The Devil Series Books 1-4 (Devil #1-4), page 17
A little girl, blonde and leggy like Ella, springs at him, throwing her arms around his waist. “What did you bring me?” she demands.
“I made a donation in your name to the NRA,” he replies, swinging her into the air. “Happy birthday.”
She grins. “Liar! You did not!”
“Hudson,” says a chiding voice, “that’s enough.”
I glance up to see Ella and Hayes’s father approaching. His father is nearly identical to who Hayes will be in twenty years, and Ella’s beauty is every bit as ethereal and delicate as it appeared in her photos, though there’s something a little icy in her blue eyes. Maybe it’s simply that I know who she really is.
“Tali, this is my father, Michael, and my stepmother, Ella.” I enjoy watching Ella wince at the word stepmother.
“Tali, it’s so nice to meet you,” Michael says, shaking my hand. “I was beginning to think Hayes would never bring a female over.”
My eyes widen. I’m not sure if he’s making a terrible joke about the last time he got introduced to one of Hayes’s girlfriends or if he’s put it so far out of his head, he’s forgotten what he did.
Ella colors prettily. “What a nice surprise. Hayes has never mentioned you.”
Acid begins to drip, drip, drip in my chest. After everything she did, is she really trying to sabotage the first relationship she’s seen him in? Dear God, I’d love to put this woman in her place.
“When would I have mentioned her?” Hayes asks calmly. “I haven’t seen you since the holidays.”
Her smile fades. My hand squeezes his. Well done.
“Has it been that long?” Michael asks. “Madness. We really need to see more of you. Come get some food.” He turns toward the buffet, walking beside us.
“I assume you’re an actress,” he continues to me. “Hayes might have mentioned I’m doing a remake of Roman Holiday.”
Hayes never mentions you, ever. “Oh, I didn’t know. But I’m not an actress. Have Hayes tell you about my amazing British accent, though.”
Hayes smirks at me. “She sounds like a pirate, and all her knowledge of England appears to have come from Mary Poppins and Harry Potter.”
“I quote My Fair Lady a good bit as well,” I agree.
“I wondered where you got it from. Top o’the morning guv’ner,” he adds, in a hardcore Cockney accent that makes me cackle in a very non-classy way.
“What do you do, Tali, if you’re not an actress?” Ella cuts in more forcefully. Her tone has a mocking edge, as if she already knows my answer will be porn star or “I’m between jobs”.
“Oh.” I really hate discussing it, but for Hayes’s sake, I will. For his sake, I’d claim to be an astrophysicist or world leader if I could get away with it. “I’m actually working on my first novel.”
“How lovely,” Ella says. “An aspiring artist in our midst.” She says it as if I’m a child, waving a stick-figure drawing in the air, and this time, it’s Hayes’s hand squeezing mine.
“Actually, Tali received a rather large advance for this book when she was still in graduate school,” he says, a warning in his tone. “There’s nothing aspiring about it. If you’ll excuse us, I’m going to introduce her to Grandmother.”
His arm wraps around my waist, steering me away from them. My hand goes to the small of his back, and it’s entirely for Ella’s benefit that I then let it slip as low as it can reasonably go.
“Sorry,” he says quietly. “I know you didn’t want to talk about the advance. I just couldn’t stand the way she was trying to belittle you.”
“You can tell them anything you want, true or false, if it puts that bitch in her place,” I reply, my voice laced with venom. “But honestly? She’s a total dick. I’m not sure why you even care about making her jealous.”
“This isn’t about making her jealous,” he says, holding me tighter as we start down the hill. These shoes were not made for walking in grass—or walking, period—and he appears to realize it. “Do you have any idea how miserable it is to attend these things on my own? With every single guest seeing me standing alone and thinking, ‘Oh, poor guy. He never really got over her’? Now they’re all thinking, ‘Well done, mate. You got over her in a big way, didn’t you?’”
I feel myself blushing, embarrassingly pleased, as he pulls me toward an older woman, bending low to kiss her on the cheek. “Grandmother,” he says, “let me introduce you to my friend Tali.”
She peers up at me. “Well, well, well,” she says. “This one’s much prettier than Ella, isn’t she?”
Hayes laughs quietly, holding a chair for me and taking the seat on the other side. “Yes,” he whispers, “but you’re not supposed to say that aloud.”
“I’m old. I can say whatever I’d like,” she replies. “And how did you manage to find this fine young specimen?”
I smirk at him. This isn’t a Cosmo interview, my ass. I’ll let him solve this on his own.
“She sat on my doorstep and refused to leave,” he says. “Eventually I figured I might as well allow her inside.”
She smacks his arm. “You’re not as amusing as you think. The truth now, please.”
Hayes’s eyes flicker over my face. “I saw her photo on Jonathan’s desk and started looking for her all the time, because she worked at this bar I’d pass on my way home,” he says. Weirdly…it doesn’t sound like a lie. “I saw her reading while she was walking in, even though it was raining. And I thought she was the loveliest thing I’d ever seen in my life, so I followed her.”
He stops, and my heart thuds loudly in the resulting silence. All this time, I thought he wound up at Topside by accident, but perhaps it was no accident at all. Because it was raining the night we met. And I can still remember the book I was reading as I walked in. Maybe he’s embellishing this for the sake of our fake relationship…except it doesn’t feel embellished.
His grandmother clasps her hands together. “And you’ve been together ever since!’
His gaze meets mine. “Not exactly. My assistant got wind of it and begged me to leave her alone because she’d had a hard year and I wouldn’t be good for her.” There’s a tiny note of bitterness, regret, in his voice. “But it worked out eventually.”
I swallow. If this is all true, then Hayes, with his reputation for being careless and selfish, walked out…for me. Is that why he felt so blindsided when I showed up as Jonathan’s replacement?
“I’m glad,” his grandmother says. “You deserve a nice girl, darling. I always thought you could do better than Ella.”
It would never have worked out, of course. Odds are, he’d have hit on me and I’d have shot him down in the rudest way possible. Or he’d have realized I’m generally not a one-night-stand kind of girl. But that what if is still ringing in my brain.
Hudson runs to the table and grabs his hand. “Hayes!” she cries. “Come ride the elephant with me!”
He grins at her. “I’m not sure it can support both our weights. You’ve gotten quite large.” She giggles, and he allows himself to be led to the line. I watch as this beautiful man walks off holding his sister’s hand, still completely stunned by his admission.
“He’s back,” his grandmother says, pulling my attention away from Hayes. “I was worried Ella had ruined his faith in women forever, but he clearly adores you. It’s such a relief.”
I squirm with discomfort. Even if we are pulling this off better than I ever dreamed, it’s all a lie. And while I don’t mind lying to Ella and his dad until I’m blue in the face, I don’t want to lie to this nice old woman.
“You must ignore Ella, whatever she says. The woman’s a parasite,” his grandmother continues, “the kind that mutates to best attack its host. She met Michael and suddenly became a producer’s wife. When she leaves him for someone else, she’ll become an equestrian or a go-go dancer or whatever it is her next victim requires.”
I shouldn’t be prying, but I can’t seem to help myself. “Who was she with Hayes?”
“A bit like you—down-to-earth, open. But she didn’t pull it off quite as well.”
I’m not sure if she’s placating me. I only know I want it to be true. And I know I want to avoid Ella all afternoon, if possible, but when I help Hayes’s grandmother up the hill and stop by the bar on my way back, she suddenly appears by my side. I doubt it’s by accident.
“He still drinks this, does he?” Ella asks, lifting the scotch I got for Hayes and giving it a sniff. “You should have seen him at Cambridge, choking it down, trying to impress me.”
“That was so long ago,” I reply, preparing to walk away. “I’m fairly certain he’s not drinking it to impress anyone now.”
Her head tips to the side as she studies me. “He’s not cut out for commitment, you know.”
I stiffen. A part of me assumed she must regret her decision—how could you not regret leaving Hayes? But I thought she’d at least be subtle about it. Instead, she’s openly trying to destroy what he’s found in her wake.
“He’s charming, and he’s obviously smitten with you.” She waves a hand as if all this is meaningless. “Just don’t start believing it’s going to last. One thing goes wrong in his life, and you’ll find yourself shut out completely.”
I have no idea what the one thing was that went wrong, but it also doesn’t matter. This bitch was never the right person for him. Never. “Maybe you just weren’t someone he felt he could turn to.”
Her eyes narrow. “You’re delusional if you think he’s going to choose you.”
I laugh. She is jealous and so painfully obvious about it. “What’s worse, Ella? Knowing you made a poor choice, or knowing that every person here thinks Hayes dodged a bullet when you left?”
I grab the scotch from her hand and leave her standing there, red-faced and tight-lipped, and return to the table, where Hayes now waits.
He rises, and because I know Ella is still watching, I reach up and make a show of running my fingers through his hair. His eyes go hooded and feral as he observes me, swallowing as his gaze lands on my lips. “You’re extremely committed to this role,” he says hoarsely. His hands, already on my hips, tighten.
“Ella’s watching,” I tell him.
He pulls my palm to his mouth, pressing a gentle kiss to it before he pulls me down to the chair beside his. “I told you I wasn’t trying to make her jealous.”
“Yeah, I know,” I say, “but I am. Because she sucks. I can’t imagine why you ever proposed to her.”
He prods his cheek with his tongue. “I never actually proposed,” he admits reluctantly. “She pulled me into a jewelry store one day and told me it was time. After staying together so long, it seemed like the right thing to do. In retrospect, I think she hoped getting engaged would change me in a way it didn’t—the whole thing about making me love her as much as I love myself.”
His voice is flat and factual, as if he’s accepted her ugly, bitter take on what went wrong. “Hayes, you sound as if you believe her, and you shouldn’t.”
He shrugs. “A part of me was relieved when she left, which seems to support her point.”
Before I can argue, Hudson appears, begging him to go into the trampoline with her. His smile makes my heart ache for him. His own child with Ella might have looked just the same. He must, occasionally, think about it too.
He rises. “Come on,” he says, holding out a hand for me.
“You don’t seriously expect me to jump in this dress?”
There’s a filthy smile on his face. “I’m commanding you to jump in that dress.”
I should ignore him, but I follow them to the trampoline. I have to hitch my dress up to nearly my crotch in order to climb the ladder after them.
“My plan is working swimmingly so far,” he says, his voice low and dirty.
“Enjoy the view while you can, big boy.” With a chuckle, he holds out his hand to help me balance as I climb in.
My foot sinks into the floor of the trampoline and I fall forward, into his chest.
He catches me easily. I allow myself a quick inhale—he smells like soap and clean air and him, and I want to huff him like glue. I force myself to step away, and we begin to jump in a circle, higher and higher.
In another life, he’d have been a good father, and kids would give him some of that meaning he seems to lack. Maybe he’d have gotten into a different job, or at least not allowed the one he has to take over his life. I wonder if it’s still possible for him, somehow.
Hudson falls, and I trip gracelessly in an effort to avoid landing on her. We all end up on our backs laughing and he swings her high in the air overhead. I don’t think I’ve ever seen him look quite so peaceful as he does now: smiling wide, his body loose and relaxed.
When we depart the trampoline, he lifts me so I don’t have to descend the ladder—large hands spanning my waist as he lowers me lightly in front of him, sliding me down his body as he does. The contact is not obvious to onlookers, but has us both sucking in a breath. My feet are on the ground but his hands linger, his gaze drifting over my face. It no longer feels as he’s playing a part, and I know I’m not. Nothing feels more natural than my hand in his, my head pressing to his shoulder. And I wonder if we are both getting a little lost in playing this role.
I go inside, to a bathroom that’s larger than my apartment, wondering how I’ll stand to return to a world where his hand isn’t on the small of my back or his arm isn’t around my waist. I wish I could hoard all these moments and somehow savor them throughout the year.
As I exit, I come face-to-face with his father. I don’t think he was waiting for me, but his timing here is odd and there’s something eager in his eyes.
“So, you and my son,” he says, his voice a little too jovial.
I smile stiffly, unsure where this is heading. Hayes seems to have forgiven his father, but I have not. Because who does that? He’s a good-looking man with plenty of money. He could easily have found a woman other than his son’s fiancée.
“Yes,” I reply.
“I’m glad he’s finally found someone,” he says, and then he sighs. “He and Ella...I guess he told you.”
“He did,” I say, my voice flat. If he’s looking for a pat on the shoulder, I hope he’s not holding his breath.
“You know, they’d never have worked out,” he says. “He needs more than her.”
My head jerks upward. What a shitty thing to say about his own wife, even if it’s true.
“I’m not saying Ella is lacking anything,” he continues. “She’s perfect for me. But Hayes—he needs a firecracker, someone as strong as he is, as smart as he is, an equal. And whether he’d ever admit it or not, she never was.”
I raise my chin. “What an unusual thing to say about your own wife.”
He runs a hand through his hair. It’s far cuter when Hayes does it. “I know. And you’re possibly the only woman at this party with the balls to call me on it, so you just might work.”
If any of this was real, I’d suspect…he might be right. Even based on our limited interaction, I know someone like Ella could never be enough for Hayes, could never challenge him and keep him on his toes the way I would. But me? I could make him happy, and I’d take care of him. For the briefest moment I am staggered by my desire to do exactly that.
Hayes walks in the French doors and stiffens at the sight of us, his eyes going dark.
“I was just telling Tali here what a nice couple you are,” his father says, swishing the ice in his empty glass. “She’s perfect for you.”
Hayes’s arm wraps around my waist, pulling me tight to his body. “Glad you approve, Dad.” His voice is dry as the Sahara and he stares his father down, as if this moment is about something more. It’s only when his father walks away that he turns me toward him. His hand slides to my hip, even though we’re the only ones in here. “What was that about?”
“He asked me to have a drink with him later tonight, once everyone’s gone.” I wait just long enough for his jaw to drop before I laugh. “Kidding. He told me it was for the best that you and Ella never worked out because she isn’t your equal.”
“You’re shitting me.”
I shake my head. In retrospect, it’s all pretty appalling. “You won’t be surprised to learn I made my disapproval clear.”
He laughs, looking younger and freer than he has looked even once, during all the time I’ve known him. “Of course you did. You about ready to go?”
I nod, though I’m not really ready for all this to end. He takes my hand, and we walk back outside to say goodbye to everyone. Ella hugs us both, barely touching me while she lingers with Hayes, pressed up against him. Everyone watches it happen, and I’m furious all over again with his father. What a horrible situation to put your son in for the rest of his life. I don’t care if he did Hayes a favor. He’s a garbage human being, and he got the wife he deserves.
I sink into the sun-warmed leather seat of his BMW with a relieved sigh, realizing only now how much my feet ache.
“If we happen to pass any bonfires on the way back to my apartment, pull over so I can throw these shoes in.”
He glances over at me as we wait for the gates to open. “That you managed to wear them all day was above and beyond the call of duty.”
“For real,” I agree. “And now that I’ve done a favor for you, I need you to do something for me.”
He smirks. “You’re not in much of a bargaining position now that the afternoon is over, but proceed.”
I bite my lip. “Take next weekend off. I never filled it in.”
We discussed the idea weeks ago. It’s possible I simply ignored him when he said he wasn’t interested.
His nostrils flare. “Tell me you’re joking.”
“Come on,” I wheedle. “What’s two days?”
He sighs heavily. “Do I really have to tell you how much money I can make?”
