One Night with the Sexiest Man Alive (The One 1)

As soon as the lift doors closed on Haydn, Teela did a little dance, belatedly mindful she was in a tin box, forty stories up and wearing stilts. She’d just had a one-night stand. Correction, a luxury one-night stand with all the trimmings. And not just with any nice man she was attracted to and took a risk on.

With the Sexiest Man Alive.

And that description covered more than just his job and his looks. He rewrote the very definition of sexy with his commitment to use his fame for good.

She swung her laundry bag. No one was going to believe her. Everything that happened sounded like something you read in a book or made up for the attention. Who had morning sex pressed up against the glass wall of a private heated pool? Very, very lovely morning sex, with a wrenching clitoral orgasm, courtesy of a genuine Hollywood prince.

The elevator was on the ground now, but Teela was still floating when Hassan greeted her.

“Good morning, Miss. Carpenter. Do you wish to go to your office this morning? I can take you anywhere you’d like to go.”

How about back to last night. To her favorite moments. His eye contact hot enough to start drying her skin in the limo. Being bold enough to climb on Haydn’s lap in the boutique and make out with him like they were both new to kissing. Or when she was so easily under his spell she dropped the hotel robe on the floor and let him look at her. All of her.

He had her lust drugged. Had to be it, because she’d never have been brave enough to ask for what she wanted so blatantly otherwise. Telling Haydn she wanted him to stay dressed was a whole level of brazen up from asking a partner to get off your hair or ease up with the poking and saying, no, not that. She’d once asked her ratfink fiancé if he’d try a new position and he got out of bed and sulked for a week.

Should’ve known he was a problem then.

Haydn hadn’t raised a brow when she asked him to stay dressed, and he’d also known without her being explicit that the fantasy wasn’t about being dominated. She hadn’t been looking to call anyone Sir or be made to feel submissive. She simply wanted to pretend Hollywood’s leading man was wild about her and couldn’t wait long enough to get undressed.

And then he got undressed and that, well that inspired a whole new line of thinking. The kind that inspired her body to start melting.

All of those highlights had flashing stars around them. They were big and out of the ordinary, but her absolute favorite thing was how he’d made her feel safe and cared for with all the little things he’d done, from hanging up her new clothes to taking his watch off and bringing her water.

“Miss. Carpenter?”

She asked Hassan to drive her to the office. She was still elated when she slipped into the back seat to discover a huge bunch of flowers. While Hassan took on the traffic, she opened the card.

It read Lovely to meet you. All the best.

She turned it over. Blank. No signature and the card was handwritten. Lovely to meet you. All the best.

“Is something wrong, Miss. Carpenter?” Hassan said.

She met his eyes in the rearview mirror. “Everything is great.” All the best. “No rain today. It’s going to be a stinking hot one.”

All the best was the kind of thing you said to someone pleasant you sat next to on a long-haul flight. You said it to a friend of a friend who you’d likely never meet again or when you interviewed someone for a job and you knew they weren’t going to get it, but you couldn’t tell them yet. It was the kind of thing you said when you didn’t quite know what else to say. It was bland, inoffensive.

Unimaginative and impersonal.

It was nothing like Haydn.

It wasn’t surprising he didn’t sign it. He probably didn’t give away signatures. And he’d certainly ordered the flowers by phone because he hadn’t left her at all, so it wasn’t his handwriting. Come to think of it, he hadn’t used his phone that morning. Not even to read anything on it, and he’d called Rick on the hotel phone while she was dressing.

Which meant this was what he did. It was his standing order for a one-night stand. Have a driver waiting, have flowers at the ready with a card that that read Lovely to meet you. All the best. Because those words covered every contingency and wrote the end.

Except the one where the dope receiving them had thought she might’ve been different, special.

Not change-his-life-for-her special, that’s not even something she wanted, but hadn’t they connected, not as anything deeply meaningful, but in that way you sometimes did with someone where you got on easily and kind of clicked?

He’d seemed reluctant to let her go. But that must be a figment of her imagination. The only thing that clicked was reality falling back into place. And in Teela’s real world she was a person who cared more about her work than her social life.

“I think there is something wrong, Miss. Carpenter,” Hassan said.

She shook her head. It was just her heart having a wobble. It was the overdose of attention and the rapid onset of endorphins and the silly stars in her eyes. It was having been starved for pleasure for so long and finding it unexpectedly and unpredictably wonderful. Or the lack of sleep. She’d only had about four hours’ worth.

“Everything is absolutely fine, Hassan, thank you.”

More coffee and her inbox and getting on with a regular day would restore the balance.