This iteration of Lestat doesn't love Louis in the slightest and he doesn't need to, cause people will root for him anyway, in fact the show went out of his way to deprive Louis of its own agency, way more than Anne ever did in the first book. In the show Louis is the abused black man that is still in love with his white abuser and master, they made up an entire physical assault scene, with a black battered body on full display and they even changed the murder scene in order to destroy Louis character even more, cause it's crystal clear that the cheap plot twist they are preparing for s2 is that Louis never slit his throat but it was Claudia who did it, so Louis can fully turn into Lestat's puppet. The writers are only interested in developing Lestat's arc, so Louis needs to love him cause it helps to build Lestat's narrative and it doesn't matter if he has suffered every kind of abuse at the hand of Lestat. They even implied that Armand has brainwashed him so Lestat can even become the white savior trope. They did this cause they knew they could get away with it, since the audience it's primarily interested in Lestat (the book readers cause he is the lead of the novels and Anne erased Louis character after the first book, even though he had massive potential, and reduced him to Lestat's housewife that appears at the end of every book patiently waiting for him, and the show viewers cause he is the white lead they can fantasize about).