The Devil You Know (The Devils #3)(80)

“Five minutes, Gemma, and not a second more,” he warns, doing his best to look threatening.

I finish up my appeal of the school board’s decision, send it off then bolt for the door, purse in hand. I smile at the sight of Ben standing there chatting with Terri, newly grateful he’s making us do this. It’s been at least forty-eight hours since I’ve gotten the chance to peel a suit off him, and that’s forty-seven hours too long.

“Don’t get her pregnant!” Terri shouts after us as we walk out. “She doesn’t have time for that!”

Ben laughs under his breath. “No promises.”

I have no idea where we’re going, though I know it won’t be Fiji—there just isn’t time. Thanks to the attention we got from the Lawson case and our pre-existing clients, we have more work than we know what to do with. I just placed an ad for two more associates this morning and eventually we’ll get caught up…but it won’t be today.

We pull out of the parking garage. I can see the Pacific Coast Highway from our new office, but he heads inland instead, up the 405.

“You’re sure you want to go this way?” I ask. I was hoping we’d return to the cottage where we spent New Year’s Eve, but this is definitely not moving us toward Santa Barbara.

He grins. “Yes, I’m sure.”

“There’s nothing but woods up this way, though,” I tell him. “Oh, God. We’re not camping, right?”

He laughs. “I think I know you a little better than that, Princess. Stop asking questions.”

Eventually, he veers onto the 5 toward Bakersfield, which continues to be a direction I’m not interested in exploring. I manage to hold my tongue until he cuts off onto a nameless side road.

“I can’t do it, Ben. I can’t not ask. Where are we going? Because we’re in the middle of fucking nowhere.”

His eyes cut to mine and return to the road. “Do I need to define the word surprise for you?”

“This looks like a place you’d go to dump a body. If that’s your plan, I told people about this trip so you won’t get away with it.”

“Yes, I figured you would,” he says. “I guess I’ll have to bide my time.”

I pick up my phone to text Drew.

Me: You don’t happen to know where Ben is taking me, do you? I know he probably swore you to secrecy, but I have legitimate reason to think he might be planning to kill me.

Drew: He wouldn’t take a whole weekend off to kill you. He’s way too busy for that.

I laugh.

Me: So you don’t know anything?

Drew: I don’t know a thing. But make sure Keeley comes to Tali’s party next weekend. My brother-in-law wants to meet her.

I turn to Ben. “How much do you know about Josh’s brother?”

In true lawyer fashion, rather than just answering the question, he raises a brow. “Why?”

“He’s interested in Keeley, apparently,” I reply. “He’s in a band, right? You know Keeley would eat that up, so I’m assessing the situation first.”

He shrugs, failing to answer once again. “You know, Graham asked about her too,” he says. The admission is reluctant, as he is staunchly against getting involved in his brothers’ personal lives.

I bark a laugh. “Your brother? Never.”

He glares at me before his gaze returns to the road. “What’s wrong with Graham? I’ve already heard plenty about how attractive you find the men in my family.”

I laugh again. He heard me tell Keeley once that his brothers were hot and he’s been quietly bitter about it ever since. “They are so, so hot. All of them.”

“You can stop now,” he mutters.

I smile. “Nothing is wrong with Graham. But can you imagine him with Keeley? Mr. Responsibility with Miss ‘Lucky Charms is a health food and retirement planning is for dorks’? His head would explode.”

He shrugs and then frowns. “Shit,” he says under his breath, pulling the car over to the shoulder and coming to a stop.

“Did you finally realize we’ve been driving the wrong way for two hours?”

He gives me a dirty look as he pops the hood and climbs out. “No, but thanks for letting me know how you feel, again. The car’s making a noise.”

I sigh loudly. Even if he does hear a noise and even if he knew, inexplicably, how to fix it, what’s he going to do—carve a new part out of wood? There’s nothing but trees for miles.

“I think it’s the alternator,” he announces, climbing back in the car.

“The alternator? How would you possibly know that?”

“I didn’t always work in an office,” he says.

I’m pretty sure he did always work in an office. I picture him being born in a tiny suit and tie, immediately demanding a higher quality formula than the one offered by the hospital.

He examines the map. “We’d better get someone to take a look. I wouldn’t want you stuck in the middle of fucking nowhere, as you so charmingly referred to it.”

It all seems really unnecessary. His BMW is barely two years old—the odds that something is seriously wrong are slim.

He drives us a few miles away, to a tiny town that barely appeared on the map.

“Is the name of this place actually Hickory Hills?” I ask, as we pass a carved wooden sign on its outskirts.