The Devil Gets His Due (The Devils #4)(27)

“A fetus will draw from its mother as long as she has fat to burn,” I tell him, cupping my breasts. “Have you seen the size of these things? Believe me, they are not shrinking.”

His eyes dart to my chest, linger a second longer than they should, and then he shakes his head as if jarring himself. “They were hard to miss, yes. But stop going hungry anyway. You got some packages, by the way.”

“My bras!” I cry, rushing across the room, all my sadness forgotten. I rip open the first package—three profoundly expensive lace bras in beige, black and red. My rack is gonna look amazing in them.

“And here I was futilely hoping you might be attempting to save money.”

I move onto the second package. “Spare me. Hasn’t your sperm already infected me with enough enforced responsibility?”

He glances from the mountain of lingerie on the table to the candy I just set beside it. “Yes,” he says dryly, “you now appear to be the picture of responsibility.”

“Your fuck-up does not mean you get to police my spending habits.”

“My fuck-up? I’m pretty sure I didn’t create this situation on my own.”

“Look, my vagina is always right here,” I say, waving in its vicinity. “It’s your sperm that somehow were in the wrong place at the wrong time. I’m not sure how that’s my fault.”

His mouth lifts with just a hint of a smile, as if he’s remembering. And then I am too, though it’s simply fragments, like photographs being flipped through at high speed to create a movie—his weight above me, his grip on my hips, his teeth on my shoulder.

“You’re right,” he says, smirking, “I don’t recall you having much to do with it.”

Asshole.

“I’m amazing in bed. You’d be obsessed with me if you could remember it.”

And there it is, in his face again: heat, and a certain knowledge he doesn’t plan to share…which leaves me wondering if he remembers more than he’s letting on.





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17





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KEELEY





The next afternoon I get out at a reasonable hour only because the patients Dr. Joliet tried to foist off cancelled when they learned they’d have to be seen by me, which doesn’t feel like much of a victory, under the circumstances.

I go to the prepared foods section of Erewhon on the way home. I’ve just ordered chicken and rice when I hear a polite cough beside me and look up to find Arjun Patel, the worst attending ever.

“Dr. Connolly,” he says, raising a brow, “how are you? How’s the new job?”

Even if I hate it, I’m not about to let him know, so I plaster a wide smile on my face. “Wonderful,” I reply. “Much easier than residency.”

“You always did love taking it easy,” he replies, and my smile fades. Easy? He gave those cases to his little favorites. He’d pat them on the back for diagnosing fucking athlete’s foot, and then give me medical mysteries straight out of an episode of House and pillory me for the tiniest oversight.

I have no idea why he hates me so much when every other attending adored me. Fuck this guy. I no longer need to win him over.

“I don’t recall you ever allowing me to take it easy,” I reply. “You reserved that for Evans and Hutton.”

“They hadn’t batted their eyelashes through their entire residencies. I thought you might appreciate the chance to prove you could get by without that.”

The guy behind the counter hands me my chicken and rice. I take it, tempering the wide and possibly flirtatious smile I was about to give him. “I didn’t bat my eyelashes through my residency,” I snap. “I’m not sure where you got your information.”

“I saw it with my own eyes, Keeley. Some women are offended by being underestimated, but you seem to relish it.”

I stare at him, my jaw agape. “I don’t relish it.” But even as I say those words, a thousand instances of being let off the hook are coming to mind. I was relieved not to be called on during rounds, always feeling like the kid in class who hadn’t done her assigned reading. It felt like a win when I got to leave early or wasn’t asked to scrub in. I step past him, my smile sarcastically sweet. “Nice chat.”

“When you realize you’re capable of more,” he says as I walk away, “come see me.”

“Whatever, dude,” I mutter, getting into line.

When you realize you’re capable of more. What the hell did that mean? Does he really think I’d swing by the hospital just to have him tell me how bad I am at everything? So he can once again read me the riot act for misdiagnosing the single case of Mycobacterium marinum that ever came through the doors, and demand to know why I hadn’t asked what the guy did for a living, a question irrelevant to almost any other diagnosis?

I’m still annoyed when I get home, but the apartment is tidier than it’s ever been, and Graham’s hung up the large, framed print that fell off the wall during the last party I threw. Maybe he’s not all bad, but I hope he stays in his room.

I change into leggings and a sweatshirt, the only comfortable things I can still fit into, then head to the kitchen for my food. I’m so hungry I want to eat chicken and rice, which is sad.