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Mercier stands and moves to the door. “She’s not yours, Nix. If anything, she belongs to all of us. You might have had her in the past, but you were kids. There’s an expiration date on claiming pussy. You are way past claiming her for yourself. Besides, yesterday, you were adamant that it wasn’t even Lucinda.”
“Yeah, I was wrong,” I bark back. “She is Lucinda, and that makes her mine.”
Mercier squares up to me, eye to eye. He’s ripped, but not as bulky as I am. Metal decorates both eyebrows, his nose and in all parts of his ears. His eyes never quite sit still, as though there’s a lot going on behind them all the fucking time. It makes him hard to read sometimes. “No, Nix, it doesn’t.” He points a finger into my chest. “She was yours. Past tense. She’s fair game now.” He slams the door behind him. If she wasn’t awake before, she certainly is now. I wouldn’t put it past the bitch to be pretending to sleep so she doesn’t have to look at Mercy’s sorry dick, fwapping away. Oh yeah, I forgot. She’s blind now.
Blind.
I take the now empty chair and watch as she stretches. It’s all very theatrical. So she was feigning sleep. Her eyes stun me as she opens them wide. I’ll never get over the pale blue of them. They are unworldly, like those of a snow fox. She flicks them over to me, missing the mark by only a fraction of an inch. It’s like her dreams haven’t quite left her yet. I cannot let her get under my skin any more than she already is. I will not let her in.
“Who are you, and don’t give me any shit? I know you aren’t Lucinda.” I don’t know if that’s true, but I’m willing to bet that she’s hiding a whole heap of bullshit under that perfect exterior. She’s a fucking demon wrapped in an angel’s skin. I can’t trust her. I did that once, and it fucking destroyed me. I won’t make the same mistake again.
“I’m Lucinda Alexandria Stephanie Julia Winscote Waldgrave.”
I grip the cushion beneath me, to stem the anger coursing through me. “Fuck you.” Anyone could find out her full name. It’s been printed enough times in the magazines. It’s like she’s parroting something she’s read, but... she can’t read. Or at least she can’t if she isn’t Lucinda and has always been blind. Then I remember she said she wrote a fake ransom note. How the fuck does a blind person do that? Nothing about this adds up. Not a goddamned thing, but I won’t let her get the better of me again. She’ll either tell me the truth or I’ll find ways to hurt her until she’s begging me to listen to her.
“Fuck you too,” she parrots back. Now that is something Lucinda would say, but this girl says it in a much softer voice. Lucinda wouldn’t be scared of me. She never was, but it’s clear this person, whoever she is, is terrified. Her whole body is shaking. I commend her on her bravery. Not many people dare stand up to me. At six four and with a jacked body covered in tattoos, most people cross to the other side of the street when I’m walking toward them, and that’s only the ones that don’t know me. The ones that do know me know not to be on the same fucking street when I’m around. Her small rebellion has my mouth quirking up and I hate that it does. I’m not a game player. Games are for chumps or people like Mercier who thrive off that shit.
“Don’t fuck me around. I know Lucinda.” I stand and move over to her. Her breath hitches as I get close. I thought I’d been silent in my movement, but she catches me. Up close, she’s utterly perfect. Her skin is lighter than I remember and blemish free. Lucinda had a smattering of freckles that always came out in the sun. This girl doesn’t look like she’s ever seen the sun. She’s so pale. Almost unearthly so. She’s sitting on the edge of the bed, bare feet on the floor, long blonde hair cascading over her ratty t-shirt. Even in two-day-old clothes that she’s slept in, she’s a vision of perfection. I can’t help but imagine those perfect pink lips on my cock. It would be so easy to unzip. She’s at around the right height in her position on the bed. She wouldn’t even have to move much. She gazes up at me, a look of defiance in her eyes. Jesus. It would be so easy to push my cock into her face and swipe that innocent look from her. Lucinda Waldgrave is anything but innocent, but she really plays the part well. Even staring at me the way she is, her mouth set in a grim line, she looks untouched. Perfect. I throw away the idea of spreading those lips of hers wide, and kneel on the floor in front of her. Her eyes follow mine. She’s good at knowing exactly where I am. It’s disconcerting. I inch myself forward until I’m face to face with her. It’s like looking into the ocean. I feel like I’m being haunted by a living specter.
“If you are Lucinda Waldgrave,” I grind out, “what’s my name?”
She doesn’t answer. Bitch doesn’t know it. Lucinda couldn’t forget my name any more than I could forget hers. Fucking lying bitch.
“Joshua William Nix.” Her voice is almost a whisper. “The third.”
I storm across the room and leave, slamming the door behind me. Mercier is in the open-plan kitchen making eggs. “Did you tell her my name? My full name?”
He looks up from the pan and cocks an eyebrow. “Right before I jerked off, you mean? Or after? Funnily enough, I don’t howl out your name when I come.”
I give him a death stare before turning my eyes to Dacre. “You?”
Dacre looks up from behind a copy of the Financial Times that’s most definitely his fathers. “Nope. Is this about you thinking she’s someone else again?”
Fuck. I tighten my hands into fists. “Why is it I feel like I’m being played here?”
“It’s a pretty convincing game she’s playing if that’s what she’s actually doing,” Dacre says, holding up yet another magazine. Lucinda is on the cover of this one too. “She looks the same. She is the same. Look at her, Nix.”
I know the photo well. This isn’t the only magazine cover it’s been on. For weeks after the Academy Awards, I couldn’t go to any supermarket without her staring down at me from the magazine racks in a skin tight see through dress, nipples barely covered for the whole world to look at. She’s smiling at the camera, confidence oozing from the photo and a promise in her expression. An invitation to the viewer. Mercier isn’t the first to jerk off to her and he won’t be the last.
Anger ticks at me at the sight of it. I grab the magazine in my fist and turn it around. “Maybe you should look at it,” I spit back. “Does this woman look anything like that bitch in there?”
Dacre shrugs. “Apart from the fact she’s identical, you mean? I suppose she’s a bit thinner than she was. Obviously, the eyes are a different shade of blue. Contacts?”
“She’s fucking blind!” I don’t know how to get them to understand that the girl in the bedroom looks just like Lucinda, but she’s different in other ways. Intangible ways. Neither of them met her all those years ago. They only know the version of her that everyone sees. The perfect model with her perfect fucking face and perfect body and perfectly fucking perfect life. They don’t know the girl that used to love running barefoot in the grass. The girl that got pleasure from the simple things, despite her enormous wealth. They don’t know the way she used to look at me as though I was the answer to all her problems.
“Unless she’s faking it,” Dacre replies in a bored tone.
My fist tightens further as Lucinda Waldgrave’s perfect image scrunches up in my fist. “She’s not faking blindness,” I huff out. “She’s faking her identity.”
Dacre tosses the Financial Times to one side, walks over to me, and claps me on the shoulder. “Think about it for a second. The girl doesn’t want to be found. She doesn’t want any money. Why would she pretend to be Lucinda when she knows you hate her? Surely, if she was someone else, she would just tell us and be on her way?”
I don’t know. I can’t think of a single reason that anyone would pretend to be Lucinda. Not in the position she’s in anyway. Lucinda wasn’t kidnapped. She ran. She finally left her abusive bastard father. She wouldn’t want to go back, but any girl in the world would want to be Lucinda Waldgrave. She’s rich, she’s famous, she’s the most beautiful woman on the planet according to the magazines that publish her. Lucinda Waldgrave has the whole damned world at her feet and clamoring for her pussy. She could have anything she wants. But this girl wants her freedom.
Well, bad luck, sweetheart, because that’s the one thing I’m not prepared to give.
When I go back in the room, I find her sitting in the same position. She visibly blanches as I walk in. Lucinda wouldn’t do that. Lucinda would hold my stare defiantly. Lucinda Waldgrave cowers for no one. She never did. Even in her youth, she had a strength that fascinated me, especially with the shit her father put her through. This girl fascinates me for other reasons.
I take a long hard look at her and try to be objective, taking out the memories of the summer we had together as kids.
