The Devil You Know, page 7
“Not tonight,” I reply. “I’m still at work.”
“Oh, Gemma. This late? You should be out somewhere.”
My mom wants a different sort of life for me and I want it for myself, but maybe it’s time we both accept the situation for what it is. “I like what I do, Mom. This is more fun for me than going to some bar.”
She’s quiet for a moment. I sense a gentle lecture coming, which is the hardest kind for me to hear because I can’t just ignore it. “I know you’re driven,” she finally says. “But is what you’re doing going to make you happy in the long run?”
“It’ll make me partner, which is better than being happy.” I phrase it like a joke, but the truth is, if I were offered a choice between happiness and making partner…I’d probably choose the latter. “And I’m not sure happiness is really in my makeup.”
“Of course, it is. You’ve forgotten the little girl who used to spin in the yard for the fun of it and jump in every puddle, but I haven’t,” she says.
I quietly crumple a Post-it note in my hand and leave it clenched in my fist. I haven’t forgotten the kid she described either, but I think I may be too broken to get any of it back.
When the call ends, I rise and head to the break room. It’s late, and I should probably go home and eat a real meal, but I suspect the emptiness of my apartment would get to me tonight.
I take two steps inside and come to a sudden, graceless halt. Ben is there, reading on his phone while he waits for coffee to brew.
The coward in me would probably turn and walk out except I’ve already been seen. His gaze—startled, then predatory—starts at my face and finishes at my shoes, where it remains for a long, long moment.
I continue forward, doing my best to act like he’s not here. If it weren’t for ten straight years of dance training, I’d definitely be stumbling right now, however.
“I heard an interesting rumor about you, so I investigated,” he says.
My stomach drops.
“Your mom’s Etsy shop is endlessly fascinating.”
It’s not what I thought he was going to say, but it’s a bad night to have anything involving my mother thrown in my face.
I give him my best dead-eyed look. The one that says If you continue discussing this, I’ll make sure they never find your body. “Maybe you should be doing a little work on the Lawson case instead of online shopping.”
He gives a genial shrug and opens up his phone. “We’ve got a few spare moments. Outfits for cats, right? I might need to contact her.”
“Looking for a special bondage outfit for yours?” I ask, jerking a drawer open more roughly than is necessary. “My mom won’t support your weird habits if that’s what you’re hoping.”
He grins. “Wow, such interesting pictures.” He holds up his phone.
Sadly, my mother still hasn’t mastered her in-home photography skills. She’s showing the cats curled up on the linoleum kitchen floor when I’ve told her a thousand times that she should at least use a white sheet.
“I love the way that shelf is hanging haphazardly off the wall,” he continues. “It’s kind of dark, like she wants you to fear for the cats’ lives while admiring their outfits at the same time.”
I feel a hard pinch, right in the center of my chest. I wonder if my father is laughing right now—just like Ben—while showing my mother’s poor attempt at independence to his country club friends, his new wife giggling as she says, “Oh, Adam, stop”—as if she isn’t enjoying it the most of them all.
“Don’t make fun of my mother,” I snap, but there’s a lump in my throat that warns me I’m not going to be able to hold it together, whether he stops or not. I hate that he’s won this round. I hate that he found this out, and I hate that there are things in my past I’m even more scared he’ll discover. I turn on my heel, stiff as I walk from the room.
“Gemma?” he asks, but I just keep going, because if I try to utter a single word in response, I will absolutely lose it. My lungs feel like they’re lined with shattered glass, so jagged I’m scared to take a full breath.
I go to my office and shut the door, hating that I’m falling apart here and now and with him of all people. I grab my bag and shove my laptop inside.
He knocks, tries the handle, and finds it locked. “Gemma, I—”
“We really don’t need to discuss it,” I announce, making my voice as sharp as possible. “It’s fine.”
I want him to just walk away, but he doesn’t.
“I don’t understand why it upset you so much,” he says. “I was just kidding. You’ve said far worse to me.”
Rage cures my sadness faster than time ever could. I jerk the door open, swinging the bag over my shoulder. “I make fun of the women you date, you make fun of me for not dating at all. That’s fair. Making fun of someone’s mother for being poor while you sit there with your fancy car and big house is not.”
He blinks in surprise, and I see something an awful lot like shame pass over his face. “Gemma,” he says, “I’m sorry. I honestly had no idea. None. You have that whole posh, East Coast, private-school vibe. I assumed you had wildly wealthy parents.”
I did, and now I don’t. Now I’ve got a mother who has to do everything for herself and won’t let me help. That shelf in her kitchen will probably fall eventually. And her car will break down, or she’ll slip on the ice outside her apartment again and I will be here, unable to make it stop.
“You can say what you want about me, but leave my mother out of it.” My voice cracks at the end and I turn away from him, staring into my purse, as if searching for my keys when all I’m really trying to do is hold it together.
“You’re right,” he says, turning me toward him. “And I’m so fucking sorry.”
I want to continue lashing out, but there’s something so gentle and genuine in his gaze that I can’t do it. His hand is on my hip. We are standing close enough for me to smell his soap, to make out the glints of gold in his eyes, to see up close just how much he needs to shave. I picture how that scruff would feel beneath my lips.
“It’s okay,” I say quietly. “It’s just a sore spot.”
His eyes travel over my face, land on my mouth. His breathing is shallow and so is mine.
I want him to kiss me. I want it more than I’ve ever wanted anything.
The realization hits all at once, shocking and terrifying, and I stumble away, heading straight for the elevator.
And he stands there, frozen, watching me go.
15
Kyle and I had begun dating in September. By October he’d decided to move to LA permanently. The hitch in our plan was Josie. His settlement offer had been more than generous—I’d reviewed it myself—but she kept coming back with new demands: all of his 401k instead of half, the vacation home that had been in his family for two generations in addition to their apartment in New York.
And every time he flew home, there was a part of me that worried he might not come back. If Josie realized what she’d lost, would he give her another chance for his kids’ sake? I had to fight the desire to look her up online. Was she cuter? Sexier? More impressive? I knew it was a rabbit hole that would lead nowhere good, but it was a struggle, after the way my mother’s life had been upended, not to worry mine would be too.
His work in LA ended in early December, and that was when things got harder. Josie was unreliable—drinking too much, failing to show up when it was her turn with the kids. Half our weekends together were canceled last minute because she’d somehow thrown a wrench in our plans.
And after one of those canceled weekends, crushed by disappointment, I asked him if he was even sure he wanted this.
“There must be a part of you,” I said, “thinking it would be easier just to take Josie back. And I really need to know before this goes any further.”
“Hon,” he replied, “is this really about me, or is it about your dad?”
I had no idea how to answer. I thought my concerns were valid, but yes, there was a part of me that would never stop being stunned by how fast my mother had been abandoned. Three weeks before my dad left with Stephani, he’d taken my mom to the Bahamas for their anniversary, where he gave her a tennis bracelet equal to a year’s tuition—one she sold a few months later to pay legal fees. People change their minds, and you don’t even know until long after they’ve decided it. “I don’t know,” I admitted.
“Honey,” he said, “I think you need to talk to a therapist, or this will never work. I don’t want to fail at marriage twice.”
“Marriage?”
He gave me an uncertain smile. “I thought it was heading there. Didn’t you?”
I stared at his face on the phone. “I hadn’t really thought about it,” I replied after a moment. “I mean…you’re still married. You’re still based in New York.”
“It’s not going to be that much longer until it’s over and then I’ll be there. Unless I misunderstood.” He frowned. “You’re young and I know it’s a lot, the fact that I have two kids.”
I shook my head. “It’s not that. I guess it just never occurred to me we were that serious.”
“Gemma,” he said with a quiet laugh, “we are absolutely that serious.”
Over the course of one conversation, he’d taken me from worried to obscenely hopeful. But I guess I can’t fault him for that: I’m the one who should have known better.
16
For the rest of the week, I barely see Ben. He’s busy preparing for a big trial in Charlotte, and spends more time out of the office than in. It’s for the best. I don’t know what that was between us, when I thought he might kiss me—temporary insanity, I suppose—but I need some distance from it still.
The office has mostly cleared out the following Friday when a delivery guy comes down the hall, his hand truck stacked high with boxes. “I have a delivery for Gemma Charles?”
I direct him to the conference room, then dig into the first box from Fiducia while he goes back to his truck for the next batch. You’d think he was bringing me a dozen roses, as excited as I am.
The files are not alphabetized, nor are they divided by division or location or employment date. It’s going to take forever, and is the sort of job I should farm out, but I’m looking for tiny slivers of information, easily missed, and I don’t trust anyone but myself to find them.
It’s tedious, time-consuming work, but finding those little slivers is like finding clues in a mystery. The thrill keeps me going, chasing the truth even harder. I don’t register the ding of the elevator or the steps in the hall until Ben’s imposing form fills the doorway. His gaze lands on the heels I kicked off, as if they’re the first piece of evidence at a crime scene. “Don’t you have somewhere to be?” he asks. “It’s Friday night.”
I shrug. “The files just arrived. And I could point out that you also are at work.”
“I had a client dinner. I just came back to get my laptop.” His brow furrows. “Can’t it wait? Get the first years in on it Monday.”
I could admit I have nothing better to do tonight, but I refuse to give him the satisfaction.
“I’d rather do it myself,” I tell him. “That way I know nothing’s been missed.”
“What are you looking for, exactly?” He sets his bag down and walks toward the table.
My skin seems to tingle at his approach. “Anyone who was written up but not punished during their review,” I reply. He perches on the arm of a chair. The jacket is already off, but when he reaches up to loosen his tie, I have to struggle to maintain focus. “When Lawson asked for a promotion, they started calling her all these gendered words—shrill, abrasive. I’m looking for all the men worse than her who still got ahead.”
His tongue goes to his cheek. “That seems like a needle in a haystack.”
I smile, because I’ve already found the first of several needles. “And I suppose your suggestion would be to just give up and hope they offer to settle again?”
“No. But it seems like the kind of thing you could trust someone else with.” He unbuttons a shirt sleeve and starts to roll up the cuff.
My eyes narrow. I’m not sure why the fuck he’s acting like he plans to stay, but I certainly don’t want him here. I’m already painfully distracted and he’s only been in the room for thirty goddamn seconds. He pulls out a chair and prepares to sit.
“What are you doing?” I demand.
“Helping you, obviously.”
Ugh.
“On a Friday night in October? Isn’t there a cheerleader waiting for you under the bleachers?”
He gives a tired laugh. “You make that joke so often I’m starting to wonder if you think it’s true.”
“You dated a nineteen-year-old, Ben.”
“For fuck’s sake,” he says wearily, running a hand through his hair. “We went out once, she was twenty-one, and I had no fucking clue she was that young. She owned her own business—how was I supposed to know?”
I smile sweetly. “Most dates involve this thing where you learn about each other. Evidently, yours do not.”
He leans over and examines the piles I’ve arranged. “I enjoy hearing about how dates are supposed to work from someone who has such limited experience with them.”
I don’t have a quick response because, of course, he’s absolutely right.
I focus once more on the reports in front of me and hope he’ll go away, but he takes a seat and grabs a file instead. I do my best to forget he’s here, which is a lot harder than it sounds. Even his small movements—tugging at his tie, running a hand through his hair—throw me off my game. He taps a pen against his mouth, and my eyes fixate on that indentation in the center of his lower lip. I sometimes picture resting my thumb there, measuring the size of that divot.
It’s a welcome distraction when my mother texts to tell me the couple bought a Christmas tree farm together at the movie’s end. I’m smiling as I reply, and Ben’s gaze darts to the phone with a sneer. I swear to God if he criticizes me for two seconds of personal time this late in the day, I will literally explode.
I cross the room to grab another box of files and catch his gaze on the seam of my stockings, traveling up to the hem of my skirt. His jaw shifts, and he throws down his pen in disgust, looking away.
Maybe I’m not the only one who’s distracted.
“You okay?” I ask. “You look like you’re having a stroke.”
“It’s cute that you’re worried about me,” he says, even more irritated than before.
“It’s cute that you think that was worry, not optimism.”
I dump the box on the table and go to the other end of the room, mostly because I need space from him. I pop a coffee pod in the Nespresso, though I’m already so wired I half-expect small sparks to shoot from my fingertips momentarily.
“How are things with Thomas?” he asks.
I turn, squinting in confusion. “Who?”
“Your chef, with his romantic cottage on the shore.”
“You continually utter the word chef as if it’s a euphemism,” I reply. “It’s a real job.”
“And you say chef as if he’s Gordon Ramsay, when he’s probably just the guy in charge of the deep fryer at Bennigan’s.”
The devil on my shoulder is suddenly there, goading me louder than he ever has before, manipulating me like I’m his fucking marionette. I’ve led an extremely careful life. It’s that thing inside me that wants to overthrow the system. That wants to take my career and my future and my carefully honed image and set them on fire. “Someone like that will get a lot further with me than you ever will,” I say.
He’s gone instantly alert, an animal about to pounce. Suddenly all his focus is on me, and it makes my breath catch in my throat with its intensity.
“Oh, is that right?” he asks, the muscles in his forearm tensing as he tightens the grip on his pen. His eyes sweep down my body, and I swear I can feel his gaze like it’s a physical touch. “And why is that?”
There’s a tension to his voice, a challenge. Goose bumps crawl over my skin. My nipples tighten until they’re visible beneath the thin fabric of my blouse, and his eyes dart immediately to my chest.
I touch my neck. “You wouldn’t know what to do with me.”
I am throwing down a gauntlet I know he can’t pick up.
His gaze sharpens. And then he rises from his chair. “What did you just say?”
My breath skitters over my lips while I contemplate repeating it, but I’ve done this before, and it didn’t end well for me. “Nothing.”
His steps glide over the carpeted floor—slowly, purposefully—until he is directly in front of me. My pulse triples.
“No, I want you to say it again.”
His eyes dip to my mouth, and I find words emerging from my throat, words I don’t approve of.
“Fine. You. Wouldn’t. Know. What. To—”
His hands slide through my hair, gripping it tight, and then his mouth is on mine.
His lovely, full mouth. I shiver at the perfection of it. Kissing him is like sinking into a warm bath when you’re freezing cold. His lips open, his tongue teases, and everything about him is suddenly soft and warm and hungry. His hands, holding my face, are firm and rough, possessive and gentle all at once. The voice in my head screaming, “but we hate Ben!” is overridden by every ounce of blood in my body, which is straining toward him.
He pulls away only long enough to breathe, and then he’s back, even harder now, more determined. His hands slide down my back and grab my ass firmly, as if it’s the award he’s wanted to snatch for years. The hard bulge of him, pressing into my abdomen, makes that devil crow with delight.
I already know how he’d be in bed—the way he’d be so fucking focused until the end, pinning me with his gaze until he started to fall apart. There’s nothing I want more right now than to watch Ben Tate wind tighter and tighter until he explodes.
