Wishing Well

by Lily White

  “Of course, Mr. Mercier. Do you know her size?”

  “Unfortunately, no,” I admitted, “although, I’d guess she’s at least five foot, ten inches, thin, but curvy. I wish I had more to offer in description, but...”

  ...but her baggy hoodie hadn’t given me an adequate peek to guess much more...

  The woman smiled. “In that case, why don’t we look at a few sheath dresses? As long as we get the length correct, the fit is loose enough to work for many bodies. We won’t need exact measurements to select one.”

  It took less than thirty minutes to select an emerald green dress that would compliment Penny’s hair. Purchase made, I returned to the employee hall to find her crouched against a wall, much like she’d been in the alley when I saw her from the cafe window.

  “Are you ready to go to your room?”

  Shrugging again, she stood to her full height. “Yeah, I guess. What’s in the bag?”

  Resisting the need to roll my eyes at her tone of voice, I held the bag out for her to take. “I bought you something to wear to dinner. The saleswoman told me it should fit.”

  Quickly glancing in the bag, Penny’s eyes rounded, a sneer curling her mouth. “This isn’t exactly something I would normally wear. Didn’t they have anything less...slutty?”

  Patience is a virtue. My mother had always reminded me of that before she passed away when I was seven. I repeated the phrase now in an attempt not to snap at Penny’s lack of gratitude.

  “I’m sure we could have found something to your tastes, but I don’t have your size. This should work for now.”

  “Okay,” she mumbled, obviously unconvinced.

  Ignoring her, I led her to a service elevator and pressed the button for her floor. We were at her door within a minute. “Here is your keycard. I’ll give you time to shower and get dressed. Will a half hour be sufficient?”

  Penny shifted her weight from one foot to the other, the shopping bag swinging beneath her elbow where it was hooked. “I guess so.”

  Forcing another smile, I had to fight not to correct her behavior. Understanding she was young, reminding myself I’d plucked her from the streets specifically for this challenge, I forced a smile. “Very well. Enjoy your shower.”

  I walked way before could respond, and as I stood at the elevator waiting for the doors to open, I glanced back to find her staring at me. Without bothering to say a word, I walked into the elevator, desperate to take the car up to my suite on the sixth floor and change into clean, dry clothes. It wasn’t until the doors had closed that I released a sigh and wondered what it would take to train this particular girl to behave properly.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Faiville Prison, 10:08 a.m.

  “You’re lying already.”

  Meadow shifted her position in the chair to lean forward and fold her arms over the surface of the table, her eyes locking to Vincent’s, daring him to argue. Instead, a wolfish grin split his lips. Imitating her posture, he slipped forward, his shackles rattling as he placed his arms on the table.

  “And what makes you so sure of that, Meadow?” The rolling lilt of his voice was heavier, his intention to seduce plain on every syllable, in the depth of his tone.

  Refusing to respond to the challenge he’d presented, Meadow answered, “Penny told the story differently. I’ve read her diary, memorized every word, in fact. I’ve practically slept with it under my pillow. I know your games, Vincent, and I won’t be played by them.”

  “Is that so?” Like a serpent lingering in the sunlit grass, he wrapped his soothing voice around her, his legs stretching further beneath the table until his foot brushed hers. Meadow pulled her legs tighter to her chair, ignoring the wider grin that graced his features.

  “Let’s start with what you did to her in that alleyway,” she argued, “when you grabbed her ankle. When you hurt her, and laughed about it.”

  Slowly, he blinked, his bedroom eyes heavy, his stare unwavering. “Did she write that? Did she remember the first time I took pleasure in her pain? It was just a small test, so tiny that I wasn’t sure she’d noticed it at all. In fact,” he proposed, his fingers flaring out in a dramatic sweep, “I would have assumed she didn’t notice.”

  Leaning closer, he lowered his voice impossibly deeper, “What kind of woman would be hurt by a stranger and still follow him to his home?”

  When Meadow didn’t answer, when her anger was so thick that she couldn’t formulate one word in defense, he leaned away, making himself comfortable before guessing, “A woman who enjoys torment. That’s who. Penelope had a secret she kept hidden. I would say not even you knew of her need for pain, but then you’ve already admitted your twin and yourself are one in the same.”

  The teasing hint of wicked pleasure laced his words. “Tell me, Meadow, would you have followed me as well?”

  “No,” she answered succinctly, “but Penny was desperate wasn’t she? She was homeless, starving, stuck outside in the cold rain with no clothes but those she wore, and no hope of escape from the life she’d fallen into. She was the perfect target for a viper like you, a girl who couldn’t say no.”

  His lips curled. “They can always say no, Chérie . The difference in this case is that she didn’t want to.”

  Matching his grin, Meadow said, “My name is Meadow. You can refer to me as such.”

  “Is it?” He retorted, the question rolling from his lips with affection. “You’ll have to excuse me, sometimes terms of endearment tend to slip. You remind me so much of Penelope - like a mirror, really, only without the pain I remember in her eyes.”

  Her gaze traced the line of his lips, her hands clenching into fists over the surface of the table. Pulling them into her lap so as to keep Vincent from easily spotting the visible signs of what she was feeling, she relaxed in her seat, made it appear as if she were unaffected, even while her heart hammered and her pulse fluttered just beneath her skin. “Let’s talk about the second lie you’ve told. Specifically, Émilie.”

  Vincent’s brows arched just enough for her to know she’d regained his attention.

  “You claimed that she merely approached you in the hall when you first walked Penny into the building, but Penny wrote that it occurred differently. What she saw in the greeting between the two of you led her to believe you were involved romantically, that she had nothing to worry about because your sights were set on somebody else. At the time, I’m sure Penny believed the encounter meant nothing, but knowing what I now know, having dissected this story every day of my life since I received her diary, I believe that encounter was calculated, that your behavior with Émilie was intentional. From the beginning, you were attempting to delude my sister into believing you were safe, that you were merely a benevolent employer who wished to help a stray girl off the streets.”

  He was regal, this man, truly intoxicating, regardless of whether he made the effort. Even at that moment, Meadow found herself looking away as if to break some secretive spell he’d weaved around her, needed to distance herself in order not to feel like she was a moon orbiting his space. She knew women flocked to him, knew that even some men had been unable to deny the lure Vincent cast. Memories like film reels played in her head, the words of the diary whispering across her thoughts.

  Taking his time, Vincent ran his eyes along the line of her jaw, dropped them lower to follow the length of her neck, to sweep them over the curve of her shoulder. Tender and provocative, just his gaze was a lover’s touch, fingertips teasing the skin, a warm breath drawing goosebumps from her body.

  “Émilie was too easy, you see? I’d hired her straight from the Parisian streets, had taken pity on her desire to travel despite her mother’s illicit choice of profession and dreary lack of funds. She told me her mother had died and left her nothing except the knowledge of how to seduce a man. I believed she’d be a perfect asset in the lounge, a touch of home that would appeal to the patrons who adored Wishing Well for its flavor.”

  “As I recall reading, Émilie did
n’t fair too well either. At least, not for long. What happened to her, Vincent? What became of the buxom blonde that could pull all the money from a man’s pocket and have him thank her for the theft?”

  His gaze never faltered. “How should I know? As far as I’m aware, she took off once I had a new interest. Jealousy is such an ugly affair. It makes people crazy, does it not?”

  “Weren’t you convicted of Émilie’s murder?”

  Vincent grinned, “We’ll get to that. You’re skipping ahead.”

  Crooking a brow, Meadow grinned. “So you hire this woman, bring her all the way to your hotel, and what? Sample her before tossing her to the wolves?”

  Seconds passed silently between them. “I believe I need to remind you of what little time we have together. While you discuss women of little importance, the clock ticks. We should return to my story with Penelope. I’m curious as to what she wrote of our first encounter. Will you tell me?”

  Confused, Meadow scrunched her brow, hated that she’d made the error of dropping her mask of superiority, of having lost being the person with a foot one step farther ahead. Now he knew that he’d surprised her, that he’d caught her off guard. “You didn’t read the diary?”

  His fingers flared again, a common symptom of his thoughts. “Alas, I was already in jail by the time it was found. I requested it be sent to you immediately. My staff are loyal, Meadow. I doubt even they turned its pages.”

  It didn’t make sense. Vincent was too much of a control freak not to ask what Penny had written about him. He was too much of a collector to allow even one of her thoughts to escape his grasp. If anything, he would want to bask in the confusion he’d created in her head, would want to luxuriate in the spoils of his psychological games. If it were true, if the diary wasn’t discovered until after he was arrested, then perhaps he’d neglected to ask about its contents, had feared the recorded calls and conversations in jail would capture some detail in the diary that would ensure his conviction. There was always the possibility, but Meadow doubted it.

  “Do we have time to even discuss it?” she asked, “What with your impending death approaching so quickly?”

  His grin widened, his perfect, white, straight teeth gleaming like that of a jackal about to bite. “Any good story is well rounded. Perhaps something in her memory will jar something in mine, knock it loose so that I can deliver it to you as a present wrapped in the finest of paper.”

  Sardonically, she countered, “Or perhaps you simply want to enjoy knowing what you did to her on every level imaginable. Especially now that there is no escape from the executioner.”

  “Perhaps,” he agreed. “But that is your decision to make.”

  Wondering how he would react to what she knew, from what the diary contained, Meadow relented. “Fine, I’ll tell you her side. I’ll speak in place of the woman who can not.” Leaning closer, she added, “I’ll be happy to divulge just how much she hated you in the end.”

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Penny

  Life started and ended with Blake Jameson, my boyfriend, my best friend, the soul mate I ate mudpies with in kindergarten and gave my virginity to in the tenth grade. With his wild blond hair, always long and windswept like a surfer, and tan skin that brought out the blue in his eyes, Blake was a constant for me, a puzzle piece that fit, an extension of who I’d always been.

  He hung the moon and scattered the stars. He was the sun and I was the Earth absorbing his warmth.

  Blake was there when people had attempted to bully me. He’d protected me and knocked a few heads together. He’d loved me even more than my own family. Closer to me than my own identical twin, Blake was the peaceful center in my chaotic storm. He was the island in my turbulent sea, the oasis within my desert. He was my life and my protector, my every dream, and my shelter.

  He’d been at my side when my father died, had held me and rocked me when I screamed. His presence soothed me at the funeral when my father was laid to rest, his words had reassured me when my mother met a man across the Atlantic who she believed could replace the man who’d raised me.

  And when the time came for my mother to uproot and live in a foreign land, it was Blake who convinced me to stay. Both my mother and Meadow had hated my decision, but they couldn’t understand who Blake had been for me.

  That’s how I’d stayed in the States when my mother and sister left, it’s why I’d let my family fly away while I remained rooted. I truly believed Blake would be the man I married, believed I’d have his children, and we’d grow old together, our hair turning silver as the different parts of our bodies shriveled into decay.

  It was only a year after my family left me that Blake decided to leave me as well.

  He’d met someone else. He’d apologized and cried. But even my tears, my hurtful words, my begging and pleading hadn’t been enough to convince him that he was ruining my entire life.

  Simple as that.

  Blake was the reason I’d stayed in the States in one year. And Blake was the reason I became homeless in the next.

  Too ashamed, too hurt, too destroyed, to call my family and beg for help, I’d convinced myself I could make it on my own. But with no job experience, only a high school education and no permanent address I could call my own, finding employment had been impossible. Not that I could have managed much of a job. I was too heartbroken to be anything more than a useless shell, a ghost walking down the sidewalk, a woman who hadn’t just lost the love of her life, she’d also lost everything she owned.

  The street isn’t exactly a welcoming place, and the minute you close your eyes, what little you do have is plucked by the vultures, stolen away and gone.

  It’s how I’d ended up walking down Stratford Avenue in the pouring rain. It’s why I didn’t have two dimes to rub together, didn’t have a phone, didn’t have a hope for salvation beyond the small tattered overhang I found that did nothing to protect me from the storm.

  At nineteen years old, I was a failure already.

  I’d been so busy freezing my ass off and scowling at well-dressed assholes looking at me like I was the scum that scuffed their pretty, leather loafers, that I hadn’t even noticed Vincent Mercier when he’d first approached. It wasn’t until his shadow fell over me, blocking the one street light that lit the needles of rain that I glanced up to spy one of the most beautiful examples of the masculine form I’d ever seen in my life. If not for the rain dripping from his thick brown hair and the charcoal grey suit glued to every hard, broad surface of his body, I would have believed he’d walked off the set of some popular television show or perhaps stepped straight from the pages of a fashion magazine.

  And when he first spoke - when I first noticed the soft, rolling hint of a foreign tongue - it was music to my ears.

  To say I was confused why he was staring down at me was an understatement. It wasn’t until he’d propositioned me like a back alley hooker that my anger flared to the surface. I won’t lie and say I didn’t take pleasure in calling him an old man. I had a gift for pinpointing a person’s weak spot, and vanity was his.

  I must have struck a nerve because he went from calling me a name straight out of a seventeenth century French romance to calling me a Dirty Girl , as if the implied meaning would be lost within the rain.

  Fucking pervert.

  I’d called him out on it, had accused him of only wanting to get me in bed, and then he’d done something so out of character that I’d vacillated between whether to knock out his teeth or accept the offer he’d quickly rattled off instead.

  I won’t lie, there’s no point when the only audience for this confession is myself. Vincent had startled me from the minute my eyes first met his handsome face. His eyes were the color of glimmering emeralds, a treasure stumbled upon in the depths of some hidden cave, a solitary beam of stubborn sunlight finding its way along the wall to touch those enormous gems and divulge their beauty and secrets.

  Framing his face was dark hair I was sure was careless when dry. Althoug
h plastered to his head by the unforgiving rain, I could still see the choppy layers, could still imagine a woman wrapping the soft, silken strands between her fingers. And the rain, oh how I’d felt jealous of the drops that were able to touch his cheeks and trace the contours that were carved from stone, the one brave droplet that tracked the curve of his mocking lips to become one with the salt of his copper skin. If ever temptation were to walk this earthly plane, it was in Vincent’s shoes...which made it a shame he was the biggest jerk I’d had the displeasure to encounter.

  Choosing to kick out at him, I’d understood my mistake the instant he caught my ankle with his hands, the few seconds he’d enjoyed punishing the bones with the strength of his cruel fingers. Fuck, it hurt, the crushing pain enough to send an electric current shooting up my leg to my hip. I’d looked into his eyes at the moment he’d caused that pain and they were hungry, hard, yet laughing. I should have known then what kind of man he was.

  But I was starving. I was cold. I was wet, and not in the good sense of the word. Desperation is such a putrid scent, yet it oozed from my every pore.

  He offered me a job. He hurt me. He walked away. And I was the silly girl that followed him.

  I should mention the hotel.

  The Wishing Well was one of the most famous hotels in the area. Not as large as the skyscrapers that were steel and glass fingers reaching for the sky, the modest, private, somewhat exclusive property demanded far more coin that even the Hiltons could ask for. Luxury wasn’t lost on this walled-in paradise and if ever a castle existed in a city, it was this hotel.

  At six stories, I’d only viewed the top floors above the walls that circled it, could only imagine what would be found behind the ivy that clung to stone. It was a small block all on its own with lights that twinkled from the branches of tall trees, soft music often escaping its hold on the weekends when businessman flocked in for some convention at the ridiculously large center down the road.