The Devil Gets His Due (The Devils #4)(10)

I want this baby, and even as I tell myself how selfish that is, I’ve got that soaring feeling in my chest—the one I always get before making the worst possible decision.

In the end, all I end up buying are prenatal vitamins.

I’m going to be a mom.





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7





KEELEY





“You’re perfect for us,” Kathleen Fox said when she hired me, and I was under no illusions about what she actually meant. It was above all about my ability to work long hours without complaint, but it was also me. She approved of my looks, my Hermes belt, my Balenciaga purse. Everything about Beverly Hills Skin is aspirational, and the staff is no exception; employees are unblemished and lovely. Though mostly it’s just good genes, they look like women who have a secret or two, things their patients hope they’ll share.

But now I legitimately do have a secret: everything they hired me for is about to change. I’m about to have commitments, and any day now I will no longer be a designer size two or fit into a Hervé Léger bandage dress.

And how am I supposed to tell them that? It’s not like they’ll believe I, a grown woman and doctor, didn’t know this when I interviewed a month ago. I guess it’ll be clear soon enough, but I definitely don’t plan to make it clear today.

I’m shown the facilities by Trinny, who works at the front desk and could easily pass for Zendaya, but with better skin. They’re in a hurry to get me up to speed because I’m replacing Dr. Lee, who left three weeks before, and Dr. Fryer, who left in February.

The modern glam décor is just as it was when I interviewed: white fur throws in the patient rooms, black lacquered floors, a glass-front fridge stocked with Voss in the waiting room. After the chaos of working at the hospital, all I wanted was a quiet, air-conditioned office where inoffensive music would play through speakers and the air would smell like potpourri. That and a big fat paycheck I could blow on Louboutins at the month’s end, all without Arjun Patel pulling me forward to diagnose a rare skin disease associated with malaria in front of everyone.

And I got it, but I have no idea now if it will last.

“We’ve been putting everyone off until you arrived,” Trinny says, wincing. “So, it’ll be a lot.”

“I just came out of four years of residency,” I reply. “As long as I get to drink free Voss and am not doing overnights, I’m sure it will be fine.”

She smiles but she does not look convinced, and an hour later, I see why. Already, my patients are double-booked and every one of them is irritated; they can’t believe they had to wait this long, and they can’t believe they’re being forced to see someone new. They wanted Dr. Fox or Dr. Joliet and got me instead.

“First, Dr. Brown and Dr. Fryer leave and then it’s Dr. Lee, and now they’re telling me you’re my doctor?” demands a testy woman with rosacea. “How long will it last before they’re pushing me off onto someone else?”

My smile flickers with uncertainty. Is it weird that so many doctors have left? I figured it was simply junior associates getting their feet wet and going off to greener pastures, but I guess it’s a little strange that no one has stayed.

Not everyone has a kid arriving in mere months, however. So no matter what I’m in for here, I won’t be going anywhere.

“I’m staying,” I assure her.

She snorts. “Yeah, we’ll see.”





Gemma and I meet at Louboutin in West Hollywood at the end of my first week for “celebratory shopping”, in theory over my new job. I do my best to appear cheerful, though if the past few days were any indication, there isn’t much to celebrate.

“These are you,” Gemma says, wielding a sky-high purple suede stiletto at me.

I feel that old, familiar hunger I get when I want something. I reach…and then stop myself. They’re probably eight hundred dollars at least, and now I have to buy…Jesus, I don’t even know what I need: a crib, a changing table, a car seat? Given how much people bitch about the cost of raising children, I doubt it ends there.

She glances inside the shoe. “Try it on. You’re a seven, right?”

I mean to say “okay.”

“I’m pregnant,” is what I tell her instead.

She pales. “What?”

I drop into the plush chair behind me. “I’m pregnant. Due in October.” I feel a little calmer as I say it aloud. That’s two seasons away. In two seasons you can figure out anything. I’ve got loads of time.

She doesn’t seem as reassured by that as I am. “Who…? What—” she mumbles, dropping into the seat beside me. It’s the first time during our long friendship that I’ve ever seen Gemma speechless. “Do you know who the father is?”

I tense. This is where it gets tricky. I probably need to tell Graham now that it’s official. What stops me, mostly, is that I don’t want to tell Graham.

My parents split when I was two and I spent most of my childhood as the epicenter of their bickering. Over who was responsible for taking me to the dentist, over how weeks would be divided and whether my clothing was returning to the parent who bought it. My father stepped in to ruin every plan my mother tried to make, and he even threw the socks she bought me in the garbage when I arrived at his house with them in hand. “She isn’t going to tell me what socks you can wear,” he’d said.