A Love Song for Lucifer: An Enemies-to-Lovers Romance (Leading Ladies) Read online

  I grabbed a picture of the list of last names on the mailboxes on my way out. She has to be one of these, and the internet would quickly tell me which one.

  I call for Barb, my secretary, to come in.

  “Good Morning, Barb. Thanks for coming in early today.”

  “Part of the job, sir.” Barb says matter-of-factly, and she means it. Her no nonsense demeanor is a part of why my decision to hire her was so ingenious on my part. Barb Mavis is a mother of four kids who all grew up and flew the coop, and she decided to start working again. My H.R. Department was eager to dismiss her as a non-starter, but after dozens of assistants who would take any opportunity to “prove themselves” as some music industry savant instead of doing the actual job they were hired for, I grabbed onto Barb’s application like a lifeline.

  And it worked. She makes no charade about what she wants, she just likes the work day-to-day and buying herself expensive things with her hard earned money. When I’m being an asshole, she calls it like it is because she’s got nothing of grave importance to lose. If anything, Barb has become the hot commodity between us and I would do anything not to lose her.

  “I have a small sleuth job for you.” I pull out my phone and show her the mailboxes. “Would you mind searching all these last names with the first name ‘Melody’ until you find a pink-haired musical ingenue? I’ll send the picture over to you now.”

  “No problem, Mr. De la Roche. Is that all for now?” She insists on still addressing me like this, even though I’ve asked her repeatedly to call me Luc. I think she probably knows I secretly like it.

  “That’s it for now.” She nods in confirmation and heads out the door. “Wonderful new necklace though, Barb. Don’t think I didn’t notice.”

  She turns around with a smile, clutching the shimmering diamonds at her neck. “I figured I should buy myself what I really want before the holidays this year, so on Christmas morning I don’t get disappointed when my husband and kids present me with the vacuum they all pitched in to get.”

  I grin at this. “That’s the logic I hired you for. Which reminds me, schedule a time on Monday for us to discuss your Christmas bonus. Maybe you’ll want the matching earrings for that necklace?”

  This makes her grin even wider. “Oh, trust me, Mr. De la Roche, I do. Monday it is,” she says with a wink before she closes my office door.

  The morning passes quickly, mostly because I decided to not read any press about me. The bad press will be a double hit with the gossip magazines covering my break-up while the trade magazines will have written about the ruthless contract binge I finalized yesterday. I’ll let the P.R. Department come up with a plan of attack before I worry myself about all of it. Instead, I am devoting today to making sure none of the artists with cancelled contracts are trying to sue me while bolstering the confidence among the remaining artists so they know they have stability with De la Roche Records.

  So far, no lawsuits, but many insecure artists who did not get their contracts cut. As I finish an e-mail to the marketing department to request they amp up efforts for our current artists, Barb knocks on the door.

  It’s perfect timing because my next order of business is to order the gift I’ve decided I’ll send to Melody. Despite an impressive collection of instruments, I noticed she doesn’t have a lute, a string-instrument prized in France’s history. Sure, it might be a little forward to send a two thousand dollar instrument after knowing someone for only one night, but really it’s just an apology for puking in her apartment.

  “Here is Miss Greco’s file,” Barb announces, holding up a manilla folder with a company tab on it.

  I look at her with confusion. “Thanks, but you didn’t need to make a file for her, Barb. A simple name would have been sufficient.”

  She returns my look of confusion with her own.

  “Sir, I didn’t make the file. It already existed. Melody Greco had a contract with De la Roche Records.”

  I swallow hard. This must be some kind of misunderstanding.

  “Had a contract?” I ask hesitantly.

  “Yes, Mr. De la Roche. Before yesterday’s purge.” She used the word I had used, ‘purge’, to describe the mass cancelling of contracts, but after last night it sounds like an ironic jeer at me.

  “There must be some sort of confusion. Melody Greco? She has pink hair? Somewhere in her twenties?” I ask through a suddenly dry mouth.

  Barb opens the file and examines it, nods, and places it on my desk. “I believe this is the woman you’re looking for, but if it’s not, I’ll start my search again.”

  I open the folder and clipped to the back of the cover is a photo. There is no doubt it is the same Melody that cracked me open last night and made me come alive for the first time in a long time.

  Yet, I might have had trouble recognizing the girl in this photo if I hadn’t so obsessively studied the slopes and lines of her face. The girl in this photo has the most genuine beaming smile, almost infantile in its hope and joy. The Melody I met yesterday had a much more protected gaze, as if someone had taken that youthful naïveté and smashed it into a million pieces in front of her.

  And I have a sinking realization that ‘someone’, is me.

  CHAPTER SIX

  Melody

  “Since when do you have a handsome, businessman neighbor?” my little sister Julia looks at me from across the restaurant table with a sparkle in her eye. She’s still in high school but is eager to grow up, and there is no mistaking the fact that she is trying to expose my bad decision-making to our parents right now.

  “What are you talking about?” I feign ignorance, which is always the best option for my family.

  “There was a man that passed us on the way out that smelled like a distillery and strangely, an overwhelming amount of dill, almost like pickles,” my dad adds. I stifle a laugh. Hopefully, my shower got off my own matching “strange” smell.

  I lift one shoulder to pretend I’m bored by the conversation, “I don’t know everyone in my building yet.”

  “Okay, Mel,” my sister emphasizes my nickname. Crap, I forgot he used my name on the way out. My parents luckily don’t seem to notice.

  “Well, that is for the better since you might not be staying there for long,” my mom says, wasting no time making me feel horrible. Not on purpose, of course. She’s hoped that I would move back home before the devastating news of my contract being cancelled. Yet, the reality of her words reveals the deeper truth of my situation, and suddenly it might be my turn to barf up whiskey and pickle juice.

  “I’ll get another job. I’ll book double gigs. I’ll do whatever I have to do,” I say, fighting back tears. My contract cancellation isn’t only a devastation because of what I’m missing out on, but also because I thought my family finally didn’t need to worry about me anymore. I thought I had proven to them I would not be the starving artist they fear I will become. But clearly, their fear is very much still present. Hustling for gigs and making music in my free time has no guarantee of a steady income.

  “My girl,” my dad starts with tenderness in his voice. He’s always been a bit more gentle than my mom, but no less strict. They play good cop, bad cop, well. “You’re not a failure if you need to move back in. In fact, you’re so fortunate that your parents live in this city.”

  There it is. If my dad wants me to move home as well, then that should be all the verification I need that they are truly worried for me. He’s right that I’m lucky they live in Brooklyn. But my apartment is also where I make my music. When I moved into my own space, it allowed me to come into my own and express myself without being interrupted. I swallow down the anxious truth that pops to the surface but can’t face right now- that I am making music per se, but not the strong lyrics that I need to make me stand out. I’ve only been any good at creating instrumentals and hoping the lyrics come later. But they will never come if I live under my parents’ roof again.

  “You don’t want me home,” I try a different tactic. “I’
ve grown even more messy and much louder than the little girl you used to know. Do you want to wake up to me strumming the guitar at 6 A.M.?”

  “Yeah, and the room is my glam room now,” Julia adds. Glam room? I don’t have time to question what the hell a glam room is, and just nod my head in agreement as if this is an extremely important point.

  “Can you even pay next month’s rent?” My mom asks. “We can’t help you again.”

  It’s the ‘again’ that skewers me. I hate that they ever had to help me. Both of their parents, my grandparents, were immigrants and they had to fight for every single penny they have.

  “I’ll be able to,” I say with enough hesitance that I am almost admitting defeat. Luckily, the server unknowingly provides the perfect distraction from me as he drops our meals off at the table. The smell of my favorite lasagna brings me some much needed vitality.

  I use the moment to check my e-mail on my phone under the table as a last waning hope. Maybe I’ve heard from one of the booking agents I frantically reached out to yesterday about doing shows over the holidays. I could at least feed my parents some assurance with one of those morsels.

  No e-mails from the usual agents are in my box, but there is an e-mail from someone I don’t recognize with a strange title, ‘Lapland Booking’. I click on it with a desperate urgency.

  It’s a request to book me for a week at a hotel in northern Finland. The payment is considerably more than my standard rate. The only catch is that I would leave the day after Christmas, but that’s not too bad at all. Especially because that’s when the first payment would come in for the gig, taking care of my rent money. Of course, the other problem is that this seems too good to be true, and could be a scam. Whatever, I can figure that out later.

  “I’ll be able to when I get the payment for my big job at the end of the month,” I continue in my smoothest possible attempt, hoping they don’t realize this save just came from my inbox and for all I know is a spam e-mail to fleece my credit card information or even my kidney.

  “What big job?” My mom says through skeptical, narrowed eyes.

  “The day after Christmas I’m flying to Finland,” I deadpan as if this is the most natural sentence ever, “for a big gig at a hotel opening.”

  “All the way to where? And already on the day after Christmas? You’re going to be away from us on Christmas?” My mother’s eyes are big and dramatic now.

  “Mom, how many times do I have to say that the day after Christmas isn’t Christmas,” I sigh. This is a surprisingly prevalent conversation between us. Every time I so much as change out of my Christmas pajamas on the 26th, she takes it as a direct attack.

  “Plus, it pays well. So I’ll be set for at the next couple months,” my heart races at this news as I say it. If this booking is legit, then it is the miracle I need. It will give me enough of a cushion to spend time looking for a new record deal or at least finally finish the lyrics for a song. Hey, maybe the Finnish cold will even inspire me?

  “How long will you be gone? Can I use your apartment?” Julia pipes up.

  “If you get me a really nice Christmas present, I’ll think about it.”

  And at last, this is enough to steer the conversation away from me so I can finally dig into my lasagna in peace.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  Lucien

  I get off the phone with my driver, Mark, who confirmed that he delivered my present to Melody. It’s the morning of Christmas Eve, so I thanked him for his last duty of the year and wished him happy holidays.

  I’m sitting in my penthouse and supposed to be reading over contracts. Instead, I’ve been staring into the fireplace waiting for news about the delivery for a concerning amount of time. Along with the lute, I included a note explaining who I am- the man who recently cancelled her contract and likely crushed her dreams. It took me a couple days of deliberation, but ultimately I wanted to get ahead of her finding out some other way.

  After some more pathetic staring, I decide I can reach out to Melody, rather than hope she reaches out to me on the number I provided her. It isn’t a completely emotional decision. After all, if she forgives me she might not sue De la Roche Records for breach of contract. She would inevitably lose the lawsuit and with it, thousands of dollars, so I’m actually doing her a favor. And sure, I’ve thought about her eyes alight with passion and her body in nothing but her lace underwear far more times than I care to admit. But that’s just a bonus.

  There is a risk that when she finds out who I am, that sassy woman will disappear and she will become the malleable, people-pleaser that most people become when they glimpse a hint of power in the person they’re talking to. The thought makes me sick.

  I wait a little longer to see if she will contact me. Maybe she’ll call me gushing over how much she loves the lute as an addition to her instrument wall.

  Just sit and wait, looking over these contracts. No big deal. I’m sure any second now, I’ll hear from her.

  Oh, fuck it. If you want a job done, do it yourself. I pull up the number I got from her file on my phone.

  Me: Merry Christmas Eve, Mel.

  Melody: Is this Lucifer De la Roche? Because if it is, I’m blocking you.

  I can’t help but smirk at this. I can’t believe for a second that I thought her attitude might go away when she knows who I am.

  Me: As the note said, I’m really sorry about your contract. I didn’t know who you were when I met you.

  Three dots show that she’s typing and then stop. Crap. They start again and her text finally comes through.

  Melody: Let me be absolutely clear- I would never have invited you into my home if I knew who you were. You’re a callous and entitled heir who is clearly adiaphorous at best toward the soul of music. I want nothing to do with you.

  I shouldn’t be grinning even wider. She is probably furious, and what she is saying has a lot of truth to it.

  Me: Ah, so you got that clue in the New York Times crossword too? It was a tricky one. Tell the truth, did you know ‘adiaphorous’ before solving all the surrounding words?

  Melody: Go back to hell, Lucifer. Or maybe you don’t need to bother because no doubt the world you inhabit is just as soulless.

  I look around at my empty apartment, the place where I’ll be spending Christmas Eve and Christmas and actually feel the cut of her words. My father is off in the Cayman Islands with some random woman for the holidays. My mother and younger sister, Marie, are in France, which I couldn’t join because I need to finish work in New York before I leave on an investment-related vacation on the 26th. I invited them to join me on my upcoming trip, but they declined. Marie and I spent our childhood going back and forth from France and New York between our mother’s and father’s. Since we’ve become adults, it’s as if we’ve split into two families. They probably don’t want to spend time with me because all they see when they look at me is my father, and in that case, I don’t blame them for not wanting to spend a vacation with me. I wouldn’t want to spend a vacation with a facsimile of my father either.

  Melody: If you tell me why you cut my contract, I’ll delay blocking you.

  Me: Unfortunately, it’s more complicated than a simple text. I could explain it all to you if you let me take you to dinner.

  Melody: I would rather go on a date with the puke you left in my kitchen.

  Me: Awe, that’s sweet. You want to get to know all my parts, the good and the bad.

  Melody: I’m blocking you.

  Me: Wait, just hear me out.

  Melody: The number you are trying to contact does not exist.

  I pause, staring down at the text.

  Me: You just typed that in, didn’t you?

  No response. I wait, staring down at the screen. When three dots show up and I actually laugh out loud at her ridiculousness.

  Melody: Only until I figure out how to actually block you, which I will 100% be doing.

  Me: Okay, fine. But in the meantime, I’m going to send you links to all
of my favorite performances so you can fall desperately in love with our compatibility and my taste in music.

  She doesn’t respond, so I go to YouTube and begin copying and pasting the links to my favorite videos of live performances. I have an arsenal already ready because I’ve been thinking about what she might enjoy from the moment I saw her on stage. And fine, I checked out her YouTube page, which is mostly covers of other songs, but it made me realize that she enjoys a lot of the same music I do. I barrage her with songs that I consider the peak of music, as well as lesser known performances of the songs that we both seem to like.

  Finally, the cherry on top, if I say so myself, is sending a link of her own performance of “Wild World” from her YouTube page. I want her to know that I saw the description she wrote on the video remarking how this is one of her favorite songs of all time. It’s also the song I sang to her in her apartment. I had unknowingly serenaded her with one of her favorite songs. No wonder she practically tore her clothes off. What I don’t tell her is that it’s also one of my favorite songs. She doesn’t need to know that.