The Devil Series Books 1-4 (Devil #1-4), page 8
His gaze meets mine for one long moment before it drifts away. I get the feeling there’s something he hasn’t told me about that night. I want to know why he looked at me the way he did. And I really want to know why he left.
“How else would I fill an hour between the Botox baby shower and drinks with friends?”
“Reading?” I suggest. “Quiet self-reflection?”
“I’m beginning to see why you’re still single.”
I glance away. I don’t know why his comment bothers me. It’s not as if I’m sad that I’m single. I suppose it’s just that—though the biggest mistakes were Matt’s—there’s a part of me that wonders if I should have bended more, or at least faked interest in the Hollywood scene he found so fascinating after we arrived. Matt certainly seemed to think so.
“Jesus,” says Hayes. His face has fallen. “You just broke up with someone, didn’t you?”
“It’s fine.”
He groans, leaning forward to turn toward me. “I’m sorry. You can spit in my coffee tomorrow if it’ll make you feel better.”
I smile. “I spit in your coffee every day. It’s not as exciting as you’d think.”
He continues to look troubled when he really shouldn’t. It’s been a year, almost, and I should be well over this by now.
“Was this recent?” he asks.
“Not really.” I straighten the hem of my skirt, toying with a loose thread. “We were together for ten years and broke up last summer when my dad died.”
“Ten years?” he asks, incredulous. That he finds ten years of monogamy unfathomable is completely unsurprising. “How’s that even possible? You’re in your early twenties. You couldn’t have even been in the same place the whole time.”
I shrug. “Same high school, same college, then he went to New York for work, and I went to grad school there.” And then he begged me to leave New York with him, and I did that too. I put him first, because I thought that’s what you do for someone you love. It’s a mistake I won’t make again. “Matt was on location when my father died, and when I got back from Kansas, he told me he’d cheated on me while I was gone.” My tone is flat, factual. I refuse to let anyone think I’m still upset about what he did, especially when it wasn’t the cheating that ended it—it was what he said when we fought afterward. Just admit the fucking book isn’t going to happen, and find something else to do with your life. You’d never have gotten the deal in the first place if it wasn’t for me. For years, I’d encouraged him, supported his dreams when mine were coming true and his were not. But the moment that flipped, he couldn’t do the same for me.
Hayes’s jaw shifts and his eyes narrow. “He’s a twat then, Tali, and he never deserved you.” For someone with a pretty poor track record of his own, his anger is unexpected. “I could ruin him for you, if you’d like. Give me his name. I know people.”
I’m not entirely sure he’s joking.
“I’m surprised, given the way you live, that you’re not taking his side,” I whisper. So many people told me I should let what Matt did go, and there’s a part of me that wants Hayes to be among them. That wants to continue believing he’s the charming but unrepentant douchebag I could never trust.
He swallows. “Think what you will,” he says, looking away, “but I’ve never cheated on anyone in my life. Nor will I.”
Every bone in my body wants to argue...and yet, I kind of see it. No matter how much I dislike some of Hayes’s behavior, I’ve never seen him break a promise.
But that doesn’t mean he wouldn’t. How do you ever know for sure? How do you predict when it will go wrong again? There were no warning signs with Matt. I search our history for them, but there were no lingering glances at other females, no mysterious late-night texts. He didn’t even lock his phone. And the words that would end it, there’s no sign of them either. I really thought he believed in me until I realized with a few sharp words he never had.
If Matt could turn so false, without a single warning sign, anyone could.
I speak to Liddie that night for the first time since Charlotte’s birthday. We’ve texted, of course, but I guess I’ve been avoiding her otherwise, still irked that she used what should have been a happy occasion to start a fight with my mom. I get that she and Alex aren’t in a position to help with Charlotte’s stay at Fairfield, but she could at least not make things worse.
“Well, I’m not pregnant,” she announces, her voice flat.
“Sorry,” I say, but I don’t sound all that sorry. If I’m being honest, her obsession with having a second child seems self-indulgent to me, given everything else going on. It’s a problem she’s created and yet she seems to think it deserves equal billing. “It’ll happen when it’s meant to happen,” I add.
“That’s such bullshit,” she says. “That’s what someone says when they want you to shut up about it.”
Precisely, I think, though I’ve got just enough restraint not to say it aloud. But it doesn’t even make sense. The first time she got pregnant, she was a senior in college and devastated. She’s spent years lamenting the fact that she didn’t finish her degree, and now that Kaitlin is old enough for preschool and she has time to spare...she’s pining after the opposite.
“Fine, tell me what you want me to say,” I reply. “Since there’s apparently a script.”
“Right,” she says, with a bitter laugh. “Sorry. You’re probably busy with your book deal and your famous boss and your famous ex, and this must all seem so very trivial to you.”
I stare at the blinking fluorescent bulb overhead, at the off-brand crackers I had for dinner and the four walls I can nearly reach while remaining in my bed. “You’ve absolutely nailed it, Liddie,” I reply. “I’m too busy with my glamorous life.”
And then, for the first time since we were teenagers, I slam down the phone.
15
“I’m having a little get-together Friday,” Hayes announces as he takes his seat at the counter Monday morning. “I’ll need...stuff.”
“Could you be slightly more specific?” I ask. “Since I’ve never seen your parties, I don’t know if ‘stuff’ means a few six packs of Coors Light, or a kilogram of cocaine.”
“Could you even get a kilogram of cocaine?” he asks. “Is that something I should have been hitting you up for all along?”
“I have no idea. I never learned the metric system.”
He rolls his eyes and mutters bloody Americans under his breath. “No, I don’t require cocaine. Just a bar and food. And music. And a valet, I guess. Two hundred people, maybe.”
I groan. A valet? Two hundred people? “That’s not a ‘little get-together’. That’s a wedding. Did you finally find someone worthy of you? Just so we’re clear, I’m not sure you can legally wed your own reflection.”
He climbs to his feet. “I’m still hoping that law gets changed.”
He then leaves, having dropped this bomb on me, but he takes the smoothie with him. I find I’m unable to be as irritated as I’d like.
The next few days seem to occur at warp speed. I allocate most of the planning to an event company, but answering questions about trivial crap still eats up every free second—Chilean sea bass (endangered but tasty) or tilapia? Ecru linens or taupe? Curved spindles on the chairs or straight?
I find myself texting Hayes often, and though he tells me I’m a nuisance and frequently threatens to fire me for asking too many questions, he’s the one who sneaks in irrelevant texts. Asking questions about my book, wanting to know more about Julian, suggesting various sexual positions Aisling might enjoy. I reply with links to websites about sexual harassment in the workplace, but the truth is those texts are the best part of my day.
By night, I’m still working on adding Julian to the book. I think I’ve almost got it when Sam calls with a new suggestion.
“You know,” he says. “I don’t love Naida.”
Naida—the woodland nymph who teaches Aisling to wield magic—is vital to the plot. It’s not as if Aisling can storm a castle full of dark magic without a weapon of her own.
“It would be a lot more interesting,” he says, “if she had an evil motive or wanted something in return, something complicated.”
“You want me to make sweet little Naida—who wants nothing more than to own her bakery outright and earn the love of a water nymph—evil?”
“Sure. Like maybe she’s trying to lead a zombie uprising and needs Aisling to lower the wards on the castle so she can attack.”
Sam always did want to add zombies to everything. I’d forgotten that about him.
Yet he’s not wrong. Those scenes with Naida bore me too. And it might be fun if Aisling had to work with someone bad in order to get what she wanted.
I think of Hayes’s latest suggestion: that Aisling could sleep with Julian to get information about the queen. He really doesn’t seem to grasp the concept of a young adult novel. (“I’m not suggesting you describe a graphic bondage scene,” Hayes argued. “Just, you know, allude to one.”) While I don’t intend to have my teenage heroine take up prostitution to save her boyfriend, I can admit he may be on to something. Working with Julian is like making a deal with the devil. In order to get what she needs, she’ll have to risk everything.
You win. Julian is going to help Aisling break into the castle.
Hayes
Which she’ll pay for ON HER BACK. Don’t argue, just go with it.
BTW, that would be a good line for Julian to use on Aisling in bed.
I arrive on Friday morning clad in shorts and running shoes, ready for the long hours ahead. The work trucks pull up to the house right behind me, and the next twenty minutes are a flurry of directions and unlocking doors and answering placement questions. When I finally get back inside, Hayes is sitting at the counter.
His eyes run over me, head to toe and back to my legs. His slow perusal makes me shiver, in a good way. “Have we changed the dress code, then?” he asks, his voice lower than normal.
“I’m not running around here in heels all day. I have my dress for tonight in the car.”
“I’m sure the workmen are enjoying this look.” His mouth flattens. “I’ll barely need to tip when they’re done.”
I roll my eyes and slide him his schedule while I look over my own. For once, I think I’m the busier of the two of us.
“So,” he says, “I guess there’s no smoothie today?”
I glance up. “Do you want one?” I feel like a Disney heroine who’s just discovered she’s got a secret power.
He runs a hand through his hair, which is what Hayes does when he feels even the tiniest pinch of vulnerability. “Only if you have time.”
I don’t. But it’s an admission, even if he doesn’t realize it: He likes to feel cared for. He likes that someone in his life wants things for him aside from what he does for them in return.
“Of course,” I say, placing his vitamin D next to his coffee with an additional supplement. “But only if you take your vitamins like a good boy. And I’m not trying to poison you. The new one is zinc. It’s good for the immune system.”
He pops it into his mouth. “And sperm production,” he adds.
The day passes in a haze of decisions and dilemmas and petty squabbles between vendors. I’m just praying it’s not a complete disaster. The biggest party I’ve ever thrown until now involved pizza for twenty, and even that didn’t go so well.
At seven, I rush into one of the upstairs bathrooms and twist up my hair before I climb into the shower. The fancy body wash on the lip of the tub smells like Hayes—like a summer night on a beach somewhere glamorous. I stand for a moment inhaling the scent before I realize how weird that is and get on with it, washing quickly and drying off before I slip into the green silk dress I brought.
My normal makeup is lip balm and mascara, but tonight I do the full deal: I’m not half-assing things at an event full of the city’s most beautiful women.
I slide on my heels and fluff my hair before I head downstairs to find Hayes wandering aimlessly, looking a little lost. He stops in place when he sees me.
“I didn’t recognize you for a moment,” he says, clearing his throat. “You made an effort for once.”
It’s not the most effusive praise I’ve ever received, but I shouldn’t have been hoping for praise in the first place.
“It’s going to be hard enough standing next to a bunch of actresses and models. I figured some makeup was necessary.”
His eyes flicker over my face. “You’re prettier than any of them even without makeup,” he says gruffly.
I blink in surprise, my jaw unhinged. I’ve heard Hayes spew flattery before, but this is different. Almost as if he said it by accident. As if it was something he didn’t want me to know.
“Thank you,” I whisper, but I’m not sure he even hears it as he turns on his heel and walks away. I watch him go, and something begins to flutter in my chest. If I didn’t know any better, I’d think it was hope.
The party is every bit as lavish and insane as Hayes wanted it to be. There’s a tequila luge in the shape of a woman’s face, a chocolate fountain, and one full table loaded with more tiny desserts than I’ve ever seen in one place. Massive silver balloons and Chinese lanterns sway in the breeze, and servers pass neon green drinks on trays, narrowly dodging attendees dancing to the music that booms from the sound system.
I’m running for several hours straight, dealing with obnoxious guests demanding special food and trying to lift the tequila luge while someone’s drunk spouse is snatching a bottle of Patron off the bar for a private party he wants to hold in a cabana. It’s only when someone asks me where Hayes is that I stop long enough to realize I haven’t seen him in a long time.
I search the lawn and then the house, eventually finding him sitting alone on one of the upstairs balconies. It’s so quiet here, it would be easy to forget there’s a party going on at all.
His mouth hitches up slightly, a failed attempt to smile. “You did a good job,” he says. “No. Let me correct that. You did an amazing job. It would appear, therefore, that you are good at something other than writing, contrary to your claims.”
I wonder, for a half second, if he threw this entire ridiculous party simply to prove that to me before I dismiss the idea. He’s not that selfless.
“If it’s amazing, why are you up here? Shouldn’t you be choosing the eighteen women you’re going to let stay over tonight?”
He leans back in his seat, a glass of wine held to his chest. “That would be thoughtless of me, since it would mean making you get eighteen women out of my house in the morning.”
“The thoughtless part would be bringing that many women up in the first place. No way you’d satisfy all of them.”
His mouth hitches up to one side. “That sounds like a challenge.”
I picture him attempting it, which leaves me both irritated and titillated at once. I turn to head back downstairs and his hand encircles my wrist.
Such a small point of contact and yet, for a moment, it’s all I can notice.
“Sit,” he says. “You’ve done enough tonight, and your car’s blocked in.”
I take the chair across from him. It’s my first time off my feet all night and I groan in relief as I sink into the cushions. He reaches across the table and pours me a glass of Malbec. I take a sip, letting it roll around in my mouth. I’d forgotten what a pleasure good wine could be. A warm breeze carries the scent of night-blooming jasmine from his side yard and I breathe deep, resting my head against the chair’s soft back. He must, at some level, think a massive party like this one is fun, even if he’s not enjoying it tonight. For me, the wine in my hand and him sitting across from me is enough.
“So, if you’re up here alone,” I say. “I can only assume that means you’re busy thinking dark thoughts about the emptiness of your life.”
“Is that what I’m doing?” he asks, swirling the wine in his glass.
“I don’t know,” I reply. “Are you?”
“Maybe.” He glances at me with a rueful smile. “There’s nothing like inviting over every single person you know to make you realize you don’t like any of them much.”
I ache for him. His life could be so much fuller if he’d just allow it to be.
“You probably need a few people you’re willing to talk to sober,” I say softly, curling up in my chair.
He stares into his wine glass. “At the moment, I guess that’s mostly Ben and you.”
My heart gives a single hard beat. I never thought I’d see the day Hayes would admit I’m something more than his less-than-stellar assistant. “I thought I might have met Ben tonight, actually.”
Hayes looks toward the sea of people in the yard. “He’s out of town but he wouldn’t have approved of all this. He’s nearly as judgmental as you.”
I smile. “So, he’s a good influence, then. I was picturing a Hayes clone.”
He tips back in his chair. “It’s a sad day when we agree you’re a good influence. How did you spend the entire advance, anyway? Based on your clothes and your car, I’d assume you aren’t much of a spender.”
I suppress the desire to laugh. Only Hayes would take my sad, shameful admission and insult me with it. “My younger sister needed inpatient treatment after my dad died, and I’ve been helping my mom out with money. Apparently, my parents’ finances were in worse shape than anyone knew, even my mom.”
“You take care of everyone, don’t you?” he asks. His eyes are soft as velvet. When he looks at me like that, it’s hard to breathe. I find I can’t maintain eye contact.
“Not all that well, it would seem.” Liddie and I haven’t spoken or even texted in a week, Charlotte still seems miserable, and the last time I called home my mother was drunk. It feels like I’m failing, but no one can tell me how to turn things around.
