He was certainly treating this whole thing like I was supposed to know what was going on.
The strange, emotion-choked courses kept coming. The Third Circle of Hell, Gluttony, was a thick and decadent bread pudding with almost too many reasons crammed into it. When Cerberus delivered it, Lucifer laughed, making a joke about how it would take close to two hundred years to pluck out each one. He slipped a hopeful glance my way as if he was saying something else entirely.
It tasted like misery and hope all rolled into one. It tasted like sweat, blood, and tears, with a pleasant aftertaste of cinnamon and vanilla.
The fourth dish, representing the Fourth Circle where the greedy go, was a plate of meatballs that were honestly a bit too hard. They were almost rocks. It was the first thing that didn’t taste good but somehow, knowing Cerberus’s skills, that seemed like it had been on purpose.
The fifth “dish” was a simple glass of water. If this were a normal evening at Canlis and I was a normal customer here, I might throw a fit having water served to me under the guise of a course. But with all the overwhelming, invoking, emotion-charged foods, I welcomed the water.
It tasted like sweet relief. For a moment, it almost felt like I was a ship-wrecked sailor of old, stranded in a dingy for days, maybe even weeks and finally managed to get to shore where there was fresh water.
“Are you alright?” Lucifer asked, his voice soft and so tender it caught me off guard.
“I’m confused. What is the reason for all this? I thought we were here to discuss my soul.”
“Yes. First, I want to answer the question that’s been on your mind all night.”
My throat tightened. “I have a lot of questions.”
“Yes, but the most pressing one is, why am I so fascinated with owning you? Of all the fish in the sea, whyyou?”
Chapter Eleven
Jess
Why me?
That was the golden question, wasn’t it?
Why was one of the richest men in the world, the devil of all people, interested inme?
I swallowed hard, my gaze dropping to the crisp, white tablecloth. “So, why me then? Are you going to tell me so we can be done with magical food charades?”
He chewed his lip, obviously anxious as if he was holding back something burning on the tip of his tongue. “Let’s skip the rest of the courses and go straight to the last one, dessert. Taste it, then I’ll tell you.”
“What’s so important about the dessert that it has to come before the conversation you owe me about wanting to own my fucking heart, Lucifer? What is all this?”
“Just humor me, Jessica.Please?”
My chest ached from the way he said “please.” It was tender, beseeching. It was the first time he asked for anything while sparing me the suave, arrogant, I-always-get-what-I-want, rich asshole act.
“Fine. Then you have to tell me what’s going on.”
He signaled to Cerberus, who’d been peering through the round window in the kitchen door, waiting for his master’s beckon. The man scrambled forward, the door swinging open with an energy rivaling the chef’s gusto, sporting a tray with two delectable-looking tarts. I barely paid attention to him as he set them in front of us. My gaze was glued to the other man who’d appeared from the kitchen, the behemoth of a demon shifter, Abaddon. He leaned against the door, with his arms crossed over the great expanse of his muscular chest, watching me as carefully as Lucifer. Seeing him standing there made my skin prickle with an inexplicable sense of foreboding.
“Jessica?” My name on the devil king’s tongue tugged my attention away from Abaddon.
“I’m sorry, what?”
“This is a plum and mascarpone tart, inspired by the Ninth Layer of Hell,” Cerberus repeated.
“Sounds delicious,” I said with an edge of sarcasm, even though the confection looked and smelled absolutely amazing. The baked treat was round, with thick slices of plum on top, caramelized to perfection. My mouth watered just looking at it.
Abaddon, Cerberus, and Lucifer all watched me with varying degrees of anticipation. I speared myself a perfect piece with equal proportions of plum, crust, and cream and slipped it into my mouth.
The second I tasted the intoxicating morsel, I didn’t care who was watching me. I was somewhere else. The flavors summoned a memory, a fuzzy one that I couldn’t quite seem to grasp the details of. Even though I couldn’t recall what the memory was, I knew how it made me feel.
I had just met someone for the first time. Someone important to me. Someone I loved.
