They touched foreheads. “I don’t think it’s a good idea for me,” she said.
“I don’t think it’s a good idea for me either.”
“We should be smart about this. Quit before one of us does something embarrassing.” The way her eyes were burning there was no debate which one of them that would be, but she’d managed to keep her voice steady.
“Because you’re thinking the worst decision you ever made was letting a colossally overrated ham talk you in to spending the weekend with him.”
She lifted her head. “Do you think you’re overrated?”
“I absolutely am. Phenomenally lucky to be born a good-looking white man and be given multiple opportunities to fail and to learn. Don’t change the subject.”
“It wasn’t anywhere close to my worst decision.” That was the only subject she was confident returning to. She put her hand to his face. He hadn’t shaved, and he had a sexy stubble, darkening his jaw. “That was the time I let Evie borrow my apartment for a photo shoot. I’m still finding glitter.”
He gave her a wry smile, lips lopsided, one brow raised. “I had a plan to get some detachment around you today.” He put his hands to her waist and dragged her closer. “Figured it would be best. Fucked that up when I came back to the suite and climbed into bed beside you. You’re easy to be with, Teela, and that’s not something that happens to me often.”
“That’s me, easy,” she said, aiming for light and breezy. It came out sounding like she’d gotten stung by a blue ring octopus and knew she was dying.
“Let me see your eyes,” he said softly.
She sniffed and shook her head. Tears were already running down her cheeks and under her sunglasses. She had no need to be feeling this way. This was all supposed to be consequence-free fun. “Then I’ll be the one doing something embarrassing.” Knew it, knew it, knew it.
“No,” he said, kissing her wobbling lips. “Nothing you could do would be embarrassing. Stay. Please stay. At least till I get back. But I want you to stay for dinner, stay in my bed tonight and I am begging.”
Despite the fact his version of begging was simply inserting the word into his sentence, woeful for an award-winning actor, she gave up trying to be stoic. Trying to be an independent, modern, slayer of dirty weekends where you had a great time but you didn’t fall for the man you were destined never to see again, and you certainly didn’t get cut up and teary.
She burrowed into his arms, thrilled at how they closed around her, how the sense of him, salty, warm and strong engulfed her.
“I’ll stay, but not for the night.” It would wreck her to wake beside him and know she had to go about her ordinary day without a chance to process all this.
He kissed her then like he’d had a big victory, and she took off her glasses and let herself be swept along with his passion, making out while they motored across the harbor in a private paradise of tangled limbs, sighs and smiles and giggles.
Back in the suite she lounged about while he showered, shaved and dressed. “Watch a movie. One I’m not in,” he said, as he was leaving. “I’ll be back before you’re done.”
His suit was charcoal gray, worn with a crisp, arctic white shirt, without the tie. He looked like he’d walked out of a high-gloss magazine spread. She wore damp denim shorts and a baggy white T-shirt over her swimmers. She was sticky with sun cream. He smelled divine. She felt like the luckiest person in the world when he kissed her goodbye and called her beautiful.
Before she could choose a movie, the room service he must’ve ordered arrived. A perfect afternoon tea. A pot of coffee with scones and three kinds of jam and thick clotted cream. That he’d sent it almost made her sob again.
There were thousands of movies to choose from. Most of them did not star Haydn Delany. Quite a few quality ones did. He’d also done some fun pop culture stuff and a few terrible, forgettable if not for him, comedies. She hadn’t seen his latest. She raised the remote to the TV, shifted the selector to the title and screwed her eyes tight shut. That thing where she could never watch him again. It could start immediately after she left his hotel suite.
Fifteen minutes into Moral Dilemma where he played a school teacher jailed for murdering his terminally ill father, she pulled herself together and stopped feeling overwhelmed. He was a Hollywood leading man. He was up for an award for this movie. He was world famous. Rich. Charismatic. By his own admission, lucky. He was trying to do good in the world and had a virtual PhD in clitoral orgasms. He was generous, funny, persuasive. He was appallingly handsome. Of course she was a little in love with him. No prize for guessing that leaving this weekend behind was going to send her all the way down the post-show blues track.
I’ll be so blue I’ll be the rings on that deadly octopus.
For a little while.
But she had a life to get on with and there was no way a movie star would fit, even if she wanted him to. It was full of challenges she couldn’t wait to get into: the new office, hiring more staff, running her first international conference and diversifying to protect her business from competition. Any serious relationship would slow her down, especially as she’d need to carve out time for it from things she’d rather be doing.
That moment of being overwrought on the boat passed. She was restored by scones and a little time alone and the secret joy of watching Haydn on screen and knowing exactly what he looked like under that prison uniform, the ill-fitting suit his character wore for his court appearances. Exactly how his skin smelled, and his kisses tasted; the gut deep groans of pleasure he made when she took him inside her.
That knowledge would never age. It would be an inner light she’d carry always.
Right at the end of the movie, where his now gray-haired character was released from prison after serving most of his sentence, and stood thankful in the sunshine, Haydn walked in the door, suit coat slung over his shoulder, a look of triumph in his smile.
He made straight for her, flinging his coat on a chair. She shut the TV off and stood to meet him, ready to throw herself in his arms as if they’d been apart weeks, as if she’d worried he’d never return.
As if he’d come back to her, instead of just to where his luggage was.
Teela Carpenter, you’re as disposable as a hotel room.
As deliberately as they’d both moved towards each other, they halted. Haydn stopping first, lowering the arm he’d held out for her. Teela dropping her eyes to her bare feet. It was a physical check-in. A mental fail-safe from two people who liked each other a little too much.
“Didja miss me?” he said, in a very passable Aussie accent.
She looked up to see him sliding cufflinks out of the buttonholes of his shirtsleeves, his eyes on her legs under the short T-shirt dress she’d thrown on after a shower. “I wasn’t just sitting around waiting for you.”
I was sitting around scoffing scones, gorging on movie goodness and waiting for you.
“You weren’t, huh?” He rolled back his sleeves and removed the wrist brace.
She clucked her tongue. “That ego.” Still, despite the work needed on begging, if he didn’t take the Oscar home, he was robbed.
He grinned. “Bogan?”
“Completely. Thinks he’s God’s gift. Tickets flapping. Did you win?”
A headshake. “No. Fuckers.” He laughed and dragged a hand through his hair. “Got a kick out of making me tap dance and then telling me it wasn’t the kind of project they believed deserved supporting.”
“Oh, I’m so sorry.” She took a step towards him. What kind of rich person said stopping crooks who stole aid from people who needed it wasn’t worth supporting?
“Don’t be. Lit a fire under my complacency. I need to be a better salesman before I can call myself a statesman. Next person to raise politics with me gets told I need to run for mayor and be good at that before anything else. I’ve got a new stagecraft to learn and I know exactly what I need to do now. It won’t include ritual humiliation by men who are richer than anyone
has the right to be without paying their taxes and giving something back.”
“Them’s fighting words.”
He took a step towards her. “When I want something badly enough, there’s no fallback position.”
“Arrogant.”
He grinned and reached for her. “Desperate. It works for me.” He inclined his head towards the TV. “You watched one of mine.”
She put her hand in his and let him draw her close. “How can you tell?” With her free hand she slipped the next button on his shirt undone.
“Arrogant, remember. I thought you’d decide you weren’t into waiting around for me and I’d come back to an empty room.”
A glance at his face told her he wasn’t joking. “I’d have left a note.” She slipped a second button undone and her fingers under the cool cotton to touch his warm chest and tangle in the hair there.
He groaned. “Nice knowing you?”
Another button. She laughed. “Something like that.” Another and the shirt was undone, and she got both hands to his ribs.
“Incredible, you still like me even after I abandoned you.”
“I only like you for your talent.”
“Oh yeah, what particular talent would that be?”
Passing her hands around his back, she yanked his shirt from his pants. When it was all the way untucked and hanging loose, she stood back and admired her handiwork, making her critical appreciation obvious by outright gawking at him. He’d caught her doing that more than once today. If he was devastating in a suit, he was earth-shattering in swimwear. All those ripples and indentations her hands and lips had explored. He’d made her mouth water on the beach. It simply should not be allowed.
“You have more than one talent?” she asked.
“It’s a matter of opinion.”
She stepped forward and kissed him quickly on the lips. “These are talented.” Her hands grasped his. “These are talented too.” Shaking free of his return grip, she used one hand to smooth over his chest. “This.” And the other to drag it down his thigh. “Both of these.” Hands to his arse, she squeezed and winked at him. “And you have other talents.”
He closed one eye and shifted his pelvis, preparing for her to go for a crotch grab. “No need to be rude.”
No need at all. “This is talented.” She laid a hand on his forehead, and then pinched his earlobe. “These.” Another kiss and this time she opened her mouth and flicked her tongue over his. “Most of all,” she breathed against his lips and then kissed her way down his neck, collarbone and chest to his heart. “This heart shows real promise.”
“Ah, Teela.” Hands to her head, he lifted her face. “You’re going to tempt me to say something stupid.”
“Like don’t let the door hit you on your way out?”
“Christ,” he said, pained and amused at the same time. He put his knuckles to her cheek. “Are you going to let me take you to bed one last time?”
“As long as you don’t do that disgusting lovemaking thing.”
“I’ll aim for sheer filth.”
She combed her fingers through his hair, grazing his scalp gently and making him close his eyes. “Perfect.”
“Dinner first?”
“I could be persuaded.”
“Suit on or off?”
“Don’t make me choose.”
“I’ll surprise you,” he said, and closed a button on his shirt.
Dinner was a luxury hotel version of fast food. Excellent burgers, gourmet fries. Likely cost more than her groceries for the week. Teela had a berry smoothie in a twisted attempt to be healthier and Haydn had a designer beer.
“There’s something you need to be aware of,” he said, and she almost choked on her stainless-steel straw because he sounded so serious after all their delicious banter and that moment where he’d seemed a little vulnerable. Not because he didn’t get the money for the refugee aid project but because he thought he’d be alone tonight.
“One of those kids on the bridge climb thinks he figured out who I was. Posted a pic of us to Facebook. It’s gone viral.”
Oh, shit.
“I don’t look like me and your back is to the camera. It’s hearsay. Not an issue for either of us.”
“Really?”
“But.”
Here it comes.
“We got papped getting off the yacht. Despite the hat and shades, Haydn Delany watchers will know it’s me. Plus the wrist brace gives it away. I should’ve left it off.”
There’d been a huge photo of Haydn on stage at the conference wearing the brace in all the papers and on TV and all over social media, and he’d worn it most of the weekend when they’d been out.
“They got a sequence of shots of us transferring from the boat to the car. We’re touching. They’re focused on me. A spread of those shots will be everywhere you can think of by tomorrow night.”
“I’m going to be in the media?” Shit. She’d been willfully naive about that possibility and lulled into complacency by his attempts to evade attention. How professional was that going to look? What would Lynda think? She’d taken a risk hiring Teela instead of a more established firm, and professional conduct did not extend to being caught in compromising situations with the star of the show. If this blew up, it would paint her as a gold digger and prevent her winning other conferences, because no one wants a publicity courting man-eater on their production team.
“You have your cap and glasses on and your head is down,” he said. “Your mother will know it’s you in a twitch. Evie might call bullshit if you deny it. No one has your name. Can you think of anyone who might want to score off you by claiming association?”
“What?”
“Is there anyone who would leak your name for a fee?”
Leak her name? Her mind went blank. “Do you mean call everyone up and say they know who I am?” Other than Evie and Sophie, no one knew what she’d been up to and she trusted them like she trusted the sun would rise and set each day. “That happens?”
He nodded. “It’s up to you how you play this.”
She put both hands up. “Wait. Rewind. How do you know this? I didn’t see any photographers. And what do you mean how I play it?”
“Long-range lens. Had a call from my people,” he said, making finger commas around the word people. “We’ll make no comment. Neither confirm or deny. Ideally you play it by letting it go. Some other celeb will do something more interesting tomorrow and we’ll be old news and you’ll remain the mystery woman Haydn Delany courted in Sydney. But if you think someone might out you, it would be better to get in front of it.”
Out her. Get in front of it. “Anonymous is good.” She exhaled hard. “No one I know would dob me in.”
“On the other hand, you can get yourself an agent and sell the story of your debauched weekend.”
And nearly choked on the return breath. “I.” Cough. “What?”
He raised a hand and drew in the air. “Headline. Big star has tiny dick.”
“That’s.” She pushed her chair out from the table and stood, mind whirling. “Do you think sneaking around with you makes me look professional? Do you think companies will want to hire me because I sleep with their speakers? I can’t be anyone’s secret weapon if I’m lording it all over the media. I didn’t organize my life around being somebody’s faceless, no name, interchangeable one-weekend stand.”
Haydn didn’t even flinch at all that. It was the truth. Why would he? But it would’ve been nice if he’d at least used his damn talent and acted contrite.
“You can spin the story any way you want,” he said. “A six-figure payout wouldn’t be out of order. We won’t be commenting no matter what you say.”
“I could say you’re a cheap drunk, or you like to hurt women and someone would pay me $100,000?”
“Or more.” He toasted her with his expensive beer bottle.
“And you think I’d do that?”
“It’s a genuine opportunity. It wouldn’t need to be about
my failings as a human being, although dishing dirt would earn you more.”
“You think I want that kind of attention? You think I want to get paid because I spent the weekend with you.” How could he think that? She hadn’t wanted to accept shoes and dresses. Was it because she had that he thought she’d be interested in cashing in? Oh fuck.
“I’ve known you for less than four days. People I’ve known for years have done similar things to me,” he said.
Oh. Still. “I should go.” She should never have let him talk her into spending the weekend. They were called one-night stands for a reason. One night was enough.
“Teela.” Haydn was standing beside her, but he didn’t try to touch her.
“It was nice knowing you.” That was out of her mouth before she could think the words through, every syllable dripping with sarcasm and basted with misery.
“I’ve known you for sixty-five hours and thirty-five minutes, give or take, and I trust you. I don’t think you’re going to sell me out, but we had to have the conversation.”
She wheeled around to face him, slapping her hands on her sides. “Why didn’t you just tell me we’d been photographed. You had to pitch it like a business opportunity.”
“Because that’s the way this world I live in works. You get fine clothing, luxury hotels and world travel, and you get this crap. You needed to know your options and I needed to know where I stood with you.”
“Well, here’s a heads-up from someone who lives in the real world. I would never try to hurt you or profit off you or violate your privacy. I hate that happened to you. This is as good a place as any to end this. It’s been lovely. I’ll go.”
“I won’t try to stop you if that’s what you want.”
That’s right, he got a D-minus in begging.
She was packed. Everything she’d had brought from home and the red-carpet dress and shoes, which were gifts she now felt conflicted about all over again.
“Is that what you want?” he asked.
“Can I see the photos?” Might as well know what the full horror was.
He went to the chair and fished his phone out of the pocket of his coat. He had the photo from the bridge climb in an email, and truly, they could’ve been any couple who were having fun together.
One Night with the Sexiest Man Alive (The One Book 1) Page 12
