Page 16 of A Deal with the Devil

* * *

That night, I go back to the first ball Aisling and Ewan attend in Edinad. It’s the crème de la crème of fae society in attendance—all of them charming and beautiful, constantly inebriated and consumed with sex—a bit like my new boss, actually. I haven’t fleshed them out much, aside from the evil queen, but suddenly, I want more. I picture a man there, just like the one in my dream. Julian. He’s beautiful and darkly intimidating, and when he steps up behind Aisling at the ball, sliding his hands over her bare arms, she’s not sure how to react.

“Name anything and it’s yours,” he tells her.

I don’t even know where it would go in the book, but for the first time in a year, the words come easily.

10

“Hi. This is Drew Wilson,” says the voice on the other end of the line. “I’m interested in getting some work done.”

“You’re the Drew Wilson.” This has to be a prank. Drew Wilson is way too famous to be making her own appointments. She’s also way too young and gorgeous to be in need of cosmetic enhancement.

She sounds amused. “Are you always this suspicious?”

“World-famous singers don’t usually place their own calls.”

“Yeah, I’m definitely not trusting my assistant with this. She’d probably call TMZ before she called you. I mean, this is confidential, right?”

“Of course,” I reply, though I’m really thinking what she needs is a new assistant, not plastic surgery.

She tells me her manager wants her to get a nose job and a boob job, but she needs it to be so top secret that no one but her knows. “Mostly, I don’t want my boyfriend—well, I guess I can’t call him my boyfriend, but let’s just say the guy I’d like as a boyfriend—to know. Can you guys do that?”

My teeth sink into my lip. Drew Wilson has the kind of face other women go to surgeons waving photos of. Why the hell does she think she needs to change it? “I...yes, it’s possible, but you know, you’re going to have a lot of swelling after a nose job and black eyes, possibly. Your boyfriend is going to notice.”

“If I did it while he’s on tour, though...” she muses.

I’m not sure how she thinks her boyfriend won’t notice new breasts, but it’s not even the point.

“Look,” I reply, “I could probably get fired for this but I’m going to say it anyway: you’re gorgeous. There’s nothing wrong with your nose or anything else. Are you sure you want to do this?”

She blows out a long breath. “I don’t even know. Maybe it’s a bad idea. My manager’s been on me and this guy...have you been with a guy who’s, like, fucking perfect? You get along so well, and then he just, like, doesn’t call for weeks at a time?”

The question sounds rhetorical, as if it’s a given. But Matt’s the only person I’ve ever dated. I have no experience with most of the awful boyfriend/fuck buddy scenarios other women seem to have had. “I’ve had one boyfriend my entire life so I really wouldn’t know.”

“One,” she repeats.

“It’s shocking, I know. But you’re stunning, Drew,” I say flatly. “Don’t change yourself for anyone else.”

“Spoken like a girl dating the rare guy who’s actually one of the good ones.”

Yeah, I thought so too. I didn’t have a clue until he showed me exactly who he really was.

* * *

I’m in the office going over the inventory when I hear the front door open. Hayes has just reached the kitchen when I step into the room, surprise on my face though there’s no reason for it—this is his home, after all. “Hey. Did you need something?”

He shakes his head, and even that small gesture is weary. “I’m going to try your nap idea from yesterday.”

I smile. He’s made it sound as if napping is something I personally invented.

“It sounds like you’ll need it,” I tell him. “Nicole texted with some interesting commentary about the other night and how she’d like to repeat it. Her text began with ‘It’s so big’ and had multiple exclamation points.”

He barely seems to register the comment as he passes me, heading toward the living area, but I suppose he’s gotten quite a few texts like that in the past. He strips off his button-down and I get a nice look at his shockingly defined biceps as he tosses the shirt onto a chair and lies down on the nearest couch, his long frame eating up every inch of space as he arranges a pillow under his head.

“I don’t see women more than once,” he says, with his eyes closed. “That way no one gets hurt.”

He’s asleep in mere seconds. I hesitate for a moment, then cross the room and lay a throw blanket over him. There’s something sweet and unexpectedly boyish about his face at rest, and it creates this strange ache in the center of my rib cage. He’s every bit as bad as I’d imagined at the start, and yet…he isn’t.