The Devil Gets His Due (The Devils #4)(11)

I don’t want to do that to a kid, and I don’t want to do that to me, spending the next eighteen years fighting Graham through lawyers because he disagrees with me about school, or braces, or deodorant.

And if Gemma tells Ben and Ben tells Graham, I’ll be forced to.

“I’ve got some idea,” I reply. “I haven’t decided if I want him involved.”

“Keeley,” she says with that warning note in her voice, the same one she gets when I suggest I might not pay my taxes, “you shouldn’t have to do this alone. And you sure as hell shouldn’t have to pay for a kid alone.”

God, I don’t even know what Graham does for a living. Given how cheap he is, it can’t pay well. After all the millionaires I’ve dated, trust me to get knocked up by a thousandaire instead.

“I have my own money,” I reply, at which she raises a brow, because I spend like it’s my last day on Earth, every single day. “I will have money, once I start saving it,” I amend.

“It also isn’t fair to this guy, whose name you still haven’t told me.”

I exhale. “Gemma, your parents had an ugly custody battle. You know how this shit goes. I don’t want that for my kid, and it would all be so much easier if I just…avoided it.”

“Ben and I are not going to let anyone take the baby from you,” she says. “You know that.”

Except I don’t know that, not once they learn who the father is. Because Ben will definitely take his brother’s side, and Gemma will be divided, and the way I see it, that means seventy-five percent of the vote has already gone to Graham, no matter how little interest he has.

And he doesn’t want kids. He said so himself. Therefore, it’s kind of generous of me to keep it a secret, from one vantage point.

I press my fingers to my temples. “I just have to figure some stuff out, okay?”

Like whether there’s even a chance I can get away with this.

Can I? He’s Ben’s brother, but he lives on the East Coast. I haven’t heard his name once since the party, so isn’t it entirely possible he’ll never hear mine again either?

We both leave the store empty-handed. Gemma hugs me goodbye, and I stop on the way home for donuts and then an a?ai bowl full of gross healthy stuff to make up for them. Sometime over the past week, food stopped making me sick, and I have not wasted any time getting reacquainted with the things I love: pizza and cookies and tacos, eating like someone who’s just emerged from a famine.

I eat one donut after another and only realize when I’m going to bed that I forgot to unpack the a?ai bowl, which makes sense since I never wanted it in the first place.

I’m going to be an outstanding mother.





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8





GRAHAM





I’ve been waiting for Keeley’s name to be thrown in my face every day for months. This is, after all, the woman who told complete strangers about her plan to seduce a rock star. It stood to reason that she’d be unable to keep our Vegas wedding to herself. And if it’s going to come out, it’ll probably happen here, during my first family dinner since the holidays.

God, the irony. Ben, Simon, and Colin…they all went through a wild period, but now Ben is happily married, Colin’s about to be, and Simon—well, Simon is still single, but he’s young and making the most of it. They’d have a field day if they discovered that the only careful, responsible member of the family married a stranger he’d known for twenty-four hours.

My mother’s focus tonight, fortunately, seems to be entirely on Colin and the wedding he and his fiancée have yet to plan. But just when I think I might escape unscathed, she turns and asks me how things are with Anna.

If Keeley told Gemma, who’d undoubtedly tell Ben, this is the perfect chance for him to say, “Haven’t you heard? He’s got a wife.” But no one says a word.

“It’s still over, Mom,” I reply. “Just like it was the last time you asked.” Her eyes dip, but I ignore her sadness. I have to. She wants too many things for me, and I wish she’d just stop wanting them.

The conversation reverts to Colin’s unplanned wedding. It’s too good to be true, and weirdly disappointing at the same time. I guess there was still a part of me that hoped something might come from the whole thing with Keeley, though I can’t imagine it would have been anything good.

“How’s your friend Keeley, by the way?” my mom asks Gemma, as if she’s read my mind. “I had such a nice time chatting with her at the party.”

I thought I was ready for this, for the sound of her name, for the news that will follow. I’m not, though. Not even close.

Gemma glances at Ben. “She’s good.” There’s a tiny uncertain note in her voice, and my heart begins to pound.

Ben shrugs. “It’s not a secret anymore, right?”

Gemma frowns. “I guess not.” She turns to my mom. “She’s pregnant.”

I freeze, the drink I was about to casually sip suspended in mid-air.

“Pregnant?” my mother asks. “I didn’t realize she was seeing anyone.”

Gemma’s laugh is small, diplomatic. “I’m not sure that she is. It’s a bit of a mystery.”