The Devil Gets His Due (The Devils #4)(70)

So, yes, I’m expecting the worst when I walk out of my room dressed for work. Perhaps not the texts, or stalking, but at least some puppy-dog eyes and tension. A terse “when will you be home?” at the very least. And he still needs his car—the long drive to the studio will almost certainly entail some dreary talk about feelings, blah blah blah.

Graham is just getting off one of his East Coast calls—I hear mentions of artificial organs and Russian wheat futures—as I’m finishing up with Mark’s toast. He walks in, clean shaven, wearing a button-down and tie. The man was made to wear a tie. If I weren’t so desperate to avoid him, I’d yank his mouth to mine with that tie and pull him down to the floor seconds later. The sounds he made last night—him saying, “do it hard” and “I’ve come a hundred times thinking about this”—play in my head, and I squeeze my thighs together as I try to forget.

He moves toward me and puts the butter and jam in the fridge as if it’s any other day. I see no hint of strain in his face whatsoever. I focus on his long, capable fingers before forcing my gaze away.

“I know we need to get your car,” I begin. “If you can wait until lunch I can—”

He shakes his head. “I picked it up a few hours ago, but take a lunch break anyway.” He moves to the other side of the counter and pulls Mark’s toast toward him. “I can take it down today. I need to tell him he was right about shorting Tesla.”

I watch, astonished, as he leaves with Mark’s toast and paper. I’m still waiting for…something. A longing look, some tension or upheaval. There was nothing at all, as if he forgot, and who could forget me? I’m amazing in bed.

At least I used to be. No, I’m definitely still amazing in bed.

That it ended too quickly for me to show off any skills is hardly my fault. But I can’t believe we recovered from it all so easily. I guess we were both just scratching an itch, and that it was fucking fantastic isn’t even relevant. No matter how good it is to scratch an itch, you’re better off just, you know, not having an itch in the first place.

And I don’t. I’m all squared away, and so is he. I mean, maybe I’m not a hundred percent squared away, but whatever.

I should be ecstatic.

I am ecstatic, I’m sure. It’s just buried under all this disappointment.





On the way to work, I swing by the bakery and get three Sunday muffins—one for myself and one for Mark since we missed out yesterday. A third for Trinny because she’s probably earned one by now and will likely endure a whole lot of attitude from our bosses this week.

As will I.

A Mindy and Mills appearance is probably the kind of thing I was supposed to run by them first. I knew it even at the time—it’s just that I wanted what Trevor MacNulty was offering more. And now I don’t, which leaves me stuck at a job I hate with two bosses who are going to be very, very pissed off. I can’t believe I might be forced to grovel to remain there now.

I deposit the muffin in front of Trinny but she looks more concerned than pleased.

“What’s this for? Oh my God, this thing is…is it a muffin or is it candy?”

“Don’t judge,” I tell her. “But if we call it a muffin, we can pretend it’s healthy.”

“I wouldn’t say muffins are—”

“Don’t ruin this for me,” I warn, waving a finger at her.

I send an email to both Fox and Joliet, notifying them about Mindy and Mills, which airs this afternoon, relieved neither of them will be in for a while so I don’t have to hear about it. It’s eleven before Dr. Fox appears at my office door.

“Are you serious?” she demands, holding her phone aloft. “You went onto a nationally televised broadcast as a representative of this practice without running it by us first? You had no business—”

“Where I work was never discussed,” I reply, enjoying the irritation on her face far more than I should.

“So you just lost the practice a very valuable opportunity to get some good publicity.”

I meant to grovel. I really did. But I’ve seen ten patients already and she’s just walking in, and I know for a fact that she’ll be cutting out of here long before rush hour, leaving me to handle all the last-minute additions this afternoon. “If it’s a problem to say I’m with the practice and a problem if I don’t, what did you want? Is there any way I could come out of this having not displeased you?”

She stares at me, her arms now folded across her chest. She expected an apology and isn’t sure how to react in its absence.

Her brow raises. “Since you don’t seem to care about this job, you should probably start looking for a new one,” she finally says, glancing at my stomach. “Good luck finding anything now.”

Great. Just fucking great.

Why didn’t I grovel? I sigh as I rise from my desk to see my next patient. I should probably be calling Gemma, but the truth is Graham is the only one I want to talk to. To vent, and possibly to rest my head against his chest the way I did last night. Perhaps, even, to climb into his bed and pick up where we left off, though obviously I’m not going to do that.

I spend the rest of the day counting the minutes until I can talk to him, but when I get to the apartment, he is on his way out. “Dinner’s in the fridge if you’re hungry,” he says, distracted. “Colin and Mandy had a fight so I’m meeting him out.”