“Are you caressing his stomach?” Melanie asked as she took another picture.

“No!” Rebecca snapped a little too quickly as she forced her hand to ignore temptation and remain still.

“Uh huh,” the traitorous bitch said, snapping yet another picture.

“Are you done yet?” she asked, acting like she could care less that she’d just been caught groping her boss.

“No,” Melanie said with a shake of her head as she continued to take pictures.

“Evil bitch,” Rebecca muttered as she pulled away from Lucifer and sat up.

“Umm, his hand is still on your ass,” Melanie pointed out with a slight nod and another freaking picture!

Blinking, she looked down and yup, there was his hand, curled around her ass. She looked back up at the duo, who looked like they’d just won the lottery and said, “Can you blame him? It’s a really nice ass.”

Melanie nodded as she solemnly agreed, “It really is.”

“I don’t think I’ve ever been happier,” Aidan said with a smile that said it all.

Lucifer was probably going to kill him before the day was over.

“Why don’t we get this over with?” she suggested as she climbed off the bed and headed towards the living room, knowing that there was no point in trying to put this off any longer, especially since she already knew how this was going to end.

*-*-*-*

“Do the tests again!” a woman screamed, waking him up from the first nap he’d taken since he was a kid.

“No!” Lucifer heard his brother yell as he rolled over onto his back and rubbed his hands down his face, wondering what time it was.

“Do them again!”

“No!”

“They’re wrong! Do them again!”

“No! Oh, my God, stop going for my nipples!” Aidan screamed, hitting all the high notes and making Lucifer shake his head in disgust as he reluctantly got up and headed for the living room where all the screaming was coming from.

“What the hell’s going on in here?” he asked as he stepped into the living room.

“Take it back!” Melanie demanded as she gave up her hold on his brother’s nipples and decided that the best approach to making him change his mind was to start throwing pillows, blankets and basically everything soft enough that it wouldn’t leave a mark at his brother’s head.

“What the hell is wrong with you?” Aidan demanded as he tried to duck out of the way of an extra firm pillow.

Many things, Lucifer thought with a yawn, admittedly already bored with the scene before him. He shifted his attention to the woman sitting on the couch, looking as though she’d just been hit by a freight train. Fucking Aidan, he thought walking over to the fridge and grabbed two Cokes. He’d given his brother one fucking job and he’d fucked it up miserably.

She was sick. Anyone with two working eyes could see that, but these fucking doctors didn’t know how to do their fucking jobs. He’d thought that his brother was the exception, but he’d been wrong, because there she sat on the couch with her arms wrapped around her indrawn knees, looking completely broken.

“Nice job, asshole,” he said as he passed his brother, deciding that he’d deal with him later.

“Are you going to help me?” Aidan demanded, sounding desperate as Melanie continued with her attack.

“No,” he said, already dismissing his brother’s cry for help as he sat down on the couch next to Rebecca and handed her a Coke.

Without a word, she took the Coke. She popped the top and took a sip as he did the same. What the hell was he supposed to say to her? He’d promised her answers and nothing had changed. They still didn’t have any idea what was causing her to be sick and worst of all, she probably believed whatever bullshit his brother had told her.

“I’m sorry, Rebecca,” he said when he couldn’t figure out anything else to say to her. She didn’t respond as she sat there, taking another sip so he didn’t say anything else.

“The tests were wrong!” Melanie yelled as she gave up throwing pillows at his brother and settled on beating him with a particularly fat throw pillow.

“Look,” Aidan said, looking just as pissed and taking Lucifer by surprise, because he couldn’t remember a time when his normally easygoing brother lost his cool. “I ran the tests myself and I even had my father double check the results. You may not like them, but they’re accurate. So, get the fuck off my back!”

Melanie opened her mouth, no doubt to tell his brother where he could shove those tests, but Lucifer had had enough. “Get out.”

Melanie snorted at that. “This is my apartment, buddy. I’m not going anywhere,” she said, but one look from him had her rolling her eyes, calling him an asshole and dragging Aidan out the door behind her.

Within seconds they were alone and Rebecca still hadn’t said anything, making him wonder how badly he’d fucked up. It looked like his tenth grade science teacher had been right, he really was the devil reincarnated. He should have never stuck his fucking nose where it didn’t belong. She’d accepted things the way they were, but he hadn’t been able to let them go. He had to push her into doing something that she didn’t want all because he had to know the truth and now look at her.

Broken, depressed and-

“I have Celiac’s disease,” she said with a watery smile that quickly disappeared as she lost it.

“Christ,” he swore, reaching over and pulling the sobbing woman closer so that he could wrap his arms around her and hold her while she cried.

“It’s not in my head,” she said, wrapping her arms around him and holding him tight. “It’s not in my head!” she cried on a broken laugh as he sat there, smiling, holding her tightly and not really giving a damn that he had absolutely no idea what Celiac’s disease was, not while she was holding onto him like this.

“Thank you, Christopher,” she whispered as she pressed a soft kiss against his cheek and it was in that moment that he realized that he really didn’t mind being called by his real name.

Well, he didn’t mind when she called him Christopher, but if anyone else called him that he would make them wish they’d never been born.

Chapter 12

He needed to leave before she died of humiliation. Then again, if he so much as thought about taking his hand away from her stomach she was going to have to kill him, she decided as she lay on the couch, breathing slowly through her mouth as her stomach continued its violent assault, threatening to send her running for the bathroom or a trash can.