Chapter Fifteen Charlotte
Chapter Fifteen
Charlotte
The following morning starts out like any other. The sound of my phone wakes me, and I force myself to get out of bed and get dressed. On the other side of the room, Jax stirs in her sleep. She keeps much later hours than me, considering she’s hired to do readings at a lot of late-night parties, and as usual, I do my best not to wake her.
I shower quickly, putting on my makeup once the steam inside our closet-size bathroom disappears. My eyes are still puffy from spending yesterday crying, but it’s subtle enough I doubt anyone will notice.
Exiting from the shower, I dress and pull on my heels, not bothering to switch on our little ten-dollar Keurig knockoff and make coffee. I grab a granola bar from the cabinet and decide to treat myself to the Starbucks near Apollyon.
After yesterday, I deserve something to make myself happy.
I take the green line uptown, which takes ten minutes longer than usual, but it’s too expensive to go by taxi every day. Whenever I do, the meter ticks by, each mile draining more and more cash. But once my new salary comes in, maybe I’ll be able to save enough up to move somewhere farther uptown. I get off at 86th Street then walk to the Starbucks on the corner of 85th and Lexington. Heading inside, I’m welcomed by the fresh scent of coffee. I wait in line and place my order. A Venti iced latte with white mocha, sweet cream, and caramel drizzle with an extra shot of espresso. Hot is my usual preference, but not in this summer heat.
I can already tell the weather today is going to be scorching.
Order in hand, I make my way toward Park Avenue. It’s a few minutes before nine o’clock and I don’t want to be late clocking in again. Especially not after the conversation with Imani about laying low. Not that she was blaming me or anything. I was an equal participant in what happened between Lucifer and me, though I didn’t share any explicit details.
The way he tore me apart in that meeting was punishment enough. But I’m determined to not let it happen again. As much as it hurts me.
It was stupid to think there would ever be anything between us.
That much is clear to me.
I stop just in front of the building, glancing upward. Apollyon Inc. looms over me, the massive high-rise reaching toward the sky like a glittering behemoth in the morning light. Letting out a long sigh, I shake myself off a little and then head into the lobby, smiling at the downstairs secretary, Jeanine. But it only takes one wide-eyed glance from her for me to recognize something is off.
I brush off the alarmed look she gives me, choosing to ignore it instead of saying anything.
Maybe I’m being paranoid, yesterday’s events considered.
It’s hard not to feel like I have something to hide. Sleeping with your boss is the kind of office gossip that gets around quickly. Not that we did anything other than kiss, but I know better than to think anyone would believe that.
It isn’t until I get into the elevator and two employees from another floor share a look and stop whispering the moment they see me that I start to think something is really wrong.
Did Imani change her mind? Did she tell someone?
But as soon as I think it, my throat feels thick with shame.
Imani’s been nothing but kind to me. She’s helped me at every opportunity. If word of what happened in the meeting or any speculation about me and Lucifer gets out, I have no one to blame but myself. It’d be my own poor choices that landed me here.
And Lucifer’s. He’s equally responsible, if you ask me.
I step off the elevator and onto the sixteenth floor, which houses the PR department and my office, and the feeling only gets worse. All eyes are on me, and an eerie hush sweeps across the open floor as I pass the few cubicles and the glass-walled conference rooms that lead toward my office.
Once I’m out of sight, I quicken my pace, hurrying toward my door.
I rush inside, nearly slamming it shut behind me, but I don’t catch the break I was hoping for.
Imani’s sitting at my desk, waiting for me, her eyes filled with something worse than fury.
Disappointment.
My vision swims, and my knees are suddenly unsteady.
“You couldn’t have possibly listened to me, could you?” Her gaze sweeps over me. I’m dressed as I usually am, in my Target-bought heels and pencil skirt, with a matching white blouse buttoned thoroughly to my neck. There’s no judgment in her look, but there’s a kind of confusion there, like she’s not sure what Lucifer sees in me.
Instantly, my stomach drops. “I don’t know what you mean.”
“Don’t you?” she asks. “Don’t you, really?” She scoffs and throws a newspaper onto my desk.
It’s not one of the usual entertainment mags we frequent. It’s the New York Times .
But it’s the headline that stills me.
Lucifer: lusty loverboy or listless and lonely? it reads.
My hands are shaking as I step forward, staring down at the words. The headline I wrote.
All the blood drains from my face. “I ...”
“Don’t bother trying to explain yourself. I already know it came from your computer,” Imani says. “The syntax has your voice written all over it. You didn’t think I’d recognize your writing in a goddamn press release?”
I shake my head, still in disbelief. “It’s ... not what it looks like.”
A knock sounds at the door, and someone opens it without warning.
Jeanine. “Lucifer wants to see you in his office. Now.”
Imani glares at me, moving to stand, but Jeanine shakes her head, looking a little unsteady. “Not you,” she says. “Her.” She nods directly at me.
My breathing goes shallow as I desperately grasp for something to hold on to.
Suddenly the floor beneath me bottoms out, or at least it feels that way, and then the next thing I know I’m falling, only this time, there are no hands there to catch me before I hit the floor.
I wake on an unfamiliar couch, my whole body stiffening, but it isn’t the feel of the cushions that frightens me. It’s the velvet-and-sin voice that follows.
“Thank you, Jeanine.”
The vein in my neck ticks as something like panic unfurls inside my chest, and I instantly recognize where I am, though I’ve yet to open my eyes.
Lucifer’s office.
Where else could I be?
The room smells exactly like he tastes, a lingering mix of cigarette smoke and whisky. Like I’ve suddenly been transported to an office from Mad Men , instead of one built in this century. Though mad is a fair description, considering the events that led me here.
I didn’t send that press release, but clearly someone else did.
Someone who has it in for both Lucifer and me.
I don’t open my eyes. Instead, I lie still, listening.
The door closes, marking Jeanine’s exit, but another voice fills the room. Imani.
“We need to get out in front of this.”
“I’m well aware of that,” Lucifer answers coldly.
He’s remarkably calm, all things considered.
“Then make certain she agrees.” No doubt she means me. “We don’t have many other options left. Not with Gabriel’s return this close.”
Gabriel?
She can’t possibly mean . . .
But of course she does.
Who else would she mean?
Not for the first time, I realize exactly how far in over my head I am. So far I’m practically drowning, but I’ve been in worse situations before, enough to develop a fierce survival instinct, and I’ll do whatever it takes to get myself out of this.
Exactly like I did when I came here.
“You know me, Imani,” Lucifer says coolly. “Miss Bellefleur won’t prove a challenge.”
I struggle not to grit my teeth.
Like hell I won’t.
Imani must nod in agreement or something, because for a few seconds, no one says anything, until finally I hear the brush of her designer heels against the plush carpet as she moves toward the door. Her tone softens slightly. “Just don’t hurt her or anything. As a favor to me.”
The resignation in her words, like she’s powerless to help me, is enough to make my spine as stiff as a board.
“You have my word,” Lucifer says.
A moment later, I hear the door to his office open and close again, leaving us alone.
“You can stop pretending now, Charlotte,” he says to me.
Another chill rakes down my spine, one that’s far too familiar, but I don’t bother to ask how he knew I was faking it. I open my eyes and sit up on the sofa, abruptly taking in the office around me. It’s massive, taking up nearly half a floor or more, every fixture the height of luxury. Lucifer sits in his executive chair, his black-topped desk poised in front of him. The surface must be made from real obsidian.
The desk is positioned in front of a rectangular conference table, parallel facing, its surface made of the same deep stone. Two modern art pieces—maybe Pollocks—in varying shades of black and white flank the desk, the plush rug underneath giving way to marble flooring that peeks out around the edges of the room.
I sit on the far side, at a corner sofa and coffee table that’s clearly meant for casual entertaining. A modern chandelier with glass dripping like teardrops hangs between us, though the space is filled with natural lighting from the floor-to-ceiling windows.
If I thought the view from my office was stunning, it’s nothing compared to this. At night it must be breathtaking. All the downtown lights glittering at his feet.
I stare at Lucifer, refusing to say anything.
Regardless of what Imani said, I’m not going to make this easy. Not now. The rules have changed.
And not even she can save me.
Lucifer rises from his chair, coming to stand at the edge of the conference table. He crosses his legs at the ankles, placing his hands in his pockets as he looks at me.
It should be a sin how gorgeous he is, but I guess that’s the point, really.
“You’ve gotten yourself into quite the mess, you know.” Those dark eyes sparkle.
“Have I?” I tilt my head, questioning him.
My response is bratty, petulant even, but if he expected me to play nice after he embarrassed me in that conference room, he was sorely mistaken.
“The kitten has claws, I see.” He smirks.
Something about the way he says it infuriates me.
As if I’m no more than a minor problem to be dealt with.
“Go ahead and do it then, why don’t you?” I wave a hand at him. “Fire me. Smite me. Whatever it is you were planning.” Best get this over with.
Lucifer chuckles. “Oh, darling, firing you would be far too easy.” He grins, showing off those oddly pointed canine teeth. “Where’s the fun in that?”
The moment he says it, it’s like the rug has been ripped out from under me, and I suddenly can’t figure out how to stand. The world seems to tilt for a second, but I try my best not to show it. “If you’re not going to fire me, then what are you going to do?”
My vision tunnels, anxiety trying to get the better of me.
That wicked grin of his twists. “That’s not the right question, little dove. The better question is: what are you going to do for me ?”
“I don’t understand.”
What could I possibly have to offer him?
He shifts to standing, coming to his full height as he rounds to the desk where he retrieves a sleek laminated folder. He crosses the room with a predatory grace before he drops it onto the table in front of me.
The folder makes a deafening smack as it hits the table’s surface.
I reach for it. “What’s this?”
I open the folder, seeing my name written in my own handwriting at the top.
“Your employment contract.” He nods toward the file. “First rule of business.” He taps his finger on the document. “Read the fine print.”
Snatching up the paperwork, I flip through it furiously, searching for the small addendum sections that I previously skipped.
“Article two. Section three,” he says, directing me toward the appropriate header.
I scan through the paragraph.
“You can redefine the terms of my position at any time.” I lift a brow. “So what?”
Lucifer smirks. “So, I’m choosing to redefine them. Immediately.”
My blood runs cold, and something about the way he says it alerts me to what a fool I was. How could I ever believe that firing me was the worst he could do?
“What do you mean?”
His smirk widens before he moves toward his desk. “That little press release of yours was hardly the worst thing anyone’s said of me, but it wounded me. Truly.” He places a hand over his heart, mocking me.
What I wrote didn’t hurt him at all.
He’s simply toying with me, but I have no choice but to sit here and take it.
“Did you really think I’d sit by and let my pride be damaged by the press so easily?” He’s behind his desk again, fingers steepled as he watches me. “I intend to do something about it.”
“And what does that have to do with me?”
“Everything, Charlotte.” A spark of hellfire lights in his eyes. He holds my gaze for a long beat, neither of us moving, until finally he glances toward the window like we’re having a polite coffee chat, instead of him threatening me. “Do you value your job, Miss Bellefleur?”
The change in his tone startles me.
“You know I do. I wouldn’t have written that press release if I didn’t.”
I wasn’t the one to send it, but he doesn’t know that. I play my cards close.
Let him think the worst. For now, at least.
Something shifts in his expression then, maybe at the glimpse of my wounded pride. Like he’s a shark prepared to strike at the first sign of blood.
“You embarrassed me in front of the entire board. All the executives. Imani.” I shake my head. “I wasn’t about to sit by and take that.”
“Nor should you,” he says.
It’s nothing close to an apology. No surprise there.
“But your choice has created a unique opportunity.” He echoes my words from the meeting. It’s meant to mock and bully me, to embarrass me further, but even as I flush, I force my expression to remain steady.
God, how could I have ever been so naive as to think he’d be capable of caring for anyone? Especially me. And after one stupid kiss.
He doesn’t deserve my pity, or my kindness. Or the help I’ve freely given him.
“Get to the point, Lucifer.”
He frowns at me, like I’ve just taken all the fun out of whatever game this is. “I suddenly find myself prepared to debut to the press.”
A brief spark of hope lights in me.
“With you alongside me.”
My stomach drops.
I blink, more than a little confused. “I ... don’t understand.”
“It’s simple, Charlotte.” He comes to stand in the middle of the room. “That little press release of yours created an unprecedented interest in my love life, or my lack thereof ,” he says, quoting me.
I wince.
The section I wrote on how a mysterious billionaire celebrity notably hasn’t ever been spotted in public with a partner was particularly scathing. It may or may not have included insinuations that the ... ahem, size of his manhood might be to blame.
Not my proudest moment obviously, considering what I felt pressed against me the other evening, but I never intended for anyone else to read it.
Lucifer especially.
“You’re going to fix that for me.” He grins.
“How?” Already, I see where this is going, and I don’t like it.
Not one bit.
“By playing the role of my queen, naturally. My fake fiancée.” He shrugs. “It was your idea originally.”
He can’t possibly be serious.
“No.” I shake my head, coming to stand. “No. Absolutely not.”
I turn, heading toward the door.
“Walk out that door and you’ll find yourself fired and served for libel before the end of the evening.”
My jaw drops.
The audacity of this asshole ...
But he’s not wrong. A press release like that could warrant a lawsuit for libel, especially for someone with such a distinct image. He is the company’s branding.
Anger roils in my belly. It’s my own fault that this comes as a surprise to me. This kind of villainy is exactly what he’s always been known for, until the last decade, at least.
I spin to face him. “You wouldn’t dare.” I nearly spit, I’m so angry. Like a venomous snake. Though not nearly as much as the monster before me.
“Try me,” he says, smirking.
For a moment, I consider doing exactly that, walking out the door and washing my hands of this whole thing. But I need this job.
More than anything.
It’s a miracle I’m even standing here. The odds of me getting this position were akin to lightning striking me. And I don’t expect it to strike twice.
It’s this or flounder in the NYC job market until my prospects run dry.
It’s this or be forced to admit defeat.
If my money runs out, I could end up on the street until my father comes looking for me. Jax would do anything within her power to ensure that didn’t happen, but she’s nearly as strapped financially as I am. Together, we’re barely making rent, but without each other ...
Her dream ends with me.
It’s that single thought that stops me from giving him the middle finger and walking out the door.
I don’t care what Lucifer does to me. All my life I’ve been kept prisoner at the hands of powerful men who attempted to break me. But Jax is the first person who was ever truly kind to me, who saw me for who I am and didn’t tell me that there was something broken inside me. For wanting a normal life. For being human. For not being the perfect picture of evangelical piety.
She took me in without question.
She may not be a Christian, but it was the most Christlike thing anyone has ever done for me. I can’t repay her by turning my back on her now. She needs this just as much as me.
Lucifer’s smirk quirks savagely like he can see the exact moment I come to my decision.
The exact moment he’s broken me.
“What am I supposed to do?” I breathe.
He rises from his chair then, prowling toward me. “There’s no requirement for physical intimacy, if that’s what you mean.”
“Surprise, surprise,” I hiss. “I would have expected nothing less but pure evil from you.”
Lucifer chuckles like I’ve offered him some depraved form of amusement.
He moves so fast that suddenly, he’s gripping my chin, his thumb coming up to brush my lips as he smears my red lipstick. “Oh, Charlotte, you have no idea how truly vicious I can be.” His gaze rakes over me, that amber fire burning, lingering, and it surprises even me that despite all he’s done, my body still responds to his attention eagerly.
My nipples pebble beneath my shirt, and a rush of heat pools between my legs.
His lips twist knowingly, like he can smell the fear and desire on me, but abruptly, he releases me. “Astaroth will be in touch,” he says, wiping his hands of me.
What’s in this for you? I nearly ask, but I can’t seem to bring myself to form words, to think. That’s what his nearness does to me.
Instead, I nod, resigning myself as I turn to leave with what little shred of my dignity is left.
I head toward the door, the sound of my heels echoing as that velvet-and-sin voice follows, making me soft in places it shouldn’t.
“I’ll look forward to the next time we meet, Miss Bellefleur.”