The Devil You Know (The Devils #3)(50)

“She’s moving?”

I suppose this is where normal people open up, divulge a bit about themselves. I could tell him about the situation with my mother—about the shithole apartment complex she lives in and how I tried to convince her I wanted to buy a house there as an investment property, which all backfired on me when she said she wouldn’t move—but the further you open yourself to someone, the harder it is to shut it off later, when it all goes to hell.

“No,” I tell him. “She decided against it.”

His gaze flickers to my face for a half-second. It’s as if he’s always assessing to see if I’m lying, and that’s smart because a lot of the time I am. Whatever he concludes, he opts not to pry any further.

He places a dollop of wasabi on my plate. “Isn’t this better than having sex on your desk?”

I lift my chopsticks. “If you think sushi is better than sex on my desk, I’m worse at it than I thought.”

He frowns at me and I give in with a sigh. “Fine, it’s better. But…just so we’re clear, I’ve never wanted to date a lawyer and I’m not planning to date a lawyer. I have my future all set, and it doesn’t look like this.”

He raises a brow. “Two people fucking all night in a completely undecorated apartment? I can understand that.”

I laugh. “No. It doesn’t involve me with someone who’s…just like me. I need one of us to be a decent person. Like a guy in a Hallmark movie.”

There’s something a little grim in his dark eyes. “What’s the deal with that? The Hallmark thing?”

I wave my hand. “It’s just a joke.”

“Is it? Because you bring it up a lot.”

I bite my lip. “It’s a thing, with me and my mom,” I tell him, pushing the food around on my plate. I’d like to leave it at that, but he’s waiting for more. “We used to watch all these Hallmark movies together. I think they gave my mom a little hope after my dad left because Hallmark-movie men are never men like my father. They won’t trade up when their wives get old, or betray someone’s trust. They just want to do the right thing.”

“That’s your obsession with the chef,” he says quietly. “You want a caretaker. Someone who will put you first.”

He’s probably right. I do want someone who will take care of me, someone who won’t just leave, as if we never existed in the first place. “I guess. I can’t even keep a plant alive. I’m not someone who’s naturally going to make time for a relationship and do all the things you have to do. Neither are you. So how does that ever actually work?”

He pulls me onto his lap. “It kind of seems like it’s working,” he replies. And there’s something so soft in his eyes, so genuine, that I have to look away.





29





I beat Ben into the Monday meeting for the first time ever and hide a smile as he walks in, though it’s hard to feel too triumphant, given that he had to drive all the way to Santa Monica to get dressed when he left my apartment two hours ago.

If I were a better person, I’d offer to let him keep a few things at my place, but since he’s never even invited me to his, I’ve chosen not to. Petty, yes, but no one would expect more of me.

His eyes meet mine across the table and my thighs tighten. I take one of the strawberries he’s just brought in. I know exactly what he’s thinking as I place it between my lips.

My phone chimes with a text.

Ben: Do that again.

I take another strawberry and make a show of putting it to my lips, just enough for him to notice but not obvious to anyone else at the table, reveling in the power I hold in this moment. His eyes flutter as it slides down my throat. It takes every bit of self-control I have not to laugh.

His next text is only one word.

Ben: Lunch.

Me: We’ll see.

And he grins because he already knows this means yes.

If I’m going to let my foot off the gas, this is a good week for it. The office is entirely useless just before Thanksgiving, a holiday I couldn’t care less about: the food isn’t good, no gifts are exchanged, and women do all the work. In the future, once married to a small-town doctor/vet/Christmas-tree-farm owner, I plan to have his mother handle most of it, and I will bring the rolls and the wine.

Ben is going home, of course, followed by a trip to some vineyard with his posse because he has a rich family life, tons of friends, and typically some unchallenging arm candy by his side. He’s a lawyer as seen on TV—flashy car, hot dates, glib smile, always winning—while I’m a real-life lawyer with a miserable backstory, one that suggests I should get accustomed to spending holidays alone.

The entire office empties on Wednesday afternoon, Ben among them. My apartment feels lonelier than it ever has that night, probably because Ben and I haven’t slept apart once since I started letting him come over. Which leads me to think, again, that I shouldn’t have been letting him come over in the first place.





He calls on Thanksgiving. I told him I’m spending the holiday with Keeley, just in case he was pity-inclined to invite me to his home, so I claim to be getting ready to leave for her dad’s house when I am, in fact, sitting at my desk—the sole person at FMG today.