A Deal With The Devil: A Steamy Enemies-to-Lovers Romance

wants something this much, and that the thing is me, is nothing short of a miracle. “Yes,” I finally whisper. His face breaks into a wide, relieved smile, and he tugs me against him.

“You’re sure?” he asks. “You haven’t even seen the ring yet.”

“It doesn’t matter what the ring looks like,” I reply.

“Jonathan said the diamond was too big,” he says. “I suggested you quite like big things.”

I laugh shakily. “Did you really just allude to your dick in a marriage proposal?”

“You already said yes,” he says with a quick grin, as he pulls my mouth to his. “You can’t take it back.”

I don’t plan to.

THE END

says, burying his face into my hair. “I wasn’t about to miss our first Christmas together.”

“But how? You were still texting me from the airport two hours ago.”

“Yes. I just didn’t mention the airport was in Dallas,” he says, “although I was sure your mother wouldn’t be able to keep it a secret.”

“I missed you,” I tell him, laying my head against his chest. I squeeze him tighter, breathing in the smell of his soap and skin. I want him home and undressed. I wonder how much time we have before my family gets back.

“This is pretty spectacular,” he says, nodding at the street stretched out before us. “A rather nice place to propose, even.”

I freeze and pull back just enough to see if he’s joking. His eyes are earnest, a little worried. And then he reaches into the pocket of his coat and withdraws a black velvet box.

He swallows. “I’ve never done this part before. I’m...surprisingly anxious.”

His hair has fallen over his forehead. I reach up and brush it to the side. “I think you have nothing to worry about.”

He catches my hand. “I’ve been in love with you, I think, since the day I saw you reading in the rain as you walked into work,” he says. He presses the box to my palm and covers it with his own. His eyes hold mine, and there’s urgency there, as if nothing in the world matters more than my answer. He swallows. “Marry me. Please marry me.”

I want to tease him about the fact that he’s finally said please, but I can’t. That he

The service begins. All the little shepherds and angels come forward and Kaitlin scrambles from my lap to her mom’s, at one point standing straight up and shouting, “I can’t see!” just as the wise men approach.

Hayes would laugh if he were here, and then he’d remind me that we won’t have kids unless I can promise they’ll be better behaved than Kaitlin. Given that she’s now lying in the aisle and chanting “boring, boring, boring” at the top of her lungs, it feels like a reasonable demand.

Communion begins, and my mother leans over and asks me to go get the car. “It’s been snowing the whole time,” she says. “I’m worried about my leg on the way back.”

I’m not sure why she can’t ask Alex to do this, but with a sigh, I grab my coat and purse and walk outside.

I stop on the top step and take it all in—the lights in the trees, the fresh blanket of snow, the velvet sky, wishing Hayes could see it. It really is beautiful. There will be other years, I tell myself.

“You’re sure you’ll be able to give all this up?” asks a voice from the darkness.

Hayes. Standing just a few feet to my left.

I launch myself at him, my throat swelling with the urge to cry, hugging him, kissing him, inhaling him in a way he’s come to expect. “You’re here?!”

His arms band tight around me. It’s only been a week since I saw him last, but it’s a long time for us. And he knows exactly how unbearable it’s been because I’ve told him so, every single night. “Of course,” he

including, but not limited to, Hamburger Helper and Crockpot Cheeseburger Pie)—everyone’s grown to love him. Even Sam, who comes out whenever Hayes is here to watch soccer with him and get a home-cooked meal...while ignoring the longing glances from my lovesick younger sister, who could very well end up as one of his students next year.

Hayes has also come to enjoy Kansas—leisurely mornings with coffee and the paper, twilight walks, or a few hours spent reading on the porch. A funny thing happened when he truly began to enjoy his life: he finally realized outrageous sums of money weren’t making him any happier. He’s focusing more on reconstructive surgeries now, and only does house calls once a week—which he will drop entirely when I move to LA this spring. I still haven’t persuaded him to go back to pediatrics, but we have many years ahead.

Drew assures me he’s going to propose any day now, but she’s also convinced Six is still going to settle down with her, so I’d venture to say foresight isn’t her strength.

My mother leads us to a pew. “It’s a shame Hayes couldn’t make it,” she sighs. “I really wanted to see what he got you for Christmas.”

“I already got my present.” He’s agreed to take two weeks off to do Operation Smile next summer, which is all I asked for. Baby steps.

She rolls her eyes. “I’d have asked for jewelry if I were you.” But there’s a hint of a smile on her face and she nudges me with her elbow before she turns to hug my niece

Electric stars hang from every lamppost, framed by the black velvet sky.

Snow begins to fall as we climb the church steps, a luminaria on each of them to light our way. It’s perfect. Almost perfect.

God, I wish Hayes was here to see it.

The church is warm and already crowded, the entry full of jostling children dressed like shepherds and angels, anxious about their performance, eager for tomorrow. It’s a night when everyone is happy, and I should be too, given how much better off we are now. Charlotte has bad days but is doing better, Liddie is pregnant again, and my mom is taking marketing classes and figuring out her next steps. They are nearly ready to be left to their own devices, and just in time: My first novel comes out next summer, and the publisher wants a sequel. In the end, Aisling got the same fairytale ending I did—Julian found a way to come through the wall to her. In book two, they’ll return to the other side together.

It would be perfect, if Hayes wasn’t stuck at the airport, waiting out a storm over the Rockies that shows no sign of letting up. It kills me that after so many holidays spent alone, he’s going to spend this one alone too.

I’m not the only one who’s disappointed. Though it took some time to adjust to having a man around the house again—especially one whose jaw falls open in dismay when served staples of my mother’s cooking

“Hayes Flynn living in Lowden, Kansas, population three hundred,” I say, with a laugh. “It sounds like the premise of a bad sitcom. One in which you’re constantly expressing dismay about the quality of the sushi and wearing Tom Ford suits to Chili’s.”

His hands palm my ass, pulling me against him. “I’m not eating at Chili’s. One of us may need to learn to cook, probably you. But that can wait. Right now, I would like, very much, to go somewhere without your family listening.” He nods at the door behind us, where my sisters have their faces pressed to the glass. “It’s going to be loud tonight, I assure you.”

My body goes taut at the very idea of an entire night having Hayes to myself. But a Prius with a pizza logo is pulling up in front of the house, and I suppose if we’re really doing this, we better start now. “Yes,” I tell him. “But first, you should probably meet everyone. And get used to our version of fine dining.”

“Hey there, Tali,” says the kid coming up the porch steps. “Heard you were back. Good to be home?”

I look up at Hayes, blinking back tears. “Yes,” I tell him. “It really is.”

“Isn’t that her boss?” asks my mother. “And why’s he wearing a suit?”

Hayes flashes them his most charming smile. “I look forward to explaining everything. But a little privacy, for now?” He raises a brow, and Charlotte finally shuts the door.

He pulls me close. “I’m sorry I didn’t reply right away. I had to think.”

“How…romantic?”

He laughs. “It wasn’t a question of what I wanted. I just had to figure out what could be done, how it would work. Because I’m not waiting a year for you to come back to LA.”

My mouth trembles. “Things are improving, but I really do have to stay here. Even if my mom sticks with AA and is able to keep her license, I still can’t leave Charlotte with her alone.”

“I know,” he says. He wipes a tear off my face with his thumb, his mouth curving into a soft smile. “I spoke to the other doctors in my practice this morning. I’ll need to be in LA half the month, but the rest of the time I’ll be here with you.”

I’m speechless, half waiting for a punchline or amendment that doesn’t seem to be coming. “But your job is everything to you,” I finally say.

“Tali, I’m so in love with you it terrifies me,” he says. “And you’re the only thing that’s mattered for quite a while now. Do you really think I’d take off work to go to an amusement park otherwise?”

No, I guess not. I saw he was changing, but it’s only now I realize he was changing for me. I go on my toes to kiss him.

with Hayes. Right now, though, it just makes me want to weep all over again.

The doorbell rings, and I grab the cash and jog to the front door, where both Charlotte and Liddie already stand.

“Wow.” Liddie’s got her hands on her hips. “I don’t know about this.”

“That’s fascinating,” comes the drawled response. “But it’s actually her opinion that matters.” The voice is deep, arrogant. British.

Hayes.

I push my sisters to the side and the sight of him—thinner and more tired than he ever was before—cracks me wide open. He’s suffered every bit as much as I have, and it was all my doing.

I burst into tears, and throw myself against his chest. His arms come around me and I’m lifted off my feet. “I’d hoped you’d be a little happier to see me,” he says with a small laugh, burying his head in my hair.

I cling to him as if I’m drowning. “Why didn’t you reply?” I ask. “I tell you I love you and then there was nothing. I thought...I thought…”

He takes my jaw in his palms and kisses me. He kisses me as if he’s starved for me, and that makes sense. I’m starved for him too. It feels as if I’ll never get full.

Behind us, though, my family is offering a steady stream of commentary. “Maybe we shouldn’t be watching this,” says Charlotte, still standing right there in the doorway.

“I knew she was sleeping with him,” says Liddie. “Little liar.”

I stare at the phone. I’m not ready for more. At the moment it feels like I never will be. But it’s one of those times where you see how your story will turn out. Like Aisling, I’ve learned about love—what it is and what it is not—and I will carry that lesson forward into the next chapter of my life. Someone like Sam is probably the right choice for me. Maybe the day will come when I can look back to this moment and see it was for the best, how things fell apart

We start exchanging stories, recalling the time when he couldn’t figure out Uber and ended up walking home ten miles because he didn’t want to admit it. The way he would demolish half a tub of ice cream and then later claim he’d barely eaten all day. The time he couldn’t get the hood of his car open and took a saw to it, destroying it in ways even the autobody shop couldn’t fix later.

It’s good being able to talk about him like this. Not in hushed, sad tones, and not as if he was infallible. But as the funny, loving, flawed man who raised us. It feels a little bit like getting him back, in an odd way.

Too soon, we arrive at home...to find a tiny orange Ford in the driveway.

“Who’s that?” asks Charlotte.

For a single, heartbreaking moment, I wonder if it’s Hayes. If he flew out here like the hero of some Nicholas Sparks movie to declare his love for me. And then I laugh at myself. There’s no way Hayes would rent an American car. Certainly not an orange one.