Page 35 of The Devil You Know

I push the button to call the elevator since he apparently doesn’t plan to do so, then walk in ahead of him. I draw in a calming breath but get the smell of his soap and aftershave, which is the opposite of calming. Before I can stop myself, my brain flashes back to that night on his desk, his mouth buried in my neck as he came. His smell, his sweat, how tightly he held onto me for a moment before he pulled away.

“Look,” he says, shoving his hands in his pockets as we walk off the elevator, “can we just call a truce for tonight? There are going to be enough people there trying to stab us in the back without stabbing each other too.”

Every childish bone in my body wants to refuse, but he’s right, and admitting I’m still hurt by what he did would give him a power I don’t care to hand over anyway. I’m going to put this behind me and act like the soon-to-be-partner I am. I haven’t come this far to fuck it all by sleeping with colleagues, and I’m not going to fuck it up by playing games afterward either. It’s done.

“Of course,” I reply, my smile forced, but civil. I take a deep breath and drive the night in his office out of my head. From now on, I’m only focusing on work when he’s around.

We climb into the car. I fold my hands in my lap and force myself to meet his eye. If we were colleagues, only colleagues, I’d probably discuss the case we have in common, so that’s exactly what I’m going to do. “We just got the results of the financial inquiry of Fiducia,” I tell him. “They spent a significant amount of money on corporate retreats.”

“So we need to find out what they did and if any female managers were invited.”

No shit, I’m about to say, and then I stop myself. The sex has to stop, obviously, but the bickering that leads to sex needs to stop too. “I’ve got someone checking,” I say instead.

The driver weaves through LA, and I stare out the window. We pass Kyle’s old apartment and then the Tiffany’s where we chose a ring. It was princess cut, and we compromised on two carats though he wanted me to go bigger. “When we get married,” he’d said, “I want everyone to know you’re taken.”

For a single moment I can remember the girl I was back then. I wasn’t the child jumping in puddles that my mother discusses, but I wasn’t nearly so removed from her as I am now.

“Could we try something?” Ben asks, pulling me from my memories. “Could we just talk? Not about work.”

I turn my head toward him. It seems like a bad idea—boundaries are clearly not my strong suit when it comes to Ben, and maintaining a strictly professional relationship is easiest when our interaction remains work-related. “I’m not sure what else we’d talk about.”

“You could tell me what the deal is with your parents,” he suggests. “Why’d you get so upset that night I brought it up?”

I laugh. “Wow, Ben, you’re so good at small talk. Why don’t we talk about the worst thing you’ve ever been through instead?”

He runs a finger inside his collar. “My father’s death. What would you like to know?”

My head whips toward him. Slowly, my body follows, twisting his way. “I thought you made that up to make me feel bad.”

“You thought I’d lie about something like that?” he asks. “Especially when the odds of you experiencing guilt about anything seem shockingly low? Yes, he’s really dead. He was in a car accident when I was ten.”

I wince. “I’m sorry.” Perhaps I’m capable of guilt after all, because I’m feeling something like it right now. “I spend a lot of time wishing my dad would die, so I guess I was a little insensitive.”

He barks a startled laugh. “Are you serious?”

I wave my hand. “We’re talking about you right now. Ten is really young.”

His lips press together. “It was just a bad situation all around. My youngest brother, Colin, was only a week old at the time. It was…hard. For all of us.”

I picture a woman like my mom, overwhelmed with a newborn, suddenly a widow, presumably still in love with her husband. It would be agonizing, but at least children would give you a reason to keep plowing forward, and that’s what you need in life when the worst things happen: a reason to keep going.

My father and I were all my mother had, and he tried to remove us both from her life. I think that’s what upset me most: the way you can, in theory, love someone and then just stop, without warning. I wonder if it bothers Ben that it can happen by accident too.

“She was lucky she had you and your brother, at least,” I suggest. “To give her a purpose.”

A muscle flickers, just beneath his cheekbone, as if he disagrees. For a moment, he seems very far away. “What happened with your parents?” he asks.

My trauma now seems small compared to his, barely worth discussing and certainly not worth hiding.

“My father left my mom when I was fifteen,” I tell him. “He completely pulled the rug out from under her.”

Ben’s head turns. “Was he a lawyer?”

I give a small, bitter laugh. “Yes, so he knew exactly what to do and who to call. He hid assets, took the house, even repossessed her car. She found herself without a penny, with every credit card cut off. She was absolutely screwed.”

His tongue taps his upper lip, as if he’s learned something about me that he hasn’t.

“Don’t get that look on your face like you suddenly have some deep insight into my psyche,” I warn with an irritated click of my tongue. “It’s all very much on the surface. My father treated my mother terribly in their divorce, like tons of men before and after him, and I want to even the playing field. You all call me The Castrator. You know what I bet they call Paul Sheffield for doing the same fucking thing? A really good attorney.”