Page 23 of A Deal with the Devil

I shrug. “Sure, but if he dies of scurvy, I won’t have an income.”

She laughs and then she leans forward, her lashes lowering, smiling like a witch about to cast a spell. “You are so much more interesting than I realized, Tali. So much more. Starting with the fact that at some point over the next few weeks, you are definitely going to fuck your boss. And I want every detail when it happens.”

* * *

What Drew said was laughable. Even if Hayes has managed to go for a week or two without a threesome—he hasn’t brought anyone home in a while, actually—after what I went through with Matt, he’s the last person I’m going to choose. But as I prepare Hayes’s salad, it does give me an idea for the book. What if there was an attraction between Julian and Aisling? It’s worry that keeps you reading a book, a fear that things won’t work out or the heroine will make the wrong choice.

And Julian would be the ultimate wrong choice.

Hayes strides in at that very moment, undoing the first few buttons of his shirt and pushing his hair back off his face. I feel a sudden, sharp jab of desire, watching him. Yes, Julian could make a very compelling case for Aisling if he wanted to.

I push the salad toward him. “Go sit outside.”

He glances at the terrace as if it’s an alien landscape. “Why?”

“Because while I find the idea of vampires exciting, you struggling with a vitamin D deficiency is less so.”

He folds his arms across his chest, frowning. Clearly, I’ve thrown a wrench in his plan to avoid sunlight forever. “Sit with me, then,” he says after a second. “I’ll be bored, and you’re marginally entertaining.”

“I’m extremely entertaining.”

“You could be, certainly,” he purrs, with the dirtiest possible lift to his mouth. It’s as if that smirk of his is directly tied to my nerve endings—that’s how fast my body responds. And why him? Why him instead of Sam or a hundred other men who could potentially make decent boyfriends?

I grab two bottles of sparkling water from the fridge and together we walk outside. He has a lovely backyard, with a long, quiet pool and large grassy area, though in truth, I prefer LA’s wildly flowering trees and vines to his neatly sculpted boxwood hedges. He eats, and I lean my head back against the chair and turn my face toward the sun. The weather, the views...I can hardly imagine a better place to live, yet I suspect Hayes works too hard to appreciate any of it.

“You’re not doing the best job entertaining me,” he says.

“You won’t like what I have to say,” I reply, turning my head toward him. “You need to schedule some downtime for yourself. A weekend, or even a day.”

“Not happening.” He sets the bowl on the table and folds his hands over his exceedingly flat stomach.

“Just think about it, okay?” I plead. “Today you’re going from something called a Botox Baby Shower, which I really hope doesn’t involve Botoxing pregnant women—”

“Just their babies.” He stretches, the seams of his shirt straining at his broad shoulders as he places his hands behind his head.

“To the gym with your buddy Ben, followed by drinks at Lucent. Your life is just too busy.”

“I’ll think about it,” he says, though his tone implies he won’t.

“Honestly, I don’t know how you ever had time to come drink at Topside,” I tell him. “Or why you were there in the first place. You’ve probably never worn a bandanna in your life.”

His gaze meets mine for one long moment before it drifts away. I get the feeling there’s something he hasn’t told me about that night. I want to know why he looked at me the way he did. And I really want to know why he left.

“How else would I fill an hour between the Botox baby shower and drinks with friends?”

“Reading?” I suggest. “Quiet self-reflection?”

“I’m beginning to see why you’re still single.”

I glance away. I don’t know why his comment bothers me. It’s not as if I’m sad that I’m single. I suppose it’s just that—though the biggest mistakes were Matt’s—there’s a part of me that wonders if I should have bended more, or at least faked interest in the Hollywood scene he found so fascinating after we arrived. Matt certainly seemed to think so.

“Jesus,” says Hayes. His face has fallen. “You just broke up with someone, didn’t you?”

“It’s fine.”

He groans, leaning forward to turn toward me. “I’m sorry. You can spit in my coffee tomorrow if it’ll make you feel better.”

I smile. “I spit in your coffee every day. It’s not as exciting as you’d think.”