The Devil You Know (The Grumpy Devils, #3)

by Elizabeth O'Roark

She’s clearly proven her case, but she’s still going strong because she’s so fucking mad. She wants every single person in this room to see how ludicrous and unfair the situation is.

Ben Tate lives to irritate me. And he barely needs to try—the sight of his smug face is enough.

Although his face doesn’t hurt either. Even I will admit he has a face that’s hard to look away from.

His would be a stern face were it not for that upper lip, which is slightly fuller than you’d expect and turns him into the kind of man you think about a little too long. The kind you see when you close your eyes after swearing repeatedly to yourself that you have no desire to see him at all.

Ben’s distractedly flipping through a file. “I went home for the weekend.” “Home?” I murmur, glancing at him. “I didn’t know humans were allowed to jaunt back and forth over the River Styx like that.” His eyes raise to mine. His mouth twitches. “There’s a small toll. It’s really quite civilized.”

Arvin is approximately one million years old, but shows no signs of retiring, and he’s still younger than McGovern, who likely remembers voting for John Adams in our nation’s third election.

“Gemma…” His voice is gravel wrapped in velvet; a voice made for giving orders you can’t resist. Reluctantly, I stop to look up at him.

“Gemma,” he says, eyes glittering dangerously, “I promise there’s nothing small or weak about me.” He walks away, and it takes me a full second to recover from my shock. And another full second to catch my breath.

I’ve never driven down his street, but if I take Alta I can see his house to the left. There’s still a dumpster in front and a building permit posted in the yard. Whatever he’s doing has been going on for two years straight. His neighbors must hate him as much as I do. I do a U-turn a few streets later, take one final look, and then drive home, trying to forget this little moment of weakness, even when I know it won’t be the last.

“See something you like?” he asks. I feel pinned by his gaze. “No.” I clear my throat. “I just expected more scales and open sores.” “We’ll save that reveal for the pool,” he says with a smirk, waving me in front of him.

Thanks to both books and Hallmark movies, I fully expect the clerk to tell me there’s been a mix-up when I finally reach the front desk. You and Mr. Tate will have to share a room, she’ll say. It has a twin bed, is only lit by romantic candlelight, and there’s nothing else available in the entire state. You’ll be sleeping in his t-shirt, and he will be completely nude. Instead, she simply tells me my room is ready. I will, apparently, not need to share a bed or somehow accidentally brush up against his erection. It feels a little anti-climactic if I’m being honest.

I don’t hear him groan even once, but God I can imagine it. I can so fucking imagine it.

Maybe no one in LA is straight out of a Hallmark movie, but I can no longer deny I’m deeply in lust with Ben Tate, and no one knows better than I do that’s a recipe for disaster.

I tell him I’m a lawyer, hoping he will then ask if I’m fulfilled. Maybe he’ll get me talking about some secret interest of mine and suggest a change in careers. If I was someone who liked to bake, for instance, he’d encourage me to open a cupcake shop in his quaint little home town. If I was an artist, he’d convince me to start selling my work and he’d have a studio on his property that I was free to use. But I can’t paint, and baking seems like a waste of time, so I’m counting on Tad to come up with something better.

“Yeah,” he says, heading for the door, nostrils flaring. “No chef is ever going to make you happy. And you’d fucking hate breakfast in bed.” What’s strange is that he seems angry about it. What’s even stranger is that I suspect he may be right.

I scroll through the old photos until I get to the one I like best. It’s from Drew’s wedding, and Ben is walking her down the aisle. He’s in a suit, just like he is every day, but there’s something sort of sweet in his face, something hopeful. If I didn’t know better, I could be persuaded, when looking at this photo, that he isn’t evil at all.

“I’m about to enjoy it more,” he replies, pushing me flat onto the seat, pinning me there, while his free hand slides inside my skirt. And just before his hand arrives where I want it most…I wake. I’m in bed, panting, my t-shirt flung across the room. I can’t even pretend to be disgusted. Right now, I’m simply furious that I woke up before he could get the job done. How completely like Ben Tate to be disappointing, even in dreams.

“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.”

“You took me by surprise.” “I should have fucked you then, too,” he says, eyes flashing, “just to see how else surprise makes you yield.”

“You either have a fever or do not. What’s your temperature?” I hold a palm to my forehead. My hand is cold, my face is hot, so who knows? They ought to invent a better way to assess this.

It’s a bizarre thing to think, clearly the product of oxytocin, a hormone known to cause stupidity, but I feel lost when he finally pulls away.

“I’m not pissed. Pissed would involve caring and I don’t. It’s forgotten.” He takes a single step toward my desk and leans over it, his face two feet from mine. His eyes have gone black as night. “You are full of shit.”

“I’m really happy, Mom,” I tell her, but then I ruin it when my voice breaks. I’ve been telling her I’m happy for years now. I’ve been telling myself that too. But this is the first time I’ve realized that neither of us believe it.

He blinks at me, as if coming out of a trance, his eyes dark and drugged. I slide out from the wall and stumble backward. Jesus, I have no idea how to get out of this. “Okay, well then, um…” I say, snatching my bag off the desk and heading for the door. “Good day to you, sir. Don’t beat anyone up in Charlotte.”

But the rest of it…God, the rest of it. Ill-advised, yes, but I can’t swear I’d take it back.

Ben is here, tugging on his black tie as he scans the room. It’s only when he sees me that he stops looking. And for a single moment, locked in his gaze, I feel absolutely complete.

Ben: I flew across the country and drove over an hour, only to see you. I’m heading to my room. #312. The door is unlocked.

I stare at him in shock, and his gaze locks with mine as he winds his fingers through my hair. I expect him to smirk, to look irritatingly victorious, but instead…he’s relieved.

As ridiculously overconfident as he appears, he flew across the country and drove to Ojai for this, for me, with no idea at all if it would work.

“You don’t need to do that,” I gasp. I feel his breath against my skin as he laughs. “Gemma, I’m doing exactly what I’ve wanted to do for two fucking years.”

“If you think I’d drop Hot Tamales and not eat them straight off the ground, you don’t know me very well,” she says.

And just because he made me come in about ten seconds flat doesn’t make him a keeper. But I think of him looking at my face as he went down on me. Saying, “I’m doing exactly what I’ve wanted for two fucking years”, and my thighs clench in both memory and anticipation.

“Six fifteen tomorrow,” he says. “I’ll drive.” “You don’t have to—” “I’m not letting you chicken out of this, Gemma.” I’m about to argue that I wouldn’t chicken out of anything, but that’s entirely untrue. I’ve been hiding under the covers for the two years since Ben arrived.

“You’re ridiculing me and I don’t care. One day when I’m posting a video of my small but tasteful ring with the Northern Lights behind me and a children’s choir performing, you’ll see how wrong you were.” “Ah, so now the Northern Lights happen to be behind you? I didn’t realize you’d even planned out the acts of God that will need to occur. Very thorough.”

He laughs, and then he gives me the sweetest, most tender smile. Not unlike the look he has on his face in Drew’s wedding photos. “I want to be someone you trust enough to invite home, Gemma. And I’m willing to wait for it.”

I put on the red dress I discarded a few days ago and take it right back off. Nothing has changed in the two days since I decided red was the color of sex and I refuse to let Mr. Maybe-I-Wanted-to-Get-to-Know-You think I’m trying to seduce him. That ship has sailed. I will take my free milk elsewhere. Fuck Ben. No more free milk. I’m putting it back on the shelf, in the paid marketplace. I probably need to work on my analogies.

“Are we certain about that? Because only one of us has made partner so far.” I laugh. “You just love to throw that in my face.” I can hear the smile in his voice. “I do. Mostly because you laugh, every fucking time.”

I laugh as I climb from the car. “You have friends who live here?” “They used to live here. Tali hated it. It’s on the market now, and they moved into a much nicer place off Mulholland Drive.” “It’s the turrets,” I say. “Were they worried the Romans would invade?”

He laughs, leaning toward me. “I’d have expected nothing less.” He kisses me then, his lips soft and certain on mine, as if to say, “it’s okay that you’re like this, it’s okay that you’re petty, that you’re vicious in court, that you push people away. I like you anyhow.”

I reach for his belt, but he stays my hand. “Invite me over,” he groans against my mouth. “It’s late,” I reply. “We could be undressed in five seconds right here.” His lids close tight for a moment, and when they open, I see resignation there. “You know what I want,” he says, lifting himself off me. “And I’m still going to fucking wait.”

His gaze falls to my wet button-down, now clinging to my curves. “Jesus,” he says, holding the door. “This can’t be one of the outfits,” I argue quietly. He leans close as we wait to go through the metal detector. “They’re all one of the outfits, Gemma.”

“No, Gemma, you don’t get to cancel on me,” he says. My laughter is startled, but also relieved. I guess I’m more transparent than I thought. “Okay,” I whisper, sliding my hands up his neck as he leans down to kiss me. Has it only been since Friday that we last kissed? It seems like so much longer.

“You're awfully certain there's going to be a second time.” “Gemma,” he says, “I plan to fuck you on every surface of this apartment eventually.”

“Is it so hard to admit you sort of like me?” He runs a hand over my hip, asking me to pay attention. “Do you really need me to admit it when we just had sex repeatedly?” “Yeah,” he says softly. “I sort of do.”

His hand comes up, curving around the corner of my jaw, pulling my gaze to his, our mouths inches apart. “You drink two cups of coffee every morning, always with milk, not cream, and a ridiculous amount of sugar. You’ll eat an acai bowl at any hour of the day, and you’re the only person alive who prefers strawberries to donuts, which is why I’ve been buying them for staff meetings for the past year.”

I stare at him, asking myself how he knows all this, how long he’s been watching me this carefully, and realizing the answer almost at the same time: Always. He’s always watched me, always documented my every move. I assumed it was for nefarious purposes, that he was looking for a crack in my armor or a moment of weakness, but maybe it wasn’t. Maybe he watched me for the same reason I watched him. Because he enjoyed it.

“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.

“You wish.” “Yeah,” he says, “I guess I do.” I don’t know how to reply to that, so I tell him Keeley is waiting. The office feels even emptier after we hang up. I work for several hours, enjoying a pathetic little Thanksgiving feast of coffee and cereal bars, and head home after dark. I’m climbing into my cold, lonely bed when my mother calls.

He laughs. “No. I meant affectionate. It’s almost like you missed me.” My eyes flicker to his and away. “I guess crazier things have happened.”

“And I have to make partner. Men in upper management everywhere go out of their way to keep the circle closed, just like Fiducia has, hoping the women who want in will just give up. Fuck that.” “Then let’s make sure you get it,” he says, as if he wants it for me as much as I want it for myself. I blink away tears. It’s felt, for a long time, like I’m in this alone. I’m scared to let myself think I no longer am.