Page 2 of The Devil You Know
I squint at him. “Janeis a one syllable name, you know.”
“Exactly!” he says. “That’s why you needme.”
I can’t help but laugh at that one. Even when Ryan is being a jerk, he always manages to make me laugh. No matter how awful I’ve been feeling at various times over the last few years—and there have been some truly awful moments—he could always get me to smile.
Is this a mistake?
Ryan notices my hesitation. “What do I have to do?” he presses me. “What can I do to get you to stay? Tell me what I have to do.”
I don’t want what most women want. I don’t want a proposal or an invitation to move in with him or even a drawer set aside for me in his bedroom. Not that I wouldn’t like those things, but it’s not what I want most from him. What I want most is something that he’ll never, ever be able to give me.
I stare down at him. “You know what you have to do.”
He knows what I’m talking about right away. I watch him cringe—he probably wishes I’d demanded a ring. “Please don’t ask me that, Jane.” His blue eyes plead with me. “YouknowI can’t do that.Please. This is my wholelifewe’re talking about.”
“Well…” I shrug my shoulders. “That’s what I want.”
Ryan falls back against the couch, the fight taken out of him. He doesn’t look angry anymore—only sad. I suspect I’m the only person who gets to see Ryan whenhe’s sad. He can be the biggest asshole in the world, but whenever he loses a patient, he lies down on his bed, shuts the door to his bedroom, and stares at the ceiling for hours. I can’t talk to him when he’s like that, but he’ll let me lie down beside him.
Nobody sees that side of Ryan but me. And after I leave, I’m not sure anyone else will. Not for a long time. Maybe never.
But it doesn’t change a thing.
“I’m sorry,” I say.
“No, it’s fine.” Ryan waves his hand in my direction. “Go ahead and leave me forBen.” He sits up a little straighter. “But that guy better watch out, because the second he messes up, I’m going to swoop in and get you back.”
Yeah, right. In a year from now, Ryan won’t even remember my name.
Chapter 1
“Jane?”
Where am I?
I’m not in my bed. This is not my room. How did I get here?
Oh. It’s Leah’s room.
I rub my eyes as the events of the last several hours return to me. At circa three in the morning, my three-year-old daughter Leah burst into my room, informing me that she was unable to sleep. I was forced to join her in her bed, where she’s inched her way in my direction over the course of the night. I’m now smooshed against the wall, Leah holding a fistful of my hair in her chubby hand, which makes any movement very tricky (and painful).
“Jane!”
I disentangle my hair enough that I can sit up in the bed. My husband Ben is standing in front of us, his brown eyes slightly bloodshot, holding up my cell phone with an accusing look on his face.
“Your alarm went off,” he informs me.
“Huh?” I’m still half asleep. Leah kicked me awake roughly every twenty minutes last night.
“Your cell phone alarm was going off,” Ben clarifies. “I had to get up and turn it off.”
“Oh.” I rub my eyes until I can see clearly enough to notice that my husband’s hair is smooshed against his skull on the left side, fanning out in a lopsided Sleep Mohawk. Ben is adorable when he first wakes up, even though he’s crabby. “Sorry.”
He raises his eyebrows at me. “Well, are you getting up or what?”
I’d give up my pinky finger for another hour of sleep. Hell, twenty minutes. But I’ve got my first patient at half past eight. “Any chance you could drive Leah to school?”
Ben frowns. “Jane…”
