Page 72 of The Devil Gets His Due

When Graham finally returns to the apartment, I’m still irritated that he didn’t drop his stupid workout to discuss this with me. He is gloriously disheveled. That annoys me even more.

“You look disgusting,” I say sourly.

“Oh, do I?” He crosses the kitchen toward me then very intentionally reaches above me for a glass, pressing his sweat-soaked chest to mine, his damp arm grazing my face. I smell his soap, feel his exhale dance over my skin.

He’s trying to gross me out but instead, a memory hits me out of nowhere, so sharp I can barely stand it: his weight above mine, his breath on my neck, a low, guttural moan—Keeley, I’m gonna come, fuck.

A shiver races up my arms while my stomach tilts and flips, as if I’m a roller coaster hurtling toward the ground.

It definitely happened and I never, ever wanted it to end.

“You okay?” he asks, pulling away. “You suddenly look terrified.”

“That was more sweat than I’ve ever come in contact with at once.”

“That says more about you than me. By the way, I chatted with the woman in apartment 701. You apparently told her I was your husband?”

I grab a paper towel and begin brushing his sweat off me. “I’d have said you were my brother but that would make the whole pregnancy bit a little weirder than it is.”

His tongue darts out. He is…ever so slightly amused. “I’m not sure you really had to sayanythingto her.”

I’m not sure you had to say anything to her either. Why the hell would she tell you what apartment she’s in?

I move away, pretending I don’t care. I can’t believe I’m on the cusp of getting everything I want, and all I can think about is…Graham.

34

GRAHAM

Keeley is pacing the room, talking to MacNulty. She’s come alive during this conversation, all laughter and wildly gesturing hands he can’t see. When she’s like this, she could draw blood from a stone. She could persuade you to give her a TV show. She could persuade you to give her an entirenetworkif you had one at your disposal.

She seems to be persuading MacNulty, anyway. The interview time is set, and when she tells him she’s got nothing to wear, he says he’ll have a stylist send some things for her. It’s exactly what Keeley wants—fame, stylists, adulation—and I hate everything about it. I guess that makes me an asshole, but I never believed for a second Iwasn’tone, so the revelation doesn’t make much of a dent.

“Our daughter will be famous,” she says to me, eyes gleaming. It’s one fucking interview, and she’s already spun this out into a future as a talk-show host. “Can you imagine? She could, like, be on the Kids’ Choice Awards and go glamping with all the little Kardashians in a private jet.”

“Yes,” I say dryly. “That sounds like just the recipe for developing into an intelligent, emotionally mature adult.”

She frowns and stomps away, already casting me in the role her father played…the bad guy, ruining all their fun.

And I will be.

Keeley dreams so vividly she can persuade everyone around her it’s real. She makes you believe in a world entirely different from what it is, and then you wake up in a hotel room thinking your whole life has changed and discover you’ve been ditched with nothing but a marriage certificate and the bill for two wedding rings to show for it.

I imagine it’s one more thing she inherited from her mom, that ability to spin things so vividly.

When this interview occurs, they’re going to love her. The whole world will love her. How could they not? Keeley lights up every room she enters until she’s the only thing you can see. And when all that happens, she’ll be endangered. There will be fans and photographers and strangers stopping her in the street. She and our daughter will no longer be safe, and I’ll be helpless to stop it.

It feels like history is repeating.

35

KEELEY

It all happens so fast.

There’s a live taping ofMindy and MillsSunday afternoon, outside at The Grove. They bump a child violinist to fit me in, which I should probably feel bad about but…that kid’s got his whole life ahead of him while with the O’Keefe genes, I’ve got another ten years or so if I’m lucky.

A rack of dresses is delivered to the apartment by a stylist, who quickly rules out everything loose because of my height, and everything dark because of my coloring. In the end, we agree on a bright pink dress that has a bit of sixties flair to it—sleeveless, with a rounded collar and a built-in belt that loops just above the baby bump.

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