Page 19 of Wicked Believer

And as the head of my PR team, Imani knows it.

She sits across the table from me, her slender frame perfectly poised. Being a former model isn’t exactly why I hired her, but the graceful image she projects suits Apollyon Incorporated handsomely. Though my luxury conglomerate and its many holdings are the furthest thing from my mind as of late.

“Are you going to tell me what’s happening between you and Charlotte, or do I have to ask again?”

I scowl. If any other employee ever dared to be so familiar, they’d find themselves disemboweled and floating in the East River shortly before morning, but Imani has made herself invaluable to me. In a way only one other employee ever has before.

My lip curls as my thoughts turn to Astaroth. My former demonic head of security. Before he betrayed me. Perhaps I’ll pop downstairs this evening and pay him a little visit.

Blow off some fucking steam.

“So?” Imani prompts me again as she signals to the waiter to bring me another whisky. “Clearly you haven’t had enough alcohol for this.”

“There’s not enough alcohol in this whole bloody city.” I lash out my hand, nearly knocking over the crystal water glass in front of me as I snatch my refilled drink from the terrified waiter.

Imani mutters a soft apology, and he scuttles off. “That bad, is it?”

I grunt as I take another long sip, which only causes her to smile. But I refuse to be a source of human entertainment. Even Imani’s.

I spear her with a vicious look that would make a lesser human piss themselves.

Charlotte’s father certainly did.

Hisis a death I will relish for all eternity.

Imani shakes her head then, fiddling idly with her napkin. As my most senior employee, she’s wise enough to know when to push me, and insightful enough to understand when it’s in her best interest to tread lightly. “Look, Lucifer. You know me, and I’m about to tell you something that you don’t want to hear, but I need you to hear it anyway.”

My eyes narrow. “I’m listening.”

Imani sighs. “This is love, you fool. This is exactly what you signed up for.”

I snarl, the sound so sudden and animal in the otherwise empty restaurant that the waiter heading toward our table reroutes immediately.

“What in the bloody fuck are you on about?” My voice lowers to a serpentine hiss as I feel the heat of my hellfire burn in my gaze.

Unfortunately, discussion of my personal life is no longer off limits.

Not now that I’m in bed with a former employee.

And Imani’s intern turned assistant, no less.

Imani simply leans across the table, as if she means to place her hand on my arm, before she hesitates and thinks better of it. “It means that when you love someone, you also give that person the power to hurt you.”

I frown, sniffing derisively. “I don’t remotely know what you’re talking about.”

“Don’t you?” Imani lifts a brow. “You and Charlotte had your first real fight, obviously.” Her gaze sweeps over me, taking in my disheveled appearance.

To the undiscerning eye, I look as impeccable as ever, my Attolini suit pressed and tailored specifically for me. But upon closer inspection, one of my cuff links is missing from where I failed to put it on this morning, too distracted as I watched Charlotte tear out of our bedroom like she couldn’t wait to be rid of me, and as the clock hand ticks by, my fiancée growing ever more late by the minute, my tie has slowly begun to loosen from where I’ve been tugging at it uncomfortably. And that says nothing for how many times I’ve raked my hand through my own hair.

What the fuck has she done to me?

“You look like shit,” Imani says savagely. “Gorgeous, expensive, luxury shit, but for you? Still shit.”

“You don’t pull any punches, do you, Imani?” I take another long sip of my whisky, the refilled glass already near empty.

It’ll take far more than a glass or two to drown whatever this ... feeling is Charlotte’s created in me. There’s only one other’s approval who ever mattered more.

And I haven’t laid eyes on Him since He severed my wings.