Page 3 of The Devil Gets His Due

I smile at Six as I step away. “This will be fast.”

Which is something I bet a lot of women say before walking off with Graham.

“What is it?” I hiss once we’re around the corner. “I have very specific plans for Six Bailey, and you’re currently interrupting all of them.”

“Glad to hear you actually have some life goals,” he drawls. “Our previous conversations had not conveyed that impression. The happy hour component of this thing is over. I paid the tab.”

I groan. Trust Graham to do something nice that also makes me feel guilty. “You didn’t have to do that. I told you I’d cover half of everything.”

“And I told you that wasn’t necessary.”

“Based on how cheap you are, I have to assume you can’t afford any of this.” Six is looking our way, so I hold up a finger, asking him to wait before returning to the dreary conversation with Graham. “Tell me what it was and I’ll Venmo you.”

“Just because I exercise restraint doesn’t mean I’mcheap. If I left it up to you, we’d be on a flying yacht, throwing hundred-dollar bills off the back like confetti.”

I stop. For the first time ever, I’m interested in something Graham has to say. “Flying yachts? Is that athing?”

His mouth twitches, his eyes dragging over me and resting on my lips before he scrubs a hand over his face. “No, Keeley, it’s not a thing. But it’s not that far off from the week in Santorini you kept talking about, as if either Ben or Gemma was ever going to take that much time off work.”

He’s right, but I refuse to let him think holding the party on an LAgolf coursewas a good idea. “We could have held it on Catalina. I could have reserved—”

“My ninety-year-old great aunt came in from Boston for this. She shouldn’t have to get on a boat after a cross-country flight.”

Six grins, watching me, and licks his lower lip. I really need to wrap this conversation up.

“Ah, so you were constraining this party around what would make the attendingninety-year-oldscomfortable. I thought you just wanted to minimize the fun at all costs.”

“If this is you not having fun,” he says, his eyes falling to my empty glass, “I’d be scared to see what happens when you are.”

Happy hour moves to dinner,which then moves to a club in the hotel. All the boring married people are gone, but for some reason the boring curmudgeon, Graham Tate, is still going strong…and steadily drinking, which seems unlike him given his hatred of spending and love of misery.

If he’s simply waiting to see how drunk I get, the joke’s on him…I’m alreadyextremelydrunk. Fortunately, my superpower is impersonating a sober person when necessary, though I guess it’s only a superpower if you’re a functional alcoholic or a teenager trying to escape her father’s condemnation when she walks in at one in the morning.

Six wraps a hand around my waist and then pulls the neckline of my dress away from my chest. He’s getting handsier by the minute, which I find oddly…irritating. As someone who is only hanging out with him for one reason, I’m not sure why I care—it’ll just make it that much easier to ghost him in a week or two.

Six checks his watch, and I know he’s about to suggest we leave, but I’m just not ready. I pull away, telling him I’m going to dance. I have no idea why I’m stalling. And where’s Graham, anyway? I expected him to be looking on, figuring out how he could ruin this.

I slip onto the crowded dance floor and begin to move. There is something about the combination of alcohol and dancing that makes it seem like anything is possible. It’s a soaring, gleeful feeling, the one you get when you contemplate making a reckless decision:Blow all my savings on a trip to Croatia? Quit my job and spend a few months sleeping in and surfing? Spend five grand on a Birkin bag?You know these are bad decisions and yet…just contemplating them makes you feel like there might be a whole other life out there for you, a better one.

I want more of this feeling and I’m wondering where to find it when a hand wraps around my hip and an exhale grazes my ear.

“Tell me you’re not actually planning to sleep with that guy,” says a voice IknowI hate, though oddly I don’t feel any of that hatred at the moment.

I turn to find Graham standing close, so close I have to crane my neck to meet his gaze.

He’s looking at me in that way of his, as if he knows me better than I know myself, and resentment flares. He thinks he can loom over me, with his perfect nose and his lovely mouth, and make me feel guilty. He’s wrong.

“Why shouldn’t I sleep with him?” I ask and his hand rises to slide over my jaw.

“You really want to know, Keeley?”

I nod because, being this close to him, my mind has suddenly gone blank. He’s near enough that I can smell the bourbon on his breath, which shouldn’t be nearly as appealing as it is. He shouldn’t be appealing at all, and yet—God—I’d challenge any woman to stand this close to him and not be drawn in.

“Because he isn’t who you want,” he says, his fingers tangling tight in my hair, “and you fucking know it.”

And before I can tell him how staggeringly wrong he is, he pulls my mouth to his.

I am kissing Graham Tate.

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