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He took Mena’s hand, disappeared it inside his. She pulled his head down and kissed him and it didn’t matter that his emotions were wagging all over the place. He was loved by a woman he adored and admired. These new pants weren’t so unlucky after all, and it was a very good day to be a bridesman.
I hope you enjoyed One Wicked Lick from the Drummer
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The other books in The One series are:
One Night with the Sexiest Man Alive
One Kiss from the King of Rock
Read on for the first chapter of
One Night with the Sexiest Man Alive
Bonus chapter from the Sidelined series
Offensive Behavior
ONE NIGHT WITH THE SEXIEST MAN ALIVE
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.
