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“How do you like your steak cooking?” I shout out to her, loud enough so she can hear me over the bickering lovebirds on the show she’s watching... listening to.
She turns her head in my direction, missing me slightly with her eyes. I can’t get enough of them.
Confusion is written over her beautiful features. “I don’t know?”
“Rare? Medium rare? Please don’t say well done.” I shudder at the thought.
“I’ll have it the way you have it,” she finally says before turning back to her show. Now I’m confused. It was a simple question and yet she looked at me as though I’d just thrown out a surprise pop quiz in chemistry class.
Nix is right. There’s something strange about her. Now, I’m the first to admit, I don’t usually get the chance to hang out with celebrities. Nix and Dacre are the closest to celebrities that I know, but she’s something else entirely.
I watch as she reaches forward, running her fingers along the edge of the table until she comes to the remote. She presses a number, changing the channel to another one with more crappy soap operas. She didn’t flick through, waiting to hear what was on each channel. How is it, a world famous supermodel and actress knows what time and channel each soap is on?
She holds herself as though she’s never been in front of a camera in her life, but she acts as though she’s been blind much longer than the three months she obviously has. Nix said it was probably her father that hit her so hard, causing her to lose her sight, but how would that affect her eye color? I begin to season the steaks as she once again settles back into the sofa. Now another couple bicker. She really has a thing for watching fictional characters fight amongst themselves, or maybe she enjoys the makeup sex after. Do they do that on soap operas?
“Hey, Sinful, Can I ask you a personal question?”
She doesn’t even bother to turn my way.
“Lucinda,” I try again. This time she turns to me, her eyebrows raised slightly. She’s on edge every time I call her. It’s delightful. “Can I ask you a personal question?”
She looks at me as though she’d rather jump off the terrace, but she nods her head.
“How long have you been blind?”
I can almost see the cogs whirring in her mind. She’s so full of expression that it’s almost as though she doesn’t know how her face works. It’s like reading a book. A really fucking confusing one. She’d be shit at poker.
“Not long.”
A vague answer. “How did it happen? Your eyesight, I mean.”
“I er... It was an infection.”
Unlike her, I happen to be excellent at poker, and I can sniff out a lie when I hear one. She’s been full of secrets since she walked through the door. Nix is right to be wary. Not that I care one way or another about the bullshit she spouts. If she thinks lying to me will protect her, she’s more naïve than she looks. And for a multi-million dollar supermodel-cum-actress-cum-socialite, she looks and acts like an innocent angel. It’s a delicious combination. Oh, I love the push and pull of a ballsy chick, but this doe eyed beauty has me ensnared precisely because of her angelic demeanor.
She’s a devil wrapped in angel’s skin or is it the other way round? I’m not entirely sure, and what I have planned for her will change all of that, anyway. You don’t want to be Lucinda anymore? Leave it to me. I’ll make you forget every angelic thought you ever had.
14
LUCINDA
Josh scares me the most, but Mercier comes in a close second. I understand why Josh hates me. He thinks I did something to him years ago and has been nursing a grudge ever since. Mercier is plain strange.
His line of questions has me on edge. I thought I’d put the TV on loud enough so he wouldn’t bother me, but he shouted for me, anyway.
The way he calls me Sinful makes me shiver. He’s taken Josh’s name for me and somehow made it even worse. At least Dacre said he’d address me as Lucinda, but in truth I don’t like that either. I don’t want to be Lucinda any more than I want to be Sin or Sinful, but if I’m none of those names, who am I? I’m not sure I know anymore. I feel like I’m losing my mind. Everything is new and the only thing I have to cling to are the characters in my soaps. They are the only thing keeping me grounded and stopping me from having a full blown panic attack. I know what these men think of me. They think they know me, but they don’t. They only see what the media has convinced them I am and I’m not the woman they think I am. Even I don’t know who I really am anymore, so how can I expect them to?
“Come sit up here, Sinful.”
I cringe as he calls me that name again. I lean forward on the couch and hope he thinks I’ve not heard him. I don’t want to have to answer any more questions. My ankle still hurts from where Josh dropped me on it earlier, but that’s not the reason I don’t want to walk over to him. He’s so alien to me and I’m not sure how to act around him. The TV took the edge off and leaving its safety is like leaping off the Titanic without a life belt.
“Come on Sinful,” he taunts. His thick accent has gone and now he sounds exactly like one of the characters in the show I’m watching. It’s the second time I’ve heard him change his voice. It’s so close to the actor’s voice, it’s almost as if he’s in the room with us.
“Sinful, Sinful,” he sings. “I have food. You can help me cook.”
I’m so hungry. The eggs I ate earlier barely filled a hole. It’s clear he’s not going to let me get away with pretending he doesn’t exist, so I ease myself off the couch and touch my foot to the floor gingerly. A sharp pain shoots up my leg, causing me to wince. I have to hold the arms of the sofa to push myself up into a standing position. I grit my teeth as I hobble over to Mercier.
“There you go. I knew you’d want to come help. Here, can you chop these carrots?”
