“Tonight, we wallow,” Evie said, addressing the living room as if it was a Viking hall, instead of one bookcase from Ikea.
Teela waved a limp hand. “Wallow, yay.”
“Why will you be glad? Is it the whole better to have loved and lost crap?”
“I don’t love him.”
Fingers measuring out the approximate width of a one-inch dick appeared in front of Teela’s face. “Not even a little bit?”
“Yeah, okay a little bit. He’s easy to love.” Freaking easy to love. “It was the ultimate holiday romance. Not meant to fit in real life. The whole thing was a Cinderella story and I am not in need of a prince, but I did need a pick-me-up and you don’t get much better than a dirty weekend with the Sexiest Man Alive.”
“He’d be more interesting if he had something weird going on, like his last two toes were stuck permanently together or he farted continuously, or, or, he had some embarrassing habit like collecting belly-button lint or naming his dick The Hulk.”
“He did not have a name for his dick.”
Evie sighed. “Was it nice?”
“Very nice. There is nothing weird about him except how charming he is, how funny and gracious and—” Evie put her hand over Teela’s mouth making her mumble, “genuine and empathetic.”
“Now you’re making me sick,” Evie said.
Tomorrow, tomorrow, Teela would be glad she’d had an affair with the Sexiest Man Alive. Triumphant even. A story to tell the grandkids to goggle their eyes. Tonight, she’d hang out with her best friend and try not to think about her arse becoming famous and what kind of world she was living in where she could make money from that.
FOURTEEN
“Whose dog is that?” Rum said when he flung himself on a pool lounge, sending Cyd skittering to the other side of the deck of Haydn’s Hollywood Hills home.
Despite being wary of Rum, the English Sheepdog cross Shar Pei had lost that haunted, apologetic look she’d had when she arrived a week ago. She didn’t wake Haydn crying at night anymore and she was more confident with the Fred, Ginger and the pack, who’d accepted her with a minimum of snapping, and growling.
“I’m not in the business of minding other people’s dogs.” Haydn called her, and Cyd came, which was a first, head lowered but tailing wagging cautiously. “Good girl.” He fed her a chew from the pocket of his pants.
“You got a new dog?” Rum said, kicking back on the lounge.
Maybe this is when the other shoe would drop. Rylan Rumble—practical jokes are my reason for living after acting, sex and beer—would casually mention he’d promised Haydn’s Aston Martin in a charity auction or his house in Bora Bora for a rave, because being beaten for the Sexiest Man Alive title wasn’t forgotten. But he’d seen the guy a dozen times in the month since he’d been back from Sydney, and it’d never come up.
Just made him more suspicious that whatever prank was brewing was big.
“When I found out she was named for Cyd Charisse I had to have her,” he said.
“You needed a new dog?”
Haydn scratched behind Cyd’s ear, making her tail move faster. She was a sweetheart, especially given her background. She’d been left alone to starve, tied to a fence in a vacant lot. No one was quite sure how long she’d been there, but she was down to ulcerated skin and bones when she was rescued. Weeks later, she was still underweight, growing fur back in patches and wary about attention. “Cyd needed me.”
“I can see she needed someone to care for her, but you got a new dog.”
He offered Cyd another chew. “Your point being?” She took it from his fingers with her eyes on Rum, as if she half suspected he’d snatch it from her. Smart girl, she wasn’t about to be pranked.
“What happened in Australia?”
“Crashed and burned on the anti-piracy project.”
“And you ditched Thor to have a filthy weekend with some girl, whose name you managed to keep out of things.”
He grinned at Rum. “You got a problem with that?”
“And then you got a new dog.”
Shit. “It’s not like I ran around looking for a new dog. The shelter called.”