Chapter 42
New Orleans
Days Later
“How are you feeling in your first days as a married woman?”
I smile at Amber, Beau’s wife, wondering how to answer.
How do I say, without sounding pathetically in love, that it still hasn’t sunk in? How do I explain that sometimes I wake up in the middle of the night and when I feel his arms around me, I still think I’m dreaming, that any second now I’ll wake up alone in my apartment?
I don’t care if my dreams aren’t like other girls’.
Or if the man I love could never be called a prince.
Lucifer is mine, with all his rough edges and his broken past. With all the bitterness I know still lingers from his childhood. With his hunger for revenge against his enemies.
I choose honesty. “I still don’t know. We haven’t had a normal routine, and I don’t even know if we ever will.”
“I understand. But do you love him?”
“I’ll answer it the other way: I can’t remember a time when I didn’t. Even when I was little, when it was more of a brotherly kind of love, it was still love.”
“I’ve known him for a few years. He seems more at ease when you’re around.”
“At ease?”
I know Lucifer sometimes comes down to Louisiana to visit Beau and his family. It didn’t take me long to realize the Carmouche-LeBlancs are the only family, aside from me, that my husband has.
“I don’t think I explained it right. First, because Lucifer will never completely relax. Men like him and Beau sleep with one eye open. And second, because maybe I’m not the one who should say what I’ve noticed in him since you arrived.”
We’ve been in New Orleans for a week now, and little by little, after the chaos of New York, I feel like, for the first time, our life together has started to gain some sense of normalcy.
Maybe it’s because their house is full of children. I’ve never been around so many at once. They have four.
Unlike Lucifer’s apartment, Beau and Amber’s house has toys scattered everywhere, kids’ books, pink hairbrushes, and little glittery clips left on the furniture in the most unexpected places.
I have no doubt Beau is in the same business as Lucifer—or something very close to it—because no man, no matter how wealthy, needs that many guards watching over him.
Their house is a fortress.
Tonight, we’re visiting one of the nightclubs from the chain Lucifer will soon own, and while we walk through the private lounge, watching the crowd down on the main floor, we talk.
In a way, my reaction to Amber was a little like how I felt about Taylor, whom I liked the very first moment I saw her. She’s a bit standoffish at first, but you can tell right away from her face whether she likes you or not.
Thinking of Taylor makes my chest tighten. I called her after I got here, but not being able to tell her I’m married makes me terribly sad. Still, rationally, I know I can’t drag my pregnant friend into the crossfire my life has become.
When it’s all over, I’ll beg her forgiveness for leaving her out of this part of my life.
“What did you notice?” I ask, forcing myself back to reality.
“Lucifer is in love with you, Jackie.”
“What? No. I mean, he’s insanely attracted to me, I know that. The chemistry between us is explosive, but love . . . ? I don’t think so.”
She smiles, staying quiet for a few seconds. “From what I understood, Lucifer was like . . . part of your family, wasn’t he?”
“Yes.”
“Which means you didn’t grow up in a typical home, or your parents wouldn’t have taken him in,” she says, quickly adding, “No judgment. I just assume you lived more or less the way we’re raising our kids.”
I noticed that even though they look like normal children for their ages, Beau and Amber’s kids are a bit more mature than you’d expect.
All of them, without exception, even their teenage daughter, Lilac, whom I heard was adopted as a child, look you in the eye when they speak and take a moment before answering any question.
I think they’ve been taught from the start to be cautious, not to trust smiles and pats on the back right away, to consider everyone a potential threat.
I wasn’t raised with that much strictness. Maybe Martin was, but probably because I was a girl, my father didn’t demand as much from me. Besides, while Dad was cold when it came to affection, my mother was a storm of love.
“Yes, always,” I finally answer. “I knew the world was cruel, though not in any firsthand way. My parents never let violence get close to me.”
“But they brought Lucifer into your home.”
I smile. “My mother did. He and Martin were enemies at first. Lucifer, from what she told me—”
“From what she told you?”
“Yes. There’s a nine-year difference between us, and when he came into my house, I was barely more than a baby.”
“Ah, I see. Forgive me for interrupting.”
“As I was saying, he and my brother used to fight until one day Martin invited him to dinner at our house.”
“And his parents?”
“Beau didn’t tell you?”
“No. I don’t ask my husband everything, Jackie. Only what I need to know. We’ve been married many years, and there are things he doesn’t want to or can’t tell me. I’m fine with that because I know any secret Beau keeps from me is to protect me and our kids.”
“You two have a beautiful bond.”
“It’s true love. Imperfect, and sometimes it makes me want to throw things at him, but it’s the deepest feeling I could ever dream of. Now tell me your story.”
“I don’t think bringing Lucifer into our home was planned. It just happened, and after a while, he never went back to his. Then, when we were teenagers, my mother officially became his legal guardian.”
“She saw something in him that could still be saved.”
“I think so. I remember how Mom always hovered over him, making sure he’d eaten, studied, just the things parents do.”
She smiles. “I’m sure he loves you, Jackie, but maybe he doesn’t know the name for what he feels, so he confuses it with lust.”
“And how do I get him to open up?”
“I don’t have that answer.”
“Our original marriage deal was for five years, you know?”
“Yes.”
“And then he changed the rules. He said that after five years, I could ask for a divorce.”
She laughs. “Which obviously means that’s not what he wants.”
“I don’t think so either, but when he said it, I got angry. I want lots of babies, and Lucifer told me he doesn’t want children.”
“And what are you going to do? Talk to him about it?”
“No. I don’t think talking will help in his case. Lucifer needs to feel it, so I’ll create that need in him.”
“What’s the plan?”
“I’m going to give him a home. In the middle of the chaos that is our life, I’ll give him something to fight for: my unconditional love, a house where we’ll celebrate milestones, and later, a family.”