The Devil Gets His Due (The Devils #4)(50)

I glance toward the kitchen where Keeley, Lola, and Hayes’s daughter are all on the floor, and two of the three are giggling. I’m pretty sure Keeley has found her peer group.

“Audrey’s grown so much since I saw you guys in January!” Keeley exclaims. “I didn’t even recognize her. How’s the baby? Callum, right?”

“Sleeping in ten-second intervals. He and Tali are finally resting after a very long night and morning, so I thought I’d keep Audrey out for a while.”

He pulls out his phone to show us pictures of the baby, and she coos over them while I fret. What happens if our daughter isn’t a sleeper? I doubt Beverly Hills Skin is going to be okay with Keeley coming in late or stumbling through a day on no sleep if they won’t even let her eat lunch.

“We should get out of your hair,” Hayes says. “Come along, Audrey. It’s time to go to the store.”

“I would like to stay, actually,” says Audrey, so prim that Keeley and I both laugh.

“Can she?” Keeley pleads. “You could go to the store and get her on your way home?”

I fight a smile, watching her. Keeley has no idea what she even brings to the table, but here she is begging for time with a little girl she will cuddle and care for as if her life depends on it. What she brings to the table are the things that matter most.

“You’re in deep, my friend,” Hayes says as I walk him to the door. “It’s written all over your face. I bet she’s got you running out at eleven at night to get her obscure foods.”

I think of the last Froot Loops incident. Yes, I drove to the grocery store at midnight because she wanted Froot Loops. “They’re not that obscure.”

When I walk back inside, the TV is on, and Keeley and Audrey are curled up together on the couch with Lola across their laps.

“So here’s the deal,” Keeley is saying. “The duke doesn’t want to have kids because his father was abusive, but Daphne does, and now they’re married and happy but it’s about to go downhill. If people are happy at the midpoint of anything, whether it’s a movie or book, you know you’re in for it.”

Keeley points the remote at the TV. “Oh, we’re probably going to have to forward through some of this based on the look she’s giving him. Cover your eyes. Ugh, kissing in the rain.” She pauses the show. “You can open your eyes because this is important: don’t let a guy do this. It’s not romantic at all, and seriously…no mascara is that waterproof. You just wind up cold, and you’ll look like a clown afterward.”

She picks up the remote again and I finally step in. “Keeley, what are you watching?”

She narrows her eyes at me. “We don’t need your help.”

“Clearly, you do.” I attempt to snatch the remote and she slides it under her thigh. “Audrey, what’s your favorite show?”

“This,” she says. “They all talk like Daddy.”

“Keeley,” I beg.

An unwilling smile slips over her face as she pulls out the remote and changes the channel. “Fiiine. We’ll watch something else. Have you ever seen Charlie and Lola, Audrey? They talk like your dad too.”

I’m relieved to see it’s animated. I would not have been at all surprised to discover Charlie and Lola was a documentary about two British prostitutes.





After Hayes returns for his daughter, we walk to Brentwood for dinner. We bring Lola, in theory to get her some exercise, but Keeley spends most of the walk cradling her like a baby.

For the past two blocks, she’s been telling me about the sexy kidnapping movie because, as it turns out, she wants us to watch the sequel together.

“I don’t understand how there can be a sequel,” I argue.

“She gets kidnapped again,” Keeley says, just as the restaurant comes into view. “So, what happens is—”

She suddenly falls silent at the sight of the guy only feet away from us, the one staring at Keeley like he’s seeing a ghost.

Ethan Kramer.

He’s the founder of a tech start-up and worth millions. He was someone whose public opinions I respected, but it’s clear from the look on his face that he knows Keeley well—which means she dated Ethan Fucking Kramer—and my respect turns to jealousy in a moment’s time.

He walks toward us, frowning as we are introduced. She asks how he’s been and if he’s taken his boat out. His answers are distracted, and his gaze is on her stomach the entire time. “I thought you didn’t want kids,” he finally says.

Her cheeks flush and her long lashes lower as a lock of hair falls across her face. If she wanted to torture this guy with what he’s lost, this was a good day for it: she is glowing, and in tiny shorts and a fitted tee, she makes pregnancy hot.

She shrugs, apologetically. “Accidents happen.”

He glances at me again, eyes narrowed as if I’m at fault. I guess I might be looking at him similarly if our positions were reversed.

Keeley turns toward the restaurant and tells him goodbye, and even after we’ve stepped into the foyer, he’s still standing outside, staring at the door.

“I take it you dated him,” I say. “Recently.”

She bites her lip. “It ended last summer. It had kind of run its course.”