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My chest lightens as I take in the words. I have an interview. Maybe, if we actually manage to get out of this fucked up situation, I might have a future after all.
I hit reply, confirming my attendance. It’s tomorrow. Too little time to prepare, but Mercier will be back to babysit by the appointment time, so that’s one inconvenience I don’t have to worry about.
All the work I’d planned, filling in applications and tweaking my resume is no longer needed because Letterman International was my number one choice and I’m planning on acing the interview. Letterman International only takes two interns a year to its fast track management plan, and I plan on being one of them. The little problem with Lucinda Waldgrave isn’t going to fuck up my life.
After hitting send, I open a browser and type in Peter Waldgrave. What I find doesn’t inspire me with confidence. My only experience of kidnapping comes from movies and in those, the good guys always win. And, in no definition of the word, can I count the three of us as good guys. We’re the men that get shot at the end or fall off a fifty story building, making way for the hero to kiss the girl in a blaze of glory before the end credits scroll up. In this story, there’s no hero and I’ll be damned before anyone is kissing the girl. As if she knows I’m thinking about her — again, she opens the door to the bathroom and parades out in only a white towel. My mouth goes dry at the sight of her and anger builds in my chest. Gone is the make-up and slutty dress, but her brown eyes remain. Her black hair is plastered to her face. My cock twitches at the sight of her. She’s no longer the hot hooker that stepped into the shower, but she’s not the innocent angel either. She’s landed somewhere deliciously in the middle. She’s fucking breathtaking. I’ve never known any woman to be such an enigma. Fury burns at the casual way she walks around, half naked and at the fact I’m hard just watching her. I don’t fucking want her. I can’t. One distraction and we are toast, the whole fucking lot of us, her included. As if she can read my mind, she lets the towel fall to the floor, exposing her perfect body. She’s so blasé. Maybe it comes from years of exposing herself to photographers or maybe she’s a fucking cock tease, but I can’t fall. I can’t turn into some sad asshole moping over her or lose my shit over her like Mercier seems to have done. I’m a fucking professional business man, for Christ’s sakes. I can reign myself in and not act like the horny teenager I suddenly feel like.
“Get the fuck dressed.” I mutter. She jumps slightly as though she didn’t know I was still here. What the fuck is wrong with this woman? One minute she’s using weaponized nudity and the next she’s what? Scared? She puts Mercier to shame in the crazy department.
Maybe it was a mistake telling Mercier to treat her as a glass princess. This woman needs fucking breaking.
18
LUCINDA
I take solace in the characters I know so well. Men and women on the TV that are as familiar as my own kin to me. Unlike these men, I know them. I know what they will say and do, but after two days of living with these strangers, first with Mercier and then with Dacre, I find myself listening to other sounds in the apartment. I follow the sound Dacre makes as he paces the apartment and listen into the hushed calls. Unlike Mercier, he ignores me. Since he forced me to change into his mother’s dress, the atmosphere in the apartment has been thick with tension. I don’t know what he’s capable of. Mercier scared the hell out of me, but this is almost worse. I can practically feel the anger flooding from him and yet I don’t know what I’ve done wrong. It was their decision to bring me here. They could have let me go. It’s becoming increasingly apparent to me that, that’s not going to happen. I’m naïve in a lot of ways, but I’m not naïve enough to think that they’ll do what I asked them to. When my father returns to the US, I’ll be handed over, and they’ll all be in for a rude awakening when my father doesn’t hand a cent over to them. It would almost be funny if it wasn’t for the fact that whatever fate will come to them, mine will be an infinite amount worse. I’m a fucking embarrassment to my father. An inconvenience. A nobody. And unless he can figure a way to spin all this negative media coverage, I’m also in the most danger I’ve ever been in my life. Dacre, Mercier and Nix might think they are badasses, but compared to my father they are rays of sunshine. So why is it they petrify me? Every time Dacre walks near me, my body tenses. He’s made it extremely clear that he hates the sight of me and in my experience, when a man hates you, he can find creative ways to get rid of you. I wait until he steps out onto the terrace, then stand up from the sofa. The sofa and my bedroom are the only places in the whole apartment that I feel safe. I know them both. I know the steps from the bedroom to the bathroom and I know the sofa is where I can surround myself in normality, but if I ever want to escape these men, I need to pull my shit together and learn about them. Mercier was crazy, but pretty easy to read. The guy has absolutely no filter and does what he likes. Dacre is different. He’s quieter, only speaking when he absolutely has to. Since arriving, he’s barely said more than two words to me. He likes control and having a blind woman in his house takes away that control he so desperately craves. After standing, I take a few paces toward the front door. I know exactly how many steps to freedom. I counted when he hauled me off the sofa and threw me out. Even under duress, do I count. It’s the only knowledge I have. When Dacre doesn’t immediately come running, I venture closer to the door. My heart rate increases with each step. It’s such a small thing to walk from one part of an apartment to another, but it feels like a monumental task. Something both thrilling and terrifying at the same time. I take in the shape and texture of the back of the sofa and the feel of the carpet beneath my feet. Neither of these things would be significant to most people, but to me they are clues, markers on a journey. They are my map and my fingers are my eyes. Letting my fingers trail off the back of the sofa, I untether myself. Now my feet have to do the work. I count the steps again. One. Two. Three. Four. My feet leave the carpet and touch cold tile. I’m glad I’ve taken off the boots Mercier forced me to wear. The feel of the flooring helps me build out my mental map. It also means that I make very little sound as I pad across to the front door.
After feeling for the lock, I twist in and yank on the door. It opens and I find myself stuck between being trapped by the three men or being trapped out of fear. I know in front of me is an entrance hall and to the right is an elevator. All I have to do is step out and I’m free. The whole world is out there, my freedom along with it. All I have to do is take the first step. I take in a deep breath to calm my pounding heart. It’s not like I haven’t been out here before. Only a couple of hours ago, I was forced out here. I know there is a table to my left. The earthy smell has already gone, replaced with the same floral scent as the apartment. I know I won’t find the remnants of the pot plant I knocked to the ground. For ten minutes after Mercier left, Dacre cleaned the mess up. That’s what I am to Dacre. A mess to be cleaned. Something to be dealt with. A means to an end. It’s with that in my mind that I take the first step to freedom. My exhilaration is brought to a quick end when the elevator door pings and then the doors open with a faint whoosh.
I stand petrified, thoughts of my father and his men rushing toward me. My heart turns to ice as a pair of hard footsteps approach and come to a stop in front of me.
“Ms.? Should you be here?”
It’s a man’s voice. I don’t recognize it. I don’t know how to answer him. My throat closes up.
“Are you a friend of Mr. Dacre’s?”
I know I should answer. It’s such a simple question, and yet I can’t get my vocal chords to work.
“She’s with me.” Dacre’s firm hand lands on my shoulder and squeezes it tightly. I clamp my lips shut to stop from crying out. “She’s my cousin. She’s visiting for a few days. What do you want?”
I can tell by his tone that I’m going to be punished for this.
“I have a package. I usually bring things up for your parents. Would you prefer I take it back?”
Dacre leans forward, and as he does, his arm presses into my back. “I’ll take it, but in the future, leave all packages at the front desk. I’ll pick them up myself. I don’t want anyone else up here. Do you understand?”
“Yes, Mr. Dacre sir.”
The elevator doors whoosh open again and the doorman leaves along with my chance at escape. As Dacre hauls me back into the apartment, my mind runs through what would have happened if I’d have just told the doorman the truth. I wouldn’t have to deal with these men anymore, but he would have probably called the police. Who wouldn’t? With a two million dollar reward ready for the claiming, he’d be on the phone to my father in the time it takes for the elevator to reach the ground floor. Oh yeah, that’s right. My father is currently uncontactable because he’s in another country. His daughter is missing, feared dead, and he’s gone on vacation.
The door slams shut, taking me out of the thoughts of my father.
Dacre spins me around. I feel his hot breath on my face. His anger’s practically rolling off him in waves. “What the fuck do you think you are playing at? Do you want us to get caught?”
I don’t know if he expects an answer. My throat is co constricted, I’m not sure I’ll be able to give him one if I wanted to.
“Just because you don’t look like yourself anymore doesn’t mean people are stupid. He must have seen that you are blind. Maybe the world doesn’t know about your blindness now, but it only takes one word from your father to the press. All it takes is for the concierge to put two and two together and we’ll get thrown into jail.” His anger is palpable and in any other circumstance laughable. Doesn’t he know my father at all? My father would rather die than admit any kind of weakness and he’d rather me die than admit I’m not the perfect daughter. I won’t be thrown in jail. I’ll be thrown somewhere much worse. Still, Dacre doesn’t want to hear about what will happen to me, not when he’s so fixated on his own issues.
“Are you fucking mute as well as blind?”
I exhale shakily. “I just wanted to know what it felt like to be free. I wasn’t planning on running away,” I lie. I still don’t know if I’d have mustered up the courage to get into the elevator and run if the doorman hadn’t happened to step out of it. I’m not safe in this apartment, but heading out into the unknown with no money and no one to help me brings on a terror I can barely comprehend. And yet if I don’t, these men will throw back to my father, which is far worse. I have no options. I literally don’t know anything about where I am. I’m completely at these guy’s mercy and surely they know it? A change of appearance doesn’t change the fact that I’ve swapped one kind of prison for another. Dacre talked of prison as a vague place, but I’ve lived in one my whole life. A beautiful gilded prison of wealth and abuse. And now I’m in another kind of prison and Dacre is the prison guard. I pull myself from his grip and walk across to the kitchen, counting the steps as I go. I feel along the cupboards, opening one, hoping it’s the right one. This morning, Mercier made me eggs benedict, but he had a bowl of cereal first. I made note of the sounds, so I have a pretty good idea where the cereal and the bowls are kept. I reach out and feel for a box. I have no way of knowing what cereal is inside as I pull it out, but I don’t care. My stomach has been rumbling for hours.
“You’ve not eaten since you got here,” I say, placing the cereal on the counter. I open the drawer in front of me, pulling out two spoons. Dacre is silent. I don’t know if he’s still by the front door where I left him or if he’s moved closer. Unlike Mercier who made noise wherever he went, Dacre is like a ghost, floating silently from one place to the next, only being heard when he wants to be. I busy myself with getting the bowls and the milk. From the outside, I must look like I know what I’m doing, but inside, my heart is pounding wildly. When he touches my hand, I drop the spoons with a clatter onto the counter.
“You’re so scared of me.”
Why wouldn’t I be? I thought he would be the nicer of the three of them, but he’s proved me wrong. He’s treated me with disdain from the second he walked through the door earlier. The only reason I’m making my own cereal is because in the hours he’s been here, he’s not thought to offer me food or drink. At least Mercier did that.
