Dating the Devil

Lucy O Neill is a plain-Jane New York PR assistant with a tiny apartment, a dead-end job, and a pair of annoyingly perfect roommates. Nothing exciting ever happens to her, until one night at a neighborhood pub . . . Lewis Mephisto is tall, handsome, and hot. Very hot. He meets her gaze through the crowd, a wicked grin on his lips, an irresistible invitation in his eyes. He s Mr. Right Times Ten. Sophisticated, wealthy, sexy, and completely devoted to her, body and soul. So what s her problem? Can t she handle dating the Devil? Lewis looks at me hard for a moment in the darkness, then nods. So you ve figured the whole thing out, he says ruefully. You re Yeah, he says. Say it, I say in a trembling voice. I want you to say it. He reaches over and switches his bedside lamp on, and suddenly the room is flooded with warm light. Then he looks back at me and shrugs. I m Satan, he says. He looks so boyishly vulnerable, sitting there shirtless amidst the rumpled sheets, one sock on and one off, blinking sleep out of his blue eyes, that I want to laugh. Of course, I also want to cry. I can feel the tears welling up in the corners of my eyes, but I manage to keep my voice steady. And you ve been all this time, you ve been trying to steal my soul? Not steal it, exactly, he says. Just . . . lead you into temptation. Lia Romeo is a playwright, novelist, and author of the highly-praised humor book, 11,002 Things to Be Miserable About. Dating the Devil is her first novel.