One Night with the Sexiest Man Alive (The One Book 1) Read online

  One Night with

  The Sexiest

  Man Alive

  The One

  Ainslie Paton

  This story is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and events that happen are the product of the author’s vivid imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, places, organizations or people, living or dead is purely co-incidental and beyond the intent of the author and publisher. Copyright © 2019.

  One Night with The Sexiest Man Alive

  Ainslie Paton

  Haydn Delany’s Hollywood star shone so brightly, even being the manager of an event he was headlining didn’t ensure Teela Carpenter would get the chance to meet him, and she was fine with that. Really, fine. Okay, it was hugely disappointing not to meet the much-admired actor come activist dubbed the Sexist Man Alive.

  Until Haydn appeared inexplicably on the balcony where she stood, kissed her hand and gave her a story to dine out on for years.

  That was before a raging tropical thunderstorm, an annoying car accident and ruined shoes put him in her path again. This time as her white knight.

  And a one-night stand that might just last forever.

  Once upon a time I didn’t get to meet George Clooney.

  I don't go on that many dates, because the truth is, anytime you go out in public with a girl when you're well-known, there are pictures of you everywhere, and it's like you're a thing.

  -George Clooney

  There's a funny thing about fame. The truth is you run as fast as you can towards it because it's everything you want. Not just the fame but what it represents, meaning work, meaning opportunity. And then you get there, and it's shocking how immediately you become enveloped in this world that is incredibly restricting.

  -George Clooney

  Most of the films I've done haven't done particularly well. I'm surprised I'm continuing to work.

  -George Clooney

  After doing One Fine Day and playing a paediatrician on ER, I'll never have kids. I'm going to have a vasectomy.

  -George Clooney

  Chapters

  ONE

  TWO

  THREE

  FOUR

  FIVE

  SIX

  SEVEN

  EIGHT

  NINE

  TEN

  ELEVEN

  TWELVE

  THIRTEEN

  FOURTEEN

  FIFTEEN

  One Kiss from the King of Rock

  About the Author

  ONE

  There must be worse ways to be uninvited to the glamorous dinner at the conclusion of the exclusive event you’d spent months of your life managing, but it was difficult for Teela Carpenter to think of one as the door to the function room shut in her face.

  Her chance to enjoy an excellent meal and observe Hollywood royalty in an intimate setting closed with a polite, crisp snick.

  And it’s not like that was an everyday opportunity. People had paid a small fortune for the privilege.

  Not that she was devastated. Exactly. It was just business.

  She was thirsty, and her feet ached, and it would be tedious explaining to potential new clients that yes, she had managed the detail of a much-talked-about global forum that brought together household-name leaders in technology, politics, business, and social welfare. And yes, the star of the show, in his first public outing as an activist and not a movie star, was heartthrob, Haydn Delany. And that no, she had not personally met the man dubbed the sexiest alive.

  All of which was annoying.

  But it was difficult to be too disappointed, what with all the sparky new feathers in her professional cap and the part where she was the architect of her own rejection.

  In the seconds after her client, the event promoter, Lynda Chen, had stuttered in pink-faced panic about her mother, not so affectionately referred to as Dragon One, showing up uninvited, and being a place-setting short for dinner, Teela summoned the last reserves of her grace under pressure and volunteered her seat at the table.

  It was the right thing to do.

  Her assistant Sophie was unlikely to agree. Harsh.

  Carpenter Conference management might have handled everything from venue selection, ticketing and insurance, travel and accommodation to the staging, run order and the fragrant native floral table centers she wasn’t going to get to see in situ, but Teela was the hired help, not a paying guest, and her inclusion at the official dinner had been a courtesy.

  It wasn’t going to be easy to explain to everyone back at the office, her family or her bestie, Evie, how she’d willingly missed out on having dinner in the same room as the Sexiest Man Alive, given she’d been in his general proximity for a good part of the day and not managed even the most inconsequential nod and empty smile.

  From Sophie there would be a lot of open-mouthed eye rolling and head-shaking indignation. It might well be deserved. There’d been nothing stopping Teela taking the initiative and introducing herself to Haydn. Nothing except an appreciation for how unnecessary to the work they were both doing that was.

  And Jesus, Mary and Joseph, his proximity, like everything else about the actor, was sexy. He was the most big-ticket famous person she’d ever orbited. Teela really hadn’t properly prepared herself for that. An oversight in the planning stages. Oh sure, she knew he was hot stuff—who didn’t—nearly everyone on the event team was in a hyper-aware state, but he was also the job, not her long-lost lust object and she hadn’t realized she might need to practice keeping her tongue from lolling.

  Haydn had passed her in the backstage area earlier in the day on the way to his on-stage interview presentation, his famous faded baby-blue eyes fixed attentively on Lynda as she gave him last-minute stage instructions. The very ones Teela had meticulously prepared.

  If he wasn’t the actually the Sexiest Man Alive—for the fifth time, according to Gentleman magazine’s annual poll—he’d done an excellent imitation of him by simply walking down a dimly lit, slightly damp-smelling backstage corridor.

  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 me
dia’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.”