Lucifer's Lover

by Cooper-Posey, Tracy

  “Do you? Look at it from my end for a moment. One second, I find out I’m going to be a father, next second—because I couldn’t quite scramble to assimilate it all in time, you’re pushing me away from…the baby. Not only that, Lindsay, sweetheart but you tell me never to darken your door again.”

  “Your answer wouldn’t have been any different even if I’d given you a year to think it over.”

  “You’re sure about that?”

  “Yes. Because I know why you gave the answer you did.” She licked her lips, suddenly dry. Nerves.

  He cocked his head, regarding her with frank, cynical interest. “I’m all ears,” he assured her.

  “You wouldn’t allow yourself to be a genuine father because, deep down, you don’t think you deserve it.”

  “This is an old theme of yours, Lynds. I’ve heard it before.”

  “There’s more.”

  “There might have been, if you’d just given me a chance. Did it not occur to you that I might have been willing to try?”

  “Yes. But it would have been doomed to fail,” she said quietly.

  “Ye of little faith.” His voice was infinitely bitter.

  “It has nothing to do with you,” Lindsay returned quickly, her heart banging in her chest again, with the same sickly booming as before. “It was me, Luke. Me. I’m just like you, only I never figured it out until you had gone. I pushed you away. I didn’t give you a chance—you were right about that—but not because I’d made up my mind about you. It was because I’d made up my mind about me. I didn’t think I deserved the chance of…of…” She stopped suddenly, aware of where her rushed words were hurtling her. She wasn’t ready to cross that particular chasm yet.

  “Of what, Lindsay?” His voice was quiet. Dangerously quiet. “The chance of what?”

  “For…a normal life. No—for a family. Of sorts.” She bit her lip and found her gaze was drawn away from him, back to the books and the so-comfortable living room.

  “And what about love?”

  The quiet question, vocalizing her unspoken words, made her jerk with surprise and swing back to look at him.

  She swallowed and forced herself to speak the truth. “I couldn’t quite hope that high,” she said. “If you were to love anyone at all, I know I’d be the last person on Earth you’d fall in love with.”

  The silence that greeted her words was so long, she wondered if she had somehow angered him. Luke’s gaze seemed to be drilling into her mind, right through her eyes. Finally, she had to look away. The tension was too unbearable.

  “You really think so little of yourself?” The question was softly put.

  “No, it’s not that at all,” she jumped to explain. “It’s the reverse. It’s…” She couldn’t quite state it aloud. It sounded so school-girlish. She looked up, though, to check on his reaction. Was he laughing at her? Amused? Disbelieving? Or angry? So many unexpected things made him angry, after all.

  But his expression was a deeply puzzled one, the brows drawn together, his gaze only distantly focused on her. Then the furrow smoothed out. “Oh, no, Lindsay, you don’t surely… It’s not that ridiculous is it?”

  She took another deep breath. “I’m afraid it is. We’re a great pair, you and I. You’re convinced you don’t deserve family and I think I don’t deserve you.” She shrugged and tried to make light of it. “Freud sucks.”

  “I’m with you there.” He rubbed his temples with thumb and forefinger. “I have suddenly developed a massive headache.”

  She nodded sympathetically. A headache was easy to understand, given the circumstances.

  “After all I’ve done to you, Lynds, how on earth did you develop such an exultant opinion of me?”

  She shrugged. “Must be that killer gaze of yours, Pierse.”

  He held out his hand. “No. No jokes—my god, you learned that one from me too, didn’t you? I’m no good for you. Do you remember me telling you that? I’m no good for you and I’ve already comprehensively proved that. How on earth could you possibly think so highly of me?”

  She bit her lip. “I think it started when we went out on that date thing.”

  “The Christmas party?”

  “You were…kind.”

  “I was my normal run-off-at-the-mouth idiotic self.”

  “Not in my office, when I ran away. You could have got months and months worth of ribbing and teasing out of that. You could have heaped coals on my head when I showed you just how much of a klutz I was with people. It was a prime opportunity. And you didn’t take it. You never used it later, either.”

  He looked away then and she knew from her own similar reaction that she had made him feel uncomfortable. “Too much truth?” she asked him softly.

  He shook his head. “No, maybe that’s what we need right now. Both of us.” He looked back. “You came to New York to get me back to Deerfoot Falls, didn’t you?”

  She hesitated.

  “Yes or no, Lynds. Time’s gone for coyness.”

  “Yes.”

  “Back to Deerfoot and back in your life.”

  It took her a moment to speak the word and she forced it out. “Yes.” She could feel her cheeks blazing in response.

  “Despite being convinced you don’t deserve me?”

  “I guess I inherited my mother’s stubborn streak. I tend to ignore unwelcome truths.”

  “Yes, your mother.” He sighed and stood up, digging in his pocket for his keys and pulling them out. “My turn to writhe under the glare of truth, Lindsay. For this, I’m going to have to take you somewhere. Will you come?”

  To learn more about Luke’s life? “Of course,” she said.

  He took her back to the car and again the trip was silent. But it was longer and Luke’s silence wasn’t one of anger or hurt but one of remoteness.

  “You’re sad,” she said.

  He glanced at her. “What makes you say that?”

  “I don’t know. I just…sense it.”

  “And when did you get so good at reading people, hmm?”

  When I fell in love with you. She clenched her fist. “Are you sad?”

  He concentrated on turning the corner at the lights before answering. And then his answer was no comfort at all. “Just leave it, Lynds. Leave it alone for now.” And he didn’t even look at her. Instead he drove swiftly through the streets to turn into the driveway that ran beneath the portico of one of the grandest hotels in New York—the Albion Orion. It wasn’t the same chain as the Derwent in Deerfoot but they were a strong competitor.

  Here in the heart of New York, the competition took a sharp step up in scale. Luke parked the car and a valet came smartly around to take his keys, while a second one helped Lindsay from the car. She was glad of the assistance, for her attention was almost completely on her surroundings and puzzling out why on earth Luke had brought her here.

  The lobby of the hotel was a sweeping field of marble and gold, with elegant fernery everywhere. There was the sound of water rushing nearby and the quiet, busy hum of a big hotel doing a steady, impressive business.

  Off to the left was the registration area, a twenty foot long expanse of carpet at the foot of an equally long mahogany desk, behind which a dozen or more hotel clerks worked at discreetly positioned computer terminals. Despite a good handful of guests demanding attention, not one of them stood waiting to be looked after.

  There was a busy bar to the right and a coffee lounge beyond it and from what she could see, both were doing a brisk trade.

  Despite no longer having a professional interest in the Derwent’s success, Lindsay still felt a stirring of envy. “Oh, for a hotel like this,” she murmured.

  Luke glanced at her. “Like it?”

  “It’s very nice,” she said dryly.

  He grinned. “Liar. Tell me it doesn’t seem vaguely familiar to you.”

  He was right. But the tickle of familiarity wouldn’t jell into a complete knowledge. And she knew she had never been here.

  He led her to
ward the bank of elevators over to the far left, beyond the front desk. “Despite being the older hotel, the Manhattan Derwent deliberately remodeled their lobby based on the new and popular Albion when it opened. It caused quite a stir…back then.”

  “Back when?”

  “Oh…twenty years ago.” The doors slid open and Luke waved her in. “Both the Derwent and the Albion have become set in their ways, now. Neither of them will change their décor for fear of losing all that old traditional feeling.” He pushed the button for the fifty-fifth floor.

  Was that where the sense of familiarity came from? She had been in the lobby of the Derwent once, when she was sixteen.

  The elevator car was a throw-back to bygone days. Even twenty years ago, they had reached for the elegance of a vanished era. The car was a tribute to art deco, with etched mirrors with sweeping towers on either side, brass railings and a marbled floor. There was even a throw rug on the floor, a hardy sisal matting.

  It was quite simply beautiful.

  “Still quite nice?” Luke murmured.

  She threw him a glance she hoped was withering but instead of laughing at her, or even smiling, he nodded thoughtfully and turned to watch the indicator light race up the floor numbers.

  The doors opened onto another, smaller foyer with a pair of leather sofas and a coffee table. As Lindsay stepped out, she saw a reception desk to her right and knew immediately where she was. She was on one of the administration floors of the hotel.

  The receptionist had an enquiring smile ready to go. When she saw Luke step out behind Lindsay the smile softened into a more genuine, pleased expression.

  “Morning, Mr. Pierse.”

  “Janet,” Luke acknowledged. “Just visiting today.” As she reached for the switchboard keys he held out his hand. “It’s okay. I saw her yesterday. She’s expecting me.”

  “Go right ahead, then,” Janet encouraged him with another warm smile.

  Luke led Lindsay down the broad corridor toward a large, double set of doors at the end.

  And Lindsay felt like she was walking through a time warp, tumbling back to the day of her sixteenth birthday. She had trod down a corridor such as this, toward her mother’s overwhelming office, towed by a secretary and wondering what lay behind the doors.

  “Luke…”

  “Nearly there,” he told her. He rapped on the doors and turned the handle and pushed one of them open. “Liza, darlin’,” he drawled, walking in.

  Lindsay followed him, suddenly scared.

  The room on the other side was enormous and Lindsay’s first impression was that all of New York was spread before her, for the other side of the room was almost all ceiling to calf-level windows and the view was a stunning one, a forest of skyscrapers.

  Between the bank of windows and where Lindsay stood, stunned, lay a cozy arrangement of coffee table, sofa and easy chairs, united by a colorful rug spread across the thick carpet. And beyond that was a desk—a big desk that glowed with age and care.

  “Luke! Darling!” The woman coming toward them was a larger-than-life vision in flowing silk, her blonde hair shining with good health and her stride long and confident.

  Abruptly, Lindsay felt her heartbeat leap to her throat and with no warning she felt a wave of prickly heat flash through her, making her feel ill and weak.

  Luke’s hand was on her arm, not even allowing her to hang back and absorb the impact.

  It might have been her mother walking toward her. Oh, the woman was older than Catherine had been when she died but everything else was the same—the confident walk, the well-modulated voice, the immaculate clothing and grooming.

  Even the impressive, overwhelming office might have been picked up wholesale and transplanted to the Derwent, across town, with little fuss and disorientation.

  There was also a secretary on tap, who sat in front of the desk, and swiveled to check the interruption.

  The woman held her hands out toward Luke as she came closer and gave him a hug and two of those kisses in the air by his ear that people who socialize a lot seemed to perfect without a lesson. Lindsay had never got the hang of it. Had never tried, in fact.

  Luke drew Lindsay closer and she let herself be drawn. Reluctantly.

  “Eliza, I’d like you to meet Lindsay Eden. A friend of mine from Deerfoot Falls.”

  Eliza’s smile broadened as she turned to her. “Welcome my dear. Is this your first time in New York?”

  “No,” Lindsay said truthfully and her voice emerged tight and strangled.

  Eliza frowned a tiny bit but Luke placed a hand on her silk-clad arm and she smiled up at him instead.

  “Lindsay, this is Eliza Pierse.” He turned to look at her. “My aunt,” he added, watching her.

  Lindsay couldn’t help it. A little gasp emerged from her and she knew it was almost a moan.

  “Are you feeling quite well, my dear?” Eliza asked gently. “You’ve gone a ghastly shade of gray—quickly, Luke! Catch her!”

  For Lindsay’s strength had suddenly left her and try as she might, she couldn’t get her feet to cooperate and move her to the sofas a few feet away.

  But Luke was there, lifting her and obligingly sliding her onto the luxurious deep velvet cushions on the sofa. “Are you going to be sick?” he whispered as he laid her down, his voice low enough so that no one else would hear. He sat on the coffee table beside her.

  “No. I just—I just got dizzy for a minute.” It took effort to speak coherently. It was like being completely and utterly drunk, when the world ebbed and flowed around you and sound came and went in noisy waves and you could only make sense of it all by concentrating furiously on one object at a time.

  She found herself staring at Eliza. Luke’s aunt Eliza, she reminded herself. The woman was sitting on the other end of the sofa, one knee casually hooked over the top of the arm, the other foot propping her up on the floor, as she leaned on the back of the sofa, watching a little anxiously. It was an uncannily close resemblance to the way Luke had been using the arm of the sofa for a perch at his apartment.

  She should have expected this, she realized. She should have known. Hindsight be damned. This was something she might have anticipated if she had just lifted her head above her own miseries for half a moment.

  “Here, Mr. Pierse,” the secretary murmured and Lindsay turned her head to see her offering Luke a glass of water.

  “Thanks,” Luke said absently, taking the glass. But he was watching her.

  “I’m fine,” Lindsay murmured. “I don’t think I should have water, though.”

  Luke put the glass on the table.

  Eliza stood up. “Penny, I’d like you to go check the final numbers for the Armstrong wedding on Saturday night—see if they’ve emailed them in yet.”

  Penny nodded and picked up her notebook and left.

  Eliza sat on the coffee table next to Luke, carefully pushing the glass of water well back out of reach of both of them. She peered at Lindsay. “That was quite a turn. Are you pregnant, my dear?”

  Lindsay found herself blushing from her toes to the roots of her hair. She couldn’t help it. The question was simple enough but this was Luke’s aunt. She couldn’t just open her mouth and say yes. Which meant she had to lie. And Lindsay knew with utter certainty that any lie she offered would be instantly seen through.

  Luke shook his head. “It’s not that at all, Lizzy. She’s just seen a ghost, so to speak. It’s my fault. Lindsay’s mother was Catherine Eden.”

  Eliza’s eyes opened a little wider. “You mean the Catherine Eden? Manager of the Derwent here in New York?”

  “That one,” Luke confirmed and his voice held just a touch of dryness. Lindsay studied him, wondering what had caused that ironic note.

  But Eliza didn’t notice, for she clapped her hands together and was staring at Lindsay. “Oh, this is a double pleasure, Lindsay. Your mother… My goodness but this will sound so childish! I suppose it’s fair to say your mother was my role model. She was a pioneer
in this industry—a pioneer for women. I was just starting out in the business when she died—my first managerial role. I was so green then!” She laughed gaily. “You must be so proud of her. No one has ever come close to following in her footsteps.”

  “Not even Lindsay,” Luke added softly.

  Eliza smiled. “You’re in the hospitality trade too? Well, that makes sense, I suppose. All in the family. Look at us.” Eliza gently cuffed Luke’s shoulder. “Luke’s a chip off the old block too. His father—my brother—once managed the Albion too. Before his alcoholism truly got the better of him. Well, I’m sure I’m not breaking any confidences to you telling you that particular family skeleton.”

  Luke’s father managed this hotel? Lindsay looked to Luke for confirmation and what she saw there frightened her. He was watching her with the same steady remoteness, the air of sadness settling around him like a shroud.

  It was true then.

  Lindsay couldn’t concentrate on what Eliza was saying next. It was too much—she desperately needed to think.

  Luke laid his hand on Eliza’s arm. “Liza, would you mind… Could you give us a couple of minutes here?”

  Eliza smiled, all professional charm and grace. “It’s about time I chased up about those damn wedding numbers myself, anyway,” she declared. She held out her hand to Lindsay. “This really was a pleasure, Lindsay.” She held out a business card that magically appeared in her left hand. “Please, when you’re feeling more yourself, call me. I’d love to take you to lunch and have a chat.”

  “Thank you.” Lindsay took the card and Eliza left the room, discreetly shutting the doors behind her.

  Luke hadn’t moved from his half-slouch on the table.

  Lindsay retreated to silence, wondering what Luke could possibly say in response to this that would sound at all understandable.

  He sighed and straightened up. “Now you know.”

  “She could have been my mother for all the difference it made!”

  “I know. The similarities kept me awake for nights on end.” Despite the flip answer, Luke’s expression was utterly serious.