He only smiled. “You pony up your seventeen and we’ll cover the remaining money. In exchange, we want you to plan a party for one of our Genies. If the party is a success, you get your wish. The details of your bid and the payment have to remain a secret, and there’d be a contract stating that.” He tilted his head. “Sound fair?”
Hailey blinked. “WFY’s gonna donate money for a party?”
His smile was bland. “It’s for a good cause, right?”
“Well, of course.” Hailey exhaled and, with two fingers, massaged her hairline. Her hair was still arranged up and her scalp was starting to pinch.
It seemed like a too-good-to-be-true arrangement. A simple party in exchange for a five grand debt? And WFY had agreed to it? True, all of the weddings Hailey had helped plan cost ten times that amount, and she knew some parties could stretch to that budget, but it still felt like a charity deal.
Though, to be fair, it was Ryder who was protesting going to another bidder. He was the reason they were having to make deals and cover debts. He was the one who wanted her to have the wish.
Nibbling her lip, Hailey considered him. In the lights of her apartment, settled on her couch, he looked entirely comfortable.
And freaking sexy. Too sexy. She didn’t understand how she could be so messed up and still want to rip Ryder’s clothes off and discover the many uses of whipped cream.
“Answer me one thing,” she said, moving her gaze back to Ryder’s face so she could gauge his reaction.
“Ask.”
“Why make me do this?” She tucked loose hair behind her ear, pressing her lips together. “I mean, there’s an easier way. Why do you want me to have the wish so bad?”
He held her gaze until she had to drop hers, the intensity trembling through her and wiping all thoughts of insecurity like chalk from a board.
“Because you need it more than the other women.” The words spoken in his smoky voice made shivers slide over her like silk across naked skin.
She glanced at him in question, unnerved to find him suddenly a few feet away. His magical eyes, dappled with amber, gazed into hers. His mango scent teased her nose.
“I don’t . . .” She had to drag in some more air. “I don’t need a wish.”
“Maybe not. But you sure as hell need some fun.” He smiled. “That’s where I come in.”
Insult slapped her. “I have plenty of fun,” she argued, defensive. She leaned back, away from temptation. Way away. If she could, she’d be in Los Angeles.
His grin was cocksure. “But you’d have more fun with me. So.” His eyebrows lifted. “Do we have a deal?”
Said the devil.
But where was the downside? She got a wish, only had to pay what she wanted, and she only had to plan a party in exchange.
Okay, she’d have to lie to her friends, which pained her a little. And yes, she had to take the helping hand that Ryder was forcing on her. And rounding it up, she didn’t know how big parties were in WFY’s book, but she’d helped plan a wedding for five hundred. She could do this. A little loss of pride was nothing to a wish.
Besides, nobody was going to be that interested in it anyway. One of the newspapers might run an article on WFY’s donation of a wish to the auction, but it was hardly front-page news that a wish had been granted.
The more she thought about it, the more she reconciled the idea of her being granted whatever she wanted. A little excitement tickled her at the prospect.
Then she remembered.
“When did you need me to plan this big party by?” she asked. “I just got promoted at work . . . sort of . . . and have a huge wedding to organize. If yours is too soon . . .”
“It’s not.” He shook his head to punctuate the thought. “WFY wants it on the twenty-third of October.”
A week before Ethan’s wedding.
When Ethan and Serena would be husband and wife. And she would still be alone.
She choked as Ryder’s fingers suddenly grazed her knee. His eyebrows were drawn low over his eyes as her gaze flew to him.
“You okay?” he asked.
She couldn’t stand any more pity.
“God, you’ll use any excuse to touch a woman,” she spluttered, shoring up her walls.
His grin flashed again as he leaned away, his warm touch going with him. She pretended she didn’t care, that her skin beneath the material didn’t retain that heat.
Yeah, and then you can pretend you can fly and jump out the window.
“So,” he said, waggling his eyebrows, entirely gorgeous, entirely knowing it. Entirely dangerous for those reasons and more. “What do you say?”
6.
Ryder flashed outside the WFY building at ten a.m. the next day, feeling pretty good about life in general. His mood as bright as the sun that flooded the famous amber building, he pushed open the sparkling glass door with a skip to his step.
He gave Carl, usually the night guard, a three-fingered salute as he entered the marble-floored foyer.
“How’s it shaking, Carl?” he called out, heading over to the large circular desk. “You still covering for Bobby?”
The balding, tubby man lifted his eyes to the ceiling and nodded. “Yeah, and things’re slower than traffic at noon.” He gestured to a school group whose giggling voices reached up and seemed to fill every nook and cranny of the cathedral-like room. “One kid just gave the other a wedgie. Give me the night shift anytime.”
“Teacher’s cute.” Ryder grinned as the aforementioned brunette grew flustered at the shiny red apple that appeared in her hand.
Carl snorted and lifted his thermos, which Ryder knew to be black coffee as strong as paint thinner. He gestured with it. “Like she’d look at me twice with this belly.”
“You don’t know.” Ryder’s gaze drifted from the group to the circles of tourists clicking away with their iPhones. At him. “Smile, Carl.”
“Aw, jeez.” The chair creaked as Carl shifted his weight. Ruddy color dusted his cheeks. “How d’you stand it?”
“I like people.” Ryder shot a wave at the cameras before turning back to Carl. “Is Luka in?”
“Lemme check.”
Ryder tapped his fingers on the desk, nodding at the morning receptionist who was as bland as the white tables inserted between the orange seats put out for legitimate visitors. The air was perfumed by the flowers growing in the exotic flower garden some landscaper had designed to grow around the sides of the twenty-foot-wide, forty-foot-high room.
Despite the chatter, it was a peaceful place to wait.
Carl hung up the phone he’d used to call Luka’s assistant. “The bird is in the bush.”
“Great, thanks, Carl. Take it easy—one more week, right?”
“One more week.” Carl said it like a prayer before nodding his good-bye.
Ryder greeted a few of the assistants he knew as he bypassed the security gate, including a harried-looking ginger-haired beanpole in his twenties with glasses that threatened to fall off the end of his nose. He had stacks of paper under one arm while he typed something into an old-fashioned Blackberry with one hand. The other held a cardboard tray with two Starbucks cups.
As he nodded to Ryder, the paper under his arm slipped down, causing his balance to tilt. The cardboard tray wobbled, cups launching out. The young man’s face slipped into panic—
—and Ryder gestured, catching the tray and the cups, and floating them back to their owner.
“You ever think about making two trips, Josh?” he asked with a grin.
Josh grimaced. “Only every time I drop something. So pretty much every time.” He nodded a good-bye and hurried off.
After watching to make sure the accident-prone assistant made it through the lobby, Ryder rode the empty elevator up to the nineteenth floor, only one level below the Director’s. Apart from her, senior Handlers were the only ones with offices in the nosebleed section of the building.
He spoke briefly with Luka’s assistant, an efficient man in his e
arly thirties who wielded his organizer like a weapon and leaned toward suspenders and bow ties, before he knocked on his Handler’s walnut door.
And knocked again.
“Yeah, yeah.” The door swung ajar by invisible hands. “Come in if it’s that urgent.”
Ryder poked his nose in. “Bad time?”
His Handler lay sprawled on the middle of the carpet—today maroon, tomorrow probably navy. Sunlight peeked around neighboring skyscrapers to spill in through the two walls of windows.
Luka was on his back, his hand splayed over his eyes. He grunted a hello, removing the hand to glance at Ryder, giving him a glimpse of swirling silver eyes that marked his superior rank at WFY. “Ryder. Pull up some floor.”
Ryder glanced around the huge office. The couch was covered in hardbacks, split apart with their spines up as if Luka had read half of every one and got bored. The two leather bucket chairs that sat opposite the magnificent Tudor desk were draped with discarded shirts, the desk itself the bearer of screwed-up balls of paper. Files spilled their paperwork around the carpet in patterns only known to Luka, all with scribbled notes on the covers.
“Have you been here all night?” Ryder asked, plopping onto the floor opposite his eccentric Handler.
“That depends.” Luka rubbed his eyes and sat up with a groan, long hair the color of ink swinging to frame a face Ryder had heard more than one woman sigh over. “What time is it?”
Ryder glanced at the mantel clock that shared space on an end table with an art-deco lamp. “Ten oh eight.”
“God.” Luka massaged his neck. “This place works you like a damn slave.”
“So you did work all night?”
“Practically.” Luka yawned and then pushed up on his feet. “I came in at nine.”
Ryder grinned.
His Handler swung his arms, waking up, as he headed for his desk, past the bookcases that lined the walls, pushing the odd personnel file back into place. The office was as nonchalantly magnificent as its owner, the man who wore power as casually as the rumpled jeans and shirt that needed ironing.
Luka nudged his hips back against the desk with another yawn. “So,” he said, arms braced on the desk behind him. “What did she say?”
“She went for it.”
“No, I knew that.” Luka waved a hand. “I meant, did she flutter her lashes and whisper, ‘My hero’? Fall into your arms with a grateful sob?”
Ryder cut him a look.
“Also,” Luka said, a pen appearing in one hand, a memo pad in the other, “do I message the Director about the fact that one of my Genies has seen fit to fix an auction based on big sad eyes and long lashes?” He fluttered his. “Or do you think she’d frown upon a PR fuck-up like that?”
“I told you.” Ryder rose, uncomfortable. “It isn’t like that. I . . . saw an opportunity to help somebody. In need. And the charity is getting the full amount.”
“Uh-huh. You’re paying five grand for your own wish.”
Something Ryder did not want getting back to Hailey. She’d see it as charity when it was a drop in the bucket of his salary. Besides, she wanted the wish, she deserved it. He could help. End of story.
As far as she was aware, WFY was behind the whole deal. And it was going to stay that way.
He shoved his hands in his pockets. “So what?” he said in response to Luka’s statement.
“Nothing. Just makes a Handler proud to see his people being so selfless.” Luka’s lips twitched as the items vanished again. “Tell me, on a scale of one to ten, how gorgeous is this ‘opportunity’?”
One hand crept out of Ryder’s pocket to massage the back of his neck. “She’s all right.”
Luka lifted an eyebrow.
Ryder scowled. “Her looks have nothing to do with helping a person out.” He lifted his chin. “It’s a nice thing to do.”
A bland smile said everything.
“Aw, shut up, Luka.” Moody, Ryder folded his arms, shoulders bunched.
His Handler only chuckled. “So sensitive. I hope you were more charming than this when you offered her your ‘deal.’” He cocked his head. “She must have been pleased.”
“Hmm.” No comment.
“Not every day a sucker—sorry, Genie, offers a wish in exchange for services rendered.” Luka’s lips pursed in thought. “We should get T-shirts.” He sketched it out in the air: “Service me for free wish.”
“Yeah, ’cause it’s not like the Director would have a meltdown if you did that.”
A gleam made the silver lights in Luka’s eyes sparkle.
“Remember how she took the whole condom balloon display at the Christmas ball last year,” Ryder warned. “Word from the assistants’ pool is she’s still hunting whoever engineered that.”
Luka just grinned.
“Just count me out this time.” Ryder loosed a rueful smile and gazed past Luka to the windows. Dust motes trembled in the pools of incoming light. “She was pleased,” he murmured, picturing Hailey’s face as it dawned on her in that tiny apartment that she would get a wish. “It’s probably the best thing to happen to her in a while.”
“Saint Ryder.” Said without a sneer. “Does Leo know the party he doesn’t want is now being thrown by a professional?”
“He will.”
“He still doesn’t want it?”
“I don’t care.” Ryder’s face took on a stubborn look. He felt it tug the corners of his lips down. “It’s time he celebrated his luck.”
“I’d say let the man be, but I know it’d be about as useful as a fart in a gale.”
Ryder frowned. “What?”
Luka tapped his ears. “You wouldn’t hear it.”
As ever, talking to his Handler was a mix of the good, the bad, and the ugly.
Ignoring that, Ryder moved on. “I’ll probably help her plan it still,” he said, as casual as he could manage. After all, he’d wanted an excuse to get to know Hailey better, and what better reason than putting their heads together over the plans for his twin’s anniversary party? Late nights, long hours . . . She was still guarded, still with those sad eyes, but he figured he could scale the walls she put up around herself. See what she was hiding.
“I thought the whole point of your deal was a trade of services. You,” Luka pointed, “pay. She plans.”
Ryder rolled his neck. “Well, she’s got this big wedding at the end of October. Seemed like a huge deal, so if I can lighten the load for her . . .”
“Do you ever say no?” Luka shook his head and pointed at his mouth. “Watch me and copy what I do. N-O. Noooo. You try.”
“Are you ever serious?”
“Sure. I fit it in between morning Pilates and my coffee run.”
“Never mind.” Ryder checked his watch. Paperwork beckoned. “So no objection to my helping Hailey out?”
“It’s your free time. Did you tell her she can’t brag about it?”
“I sent her the contract this morning. She’s already signed it.” Ryder nodded. “As far as anyone knows, she won, she paid, she’ll wish.”
“The Director would have a shitfit if she knew about this.” Luka didn’t say it like he was worried, more like he was fascinated at the idea.
To be fair, the most emotion Ryder had ever seen the Director display was a twitch of the eyebrow. He’d almost crapped himself.
He inhaled. “Thanks, Luc. Anything I can do for you, just ask.”
“There’s this one spot on my back that my loofah can’t reach . . .”
“I’m going now.”
“Just make sure you send your cape and tights out once in a while to get dry-cleaned,” Luka called after Ryder as he headed for the door. “Nobody wants to get rescued by a guy who stinks like old cheese.”
* * *
Hailey let Ryder in at eight o’clock. “This is becoming a habit.”
“Thought I’d see if you were home.” He shut the door behind him and hooked his thumbs in his belt loops. Dressed as he was, he was the walking emb
odiment of an urban cowboy.
Sexy urban cowboy. Stick him on a billboard for some fancy underwear, no shirt, she’d buy what he sold.
“Got anything to drink?” he asked as he headed farther in.
She gave his back a look but moved toward the kitchen. Her apartment’s living space was basically one small room, with the bedroom, bathroom, and galley-style kitchen leading off from it. She liked the openness, the splashes of color she’d accentuated the different areas with—a red rug here, a navy throw there. It was tiny, but Brooklyn was close to the city, and the rent didn’t make her cry every month.
“I’m having coffee.” She gestured to the mug she’d already poured. “Or I have wine?”
“Wine would be good. Thanks.”
She unhooked a wineglass from where it hung upside down. “We should really meet in the day, you know. In a business setting.”
“Aw, shucks, I ain’t so formal as that.” He grinned at her sidelong glance. “I thought we could chat. Get to know each other.”
Hailey marveled at that. A Genie, who to most people was only a being you read about in magazines or saw on TV, had popped over to chat. She poured out what was left of a decent bottle of red into the glass and handed it to him. “If you want to talk about the party, I’m all ears. Did you get the contract I sent back?”
He nodded and wandered over to the couch. “You’re a hard woman. I like it.” He dropped into the seat, one arm slung over the back, his body molding to the cushions. Already as if he owned the place.
Must come with the job, she decided, as she took the chair—distance was safer—and sipped her coffee. That confidence that he fit in everywhere.
Well, as far as she was concerned, this was strictly business.
“Tell me about this party WFY wants me to plan,” she said, crossing her legs. The skirt she’d worn to work slithered up an inch, showcasing the tan she’d had to fake since no planner who wanted to be promoted booked time off to go on a beach holiday.
His hair was rumpled as he leaned back against her couch. A stubborn lock drifted to dangle in front of his eyes.
“Straight to business, then?”
She shifted. “It’s how I work.”
His Command Page 6
