Page 103 of The Devil Gets His Due

He laughs. “No, far from it. But you could become a very good doctor. And if you ever tire of telling rich women which retinol to use, I’d be happy to find a place for you here.”

He’s a pain in the ass, but I’ll probably become a better doctor because of him, and the idea of working here excites me in a way Beverly Hills Skin never could.

“I want to stay home with my daughter for a while first,” I warn. “She hasn’t seen the first two seasons ofBridgertonyet.”

He sighs and shakes his head. “Yes, yes, of course. But for your daughter’s sake, I hope her father is good at telling youno.”

I smile. Our daughter is named Delilah Kalamity Tate.

He’s not that good at it.

48

KEELEY

JANUARY

I’m unpacking, waiting for Graham to get home, when I come across the onesies Daisy wore as a newborn. As small as she still is, the tiny garments in this box look like doll clothes to me now. That’s how it is though—you don’t register most change as it happens. It just hits you like an anvil when it’s well behind you.

And on this particular date, a year from the afternoon I met Graham, several anvils are hitting me at once.

Exactly a year ago, no matter what he says now, Graham had just arrived at the Langham and was probably trying to figure out how fast he could get back to New York so he could return to the office—the same guy who now cuts out of work just because he thinks I look tired, and who recently cancelled a shareholder meeting because Daisy had an ear infection.

A year ago today, I was being as rude as possible to him while planning to seduce another guy. It’s a little shocking in retrospect, and it’s taken me most of this year to understand that I was driven entirely by fear. I set my sights on the one guy I knew I’d never want to make permanent, and fought the realization that there was something about Graham—his irritating reliance on logic, his refusal to take any shit from me, and later, of course, thatmouth—that I knew I’d want to keep.

Ididkeep it, obviously, and now I’m a wife and the mother of a four-month-old and ahomeownerof all things, and it was only when I heard Coachella had sold out that I remembered I’d ever considered going.

I hear Graham’s key in the door and throw the onesies down. He was in New York for three days—his longest trip since Daisy was born—and I’m just uncool enough to run down the hall to see him faster. He’s just uncool enough to drop his bag and pull me against him tight as if he’s been gone for a month.

“How was it?” I ask.

He tugs me closer, and I listen to the steady, constant beat of his heart beneath my ear.Steadyandconstantare things I didn’t even know I wanted last January. Now I can’t imagine life without them. “I’m glad to be home,” he replies.

I bite down on my smile. “Howgladare you, exactly?”

He pulls away just enough for me to see him raise a brow. “How glad areyou?”

Ugh. So, I’mnotgetting laid. All because I jokingly suggested I might take a page from Gemma’s book and not sleep with him until we left for tomorrow’s anniversary trip, to which he’d replied,“as if you have that much self-control.”

Why did I insist I’d prove it? Graham has way more willpower than me. I know this. Graham knows this. Hell, Daisy even knows it.

“Not as glad as you wish I was,” I reply, pulling him by the hand.

He peers into our living room as we round the corner to the stairs. The room looks even worse than it did when he left town.

“If you say a word about my lack of progress, you’ll be waiting a lot longer to get laid than you think,” I warn.

He smirks. “As I said the last time you suggested this, you’ll cave before I do.”

I nearly remind him I’ve made it three days, but I’m not sure I can laud myself for days he wasn’t even home.

He presses a kiss to my forehead and tells me he’s going to peek in on Daisy. I only have to wait a minute before I see him in the moonlit nursery, settling into the rocking chair with his jacket off and her snug against his chest. For all Graham’s concerns that I’d be too soft, he’s nearly as bad.

And the sight of him like that leaves me doubly determined not to wait until tomorrow to get laid. I hustle to my closet when he rises to return Daisy to her crib and get out the sheer black lace nighty he hasn’t seen yet. This thing is even risqué for me, and that’s saying something. I own alotof lingerie.

He’s in the shower when I emerge. “Did you look at her ear?” he calls over the sound of the running water.

I laugh to myself. Thank God I’m a doctor because as it turns out, Graham is the world’s most paranoid father. He’s now read moreJAMAarticles on ear infections than most pediatricians I know. We’d be at the hospital every other day if it wasn’t for me.

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