly ribald messages from Evie that had started early in the morning and ran through the day.
Is he stupendously hot up close?
Are you breathing the same air already?
Has he touched you?
Have you offered to show him the city, the best places to eat? Your body?
Make sure to use plenty of tongue when he suckcums to your fresh charm. Evie spelled succumb wrong, deliberately. That spelling was likely in her phone’s dictionary from overuse.
What are the abs like?
Have you pashed yet?
How is the dick action? Alive, dead, dead sexy?
She was convinced she was alone with the lights of the harbor foreshore and the ferries shuttling back and forth on a balmy summer evening, trying to come up with a fittingly humorous response to Evie, when he said hello.
She jumped, slopping her drink over her hand and fumbling for the shoe she’d stepped out of.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to startle you.”
That voice, unmistakably rich and deep like hot mint chocolate topping poured on melty vanilla ice cream. The makings of waking dreams and endlessly unfulfilled midnight desires. And that was before she turned to face him. He truly was lovely to look at, effortlessly arresting. All his features best aligned for viewing pleasure.
“I’ve disturbed your peace,” he said.
He’d made her vital organs snap to attention and start a parade.
“No, please. I was about to leave. I’ll give you your privacy.” It was the right thing to do. Again. Dammit. How is this my luck?
“Aw hell.” A hand combed through his hair, leaving it adorably ruffled. She wouldn’t be the only one who itched to smooth it, ruffle it again, grab a handful when he—oh Lord, keep it tidy.
“Now I feel worse. You were communing with the pretty sunset and I made you spill your drink and put that torture device back on. Don’t go because of me.”
Teela looked down at her red shoes, her rebellion against dressing with necessary corporate restraint, mostly because it was easier not to look directly into Haydn Delany’s eyes until she’d collected her wits.
When she looked up again, he held a cigarette. “I bummed this off the concierge. I hoped you might have a light. You won’t put out a press release or turn me into a meme, will you?”
Tidy be damned. “World’s Sexiest Man’s Nasty Cancer Risk Behavior. Details at eleven.”
He laughed. She felt rewarded. The smile that took over his face, crinkling his eyes and lingering on his lips might’ve been acting but it was hard to care. Teela no longer had sore feet. She wasn’t sure she had feet at all. She was standing on a balcony as Sydney Harbour lit up for the night with one of the world’s most admired actors, and she’d made him laugh.
Sophie would very much approve. Evie would want her to jump him.
“I’ll make sure you get your light and I’ll keep your secret. I never saw you. I’m not really here. I’m a figment of your imagination. Please, you’ve had a busy day.” She put her glass on a table and collected her laptop bag, shoving her phone in a pocket. Now she had a story for everyone. Better than a brief inconsequential introduction and handshake with fifty witnesses during dinner. She’d had a private moment with a man so famous he was unknowable in a real sense. A story to tell for the rest of her life. My Glorious Sunset with Haydn Delany. A yes for clients, we did meet, and he is all that, not as tall as I’d thought, don’t you wish you were there.
“The balcony is yours,” she said, taking a step toward him to reach the exit.
“I can’t accept the figment thing.” He grinned at her. It was boyish and so impossibly cheeky, an extension of a conversation already closed, that she forgot how to use her legs.
She adjusted the strap of her bag on her shoulder. “Oh, come on, an actor of your caliber. You’ve got the whole figment thing on lock.”
“That’s true.” He quirked his head and added a slowly heating smile. “That’s how I know you’re an imposter.”
“A figment imposter?” She could hardly get the words out for grinning, her tongue tripping over her teeth. Was she flirting with the Sexiest Man Alive?
“You look undeniably real to me.” Was he flirting?
“I do?” She was undeniably affected by the way he watched her, every little hair on her body standing to attention. In none of the press reports she’d read on him in preparation for the event did it say Haydn Delany could X-ray you with a look. He had to know she was wearing mismatched but favorite comfy underwear chosen for its ability to support her through any work crisis. Her classic, disappear into the background gray, work-wear dress was no match for his scrutiny.
He tipped his chin up on an angle. An I’m-on-to-you gesture that was irresistible. “I saw you earlier today and figments, being an inconsistent bunch, are unlikely to show up when you need them. I don’t for one second believe you’re fickle,” he said.
“I’m not sure if that’s a compliment or you really are desperate for a nicotine hit.”
Or he was also the smarmiest man in the world. Not that she minded. In the moment, smarm had its charm.
He tossed the cigarette on a table. “I gave up years ago. It’s a terrible idea to start again. I’m glad we talked. The urge has abandoned me completely.”
Which is what Teela needed to do. Abandon the Sexiest, maybe not so smarmy after all, Man Alive to the job he’d come here to do, raise money for his refugee-aid effort.
“It was a figment,” she said.
“It was a compliment.”
That should’ve sounded sleazy. A lazy come-on from a man used to getting whatever he asked for. He made it sound frank. Good lord, actors.
“You were backstage. Lynda pointed you out. Called you her secret weapon. Told me you were the one who pulled all this together. You’re the one who worked with my team to make sure this wasn’t the usual insane circus I attract. You can herd cats, juggle detail and manage big egos. That’s a considerable skill. Congratulations and thank you.”
Teela looked at her feet again. Both firmly on the ground. Huge surprise. She might be floating. And she wasn’t a floating kind of person. She wasn’t the kind of person to have expected Haydn Delany’s attention to be a thrill. She was pragmatic, practical, rational.
Evie said that since she started Carpenter Conference Management four years ago, she’d abandoned being compellingly serious and was on her way to becoming the definition of threatens to bore you silly.
Allowing for radical exaggeration, it wasn’t far wrong. There wasn’t much time left over from running her own business to be anything but focused and no-nonsense and she was fine with that trade-off, though Evie made it her mission to force Teela to lighten up.
“Thank you. That’s very kind.”
“Not kind. Accurate. The profile you wrote on me for the program is the best I’ve read. My own people had trouble capturing the difference between Haydn Delany fancy-pants, Hollywood fluff actor, and Haydn Delany who needs to be taken seriously as a,” he looked away for the first time, brows angling down.
“Statesman,” she offered. And wasn’t that something. He’d read her profile personally. It’d been through layers of approval: Lynda, her PR manager, Dragon One, Haydn’s agent, his manager, and his head publicist. But he’d bothered to read it himself. That was as unanticipated as his sneaking out of the dinner for a moment alone and his acknowledgment of her job well done.
His eyes snapped back to hers and his smile was supernova brilliant. “That’s it. I was looking for the word activist, but statesman is a status to aspire to.”
They stood there beaming at each other, a momentarily truant star and an unexpectantly star-struck redundant conference manager, who was feeling much less deflated about the loss of her seat at the table.
He slipped the brace from his wrist off and held his hand out to shake. “What’s your name, secret weapon, woman who is not a fickle figment of my imagination and is an ace organizer and good with words?”
She put her hand in his and he grasped it firmly, warmly, just the right amount of pressure. It clearly wasn’t too badly injured. “Teela Carpenter.”
“I’m glad to meet you, Teela Carpenter. I’m Haydn Delany.” He said that with no trace of irony, but his expression was all hilarious romp. He still held her hand.
She gave him a no-kidding look while every female hormone she had went into power-surge mode. “I do believe I was aware of that.” So very, very, altered consciousness aware. “But thank you for the reminder. I’m interrupted by so many of Hollywood’s finest these days it can be confusing.”
He nodded gravely, with barely concealed laugher in his eyes, as if they were discussing issues of world import, not making the most ridiculous small talk. “I thought it prudent to check.”
She could withdraw her hand, he wasn’t stopping her, but her blood was drunk on whatever pheromones he emitted. “Because you’re worried you might be a figment of my imagination?”
“Something like that.” He laughed and she was richer, even as she knew he’d release her hand and it would feel like a loss.
“I’m definitely planning on dining out on the story of this encounter for the rest of my life. If you’re not real that will make me an awful fraud and a liar.”
“We can’t have that. What do I need to do to convince you that I’m warm flesh and a beating heart?”
“Not a single thing.” But she was almost sure he could convince her of anything right now.
He brought her hand to his lips and pressed them there, smiling up at her through a furrowed brow and a wayward fall of hair. The move had to be a well-practiced one, teetering somewhere between showy and gallant. It was the humor in his cheekbones, in the single dimple, in the pale spark of his eyes that landed it on the side of chivalrous.
She was way past hopelessly charmed. On a sliding scale of a boy likes me to my sex is on fire, this was ring the alarm.
“That should do it,” she said. “I’m forever convinced.”
He let her hand go and straightened up. “Excellent.” He slipped the wrist brace back on and offered the crook of his arm. When she told this story, she’d describe the look on his face as possessive, though it was probably method acting and hunger. “You’re fun, Teela Carpenter. Shall we go eat?”
Sweet hell. Like torrential rain on your wedding day. “I’m afraid I’ll have to leave you to brave dinner alone. I’m not on the guest list.”
Up went one brow, down came his arm. “Have you been bad?” He made a tsk sound around a shocked expression, but instead of feeling scolded Teela felt wicked. “I can sort this out.”
He no doubt could without unduly annoying the chef and embarrassing Lynda, and it was tempting to stroll in at his side and enjoy the meal and more of his company.
Desperately, desperately tempting.
Also utterly superfluous, as well as being disruptive and calling the wrong kind of attention to her. Conference managers weren’t supposed seduce the talent.
And Haydn Delany made her imagine being bad enough that she could.
It was all the ego boost she needed. Dear God, the man was delicious. He made her brain fizz. If she thought for a second he wasn’t acting the part of charismatic hero in a meaningless meet-cute, she’d have trouble breathing. Oh, get real. She’d genuinely contemplate propositioning him. Where would she ever get another chance to do something so wild. He wasn’t traveling with a partner and what’s the worst that could happen?
And wouldn’t that be a story for the grandkids. The night Nanna hooked up with the Sexiest Man Alive. Sophie could never know, and Evie would wet herself.
The notion made her want to laugh. She knew he’d have a ready way of letting her down that wouldn’t make her feel cheap. He probably had a dozen or more of them, a different one for every day of the week, every hour of the day.
This was the part of the story where Evie would kick her.
“I’m not a paying guest and there’s nothing at all you need to do except enjoy your evening. I’m delighted to have had this chance to meet you.”
He inclined his head, offered his hand again. “If you’re sure?” He waited a beat and when she nodded, he said. “It was lovely to meet you. You provided just the light I was looking for. Good night, Ms. Carpenter.”
He made the word Ms. into a question mark. When she put her hand in his again, he brushed his thumb lightly, suggestively, over her knuckles. That was a whole different kind of light, like fireworks inside her chest.
Flirtiest Man Alive
“Miss.” It would be improper to leave him dangling. “Good night, Mr. Delany.”
He tipped an imaginary hat, released her hand and said, “Miss. Carpenter,” and he was gone.
There wasn’t a single imaginary thing about the way her body was left vibrating with want.
On the walk back to her car, there was music playing in her head, and it wasn’t her tired feet that were throbbing. Her nipples ached, and her inner muscles twitched from contracting.
It was probably a figment of her imagination, but her ovaries were humming. She was loose-limbed and electrified at the same time. The pleasure shimmer lasted until it was replaced with a shiver as dark storm clouds racing over the city delivered fat drops of cool rain that made the pavement sizzle.
By the time she ducked into the parking garage, the sky was grumbling from the gathering summer storm. With luck, she’d make it home before the worst of it hit. Vehicle ransom paid, she sent a quick message to Evie. The SMA sexed all over my hand. Never washing it.
Her phone started bleating as she drove through the boom gate and onto the street into what was now a heavy downfall. Evie’s triumphant cackle through the hands-free speakers had to compete with the crack of lightning.
“What’s it like giving a hand job to Hollywood royalty?” Evie said.
Teela checked her rear view and signaled to change lanes. “He did call himself a fluff actor.”
“Noo. You made words together. You cow. I’m sooo jealous.”
“You’re best friends with rock stars and go out with people who get written up in gossip columns on the regular.” And she was going to be stuck in this lane till her next birthday because the traffic wasn’t moving, and the rain kept coming and now there was thunder rolling overhead.
“This is not about me, Tee. You meet famous, rich people all the time too. But not Sexiest Man Alive, uber celebrity people. This is about you and Haydn Delany’s cock.”
Evie’s musical family was legitimately famous. The famous people Teela met were the clandestine type. Wealthy corporate players and influential politicians who only courted the limelight when it suited their interests.
“I did get to feast my eyes on him,” she said, fiddling with the air conditioning to try to stop the inside of the front window from fogging up. “I did not see the cock, but if it’s as charismatic as the rest of him, I’m probably already three months pregnant, despite the two of us remining fully clothed and my no-expense-spared birth control.”
One Wicked Lick from the Drummer (The One Book 3) Page 20