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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.
