by May Sage
Which brought him back to the initial issue: he had to stop drooling over Lucinda Warner, quite simply because she didn’t want him.
“Good morning, Lucinda,” he said brightly. “I see Carter has managed to convince you to come save my skin.”
She shot him a glare that clearly said, I wouldn’t be here if I had a freaking choice, and then, she forced a smile, fake, and nonetheless absolutely glorious.
“He did.” Then, without another pleasantry, she launched into a list of tasks she’d gone through, although it was just nine in the morning.
Trick listened numbly, and turned on his computer. He found his desktop cleared - rather than the dozens of invoices and notes usually thrown around, there were four folders labeled to simplify it all. His calendar was color coded and the various notes had been inserted at the relevant time slot - now, instead of having to hunt down the information, he could click on his phone call scheduled with Nate Knightley, he saw a few short facts such as *recently married - wish him well.*
She’d done all of that. Before nine o’clock on a Monday morning.
Freaking hell.
“No wonder Carter always raves about you. This is…”
“Simple tasks that should have been done a while back. I’m running through historical data and your emails have been redirected to me, so I’ll sort through the relevant ones. But feel free to interrupt if there is any urgent matter requiring my attention.”
On that note, the woman dropped her head back down to her mac, and started typing furiously, leaving him speechless. And maybe a little guilty, too.
He often thought of her - more often than he cared to admit - but not even once had any of those thoughts been about her performance. Jesus, was he that much of an ass that he didn’t know how good or bad she might have been until now? He was usually quite content to objectify her. No wonder she couldn’t stand him.
He wasn’t sure why he was pushing, opening himself to further rejection, but there he was, trying again.
“Lucinda?”
She sighed, before lifting her eyes to him.
“Thank you.”
That surprised her, which said it all. She didn’t think much of him, did she?
“I’m just doing my job,” she replied with a shrug, yet again cutting off his attempt at conversation as fast as she could, and returning to her tasks.
Getting that woman to stop despising him was going to be harder than climbing Everest carrying a donkey piggyback.
And Trick, who hadn’t been presented with anything half as challenging for over a decade, was weird enough to look forward to it.
Lucy
Not many people knew she’d killed someone before; it hadn’t stayed in her record, thankfully. One of the few who knew the details was seated next to her on the couch, watching Frozen for the ten thousandth time, a little girl singing along from her lap.
Lucy wasn’t quite sure why, but it was in those calm, peaceful moments that she remembered that day. She never really forgot, of course; but when life was simple, and good, she could see it all passing before her eyes.
Her psychologist said she’d probably never really get over it; Lucy’s secret was that she didn’t intend to. She wanted - needed - to remember.
Today, the reminder was vivid, and… wrong.
It was always the same noises, the same scents, the same words she heard. Today, the voices were different. It wasn’t her dad telling her mother he was going to fucking kill her for hiding his drugs. It wasn’t her mother begging, and she couldn’t smell the blood.
Today, the voices were faint and…
Shit.
Lucy didn’t even think; she got up and ran.
It was stupid of her. Last time, she’d gotten away with killing her father because she’d been a minor, and because her lawyer had managed to make it sound like self-defense. There had been enough bruises on her to make that sound right and the only witness, her mother, had been more than willing to play along.
There would be no excuses this time, and while Piper still had her back, she didn’t have her daddy’s phone number on speed dial anymore. There would be no prominent lawyer to get her out of it.
That didn’t change the fact that she was running towards the voices, fully intending to fucking murder the guy who was knocking the girl around. It didn’t matter that she didn’t know her name, her circumstances - no woman should be hit by a man. Ever.
“Lucy!”
“Stay,” she told her best friend, looking around for a weapon - but Piper’s house was mostly baby proof.
Oh, well. Good thing she had hands, feet, elbows, knees, and knew how to use them.
The door open and the faint noises were easily heard now; Piper froze, understanding the situation. Her conflict was evident; on one hand - she wanted to go with her, but her arms pulled her five-year-old daughter a little closer.
“Stay with Maya,” Lucy repeated, and this time, her friend nodded.
From the corridor, it was easy to find the direction to the place where those awful noises were still coming from.
Although she crossed the path of three people on her way, no one else was paying it any mind; it didn’t surprise her. She’d lived in a shitty, decrepit apartment building like this one for sixteen years, and for sixteen years, noises like those had come from her place, yet no one had moved a finger to help.
She knocked, and heard a curse, followed by heavy footsteps. Good. He was coming to open the door himself.
The man who stood in the doorframe, glaring at her, and barking a, “what” was pathetic. Not only because his actions made him so - he genuinely was the sort of guy who you felt sorry for when you passed him in the street. There was food on his white wife-beater - appropriate name, in that case - and he smelt worse than most dogs. He was big, his engorged arms marking him as a gym rat.
Of course, he was.
“What are you doing here,” he started, never finishing the sentence, because her knee was colliding with his nuts, first, then with his nose - twice - and when he was on the floor, she kicked him in the stomach, for good measure.
Lucy pushed the door back, revealing the interior of a small apartment laid out like Piper’s - only, this one was as sad and moldy as the rest of the apartment building.
There was a young woman standing a few feet back, frozen in apparent shock.
First, Lucy dropped to a crouch, tilting her head to one side, and smiling at the abusive asshole groaning on the floor.
“And that is how it feels,” she told him, flicking his bloody nose for fun. “How do you like it?”
Then, she got back up, and looked straight at the woman.
She was younger - twenty-five at most; petite, and a little round around the edges; just the type of women men like him preferred. She lacked confidence, which had made her believe she could settle for this. She had a black eye, and a bruise showed under her torn clothes.
“Hey there,” she waved cheerfully.
Lucy had zero clue how she’d be received, but it didn’t matter - not one bit. It wasn’t for that woman that Lucy had beaten the guy under her heels until he couldn’t move. It was for her, and maybe a little for her mother, too. There was no point telling a woman she deserved better - if they didn’t believe it, they settled for what they had.
“So, that brute is going to be able to get up in about two minutes or so. When he does, I’ll be gone, but he’ll turn to you and beat your harder, because that’s what he does,” she shrugged. “It’s up to you really. Stay and wait for it. Or grab your purse and come with me.”
The young woman blinked, as if checking she wasn’t actually dreaming, and moved like her life depended on it.
Frankly. It might have.
Thirty seconds later, she’d thrown a jacket over her PJs and was standing in front of her, a backpack in hand.
And, that explained it. She’d been ready to go - Mr. Muscles had probably found out, and let the crazy out.
They g
ot out of the building without a word; in fact, they were in the subways by the time the woman uttered a word.
“I know what you think,” she said.
“Believe me, you don’t,” Lucy replied, smiling like the crazy person she was.
She was thinking that she’d wished the man wasn’t breathing, but at the same time, she was pretty happy to avoid going to jail. He wasn’t going to prosecute her for assault and battery either - even if he’d known who she was. No way was he admitting that he’d been beaten by a girl.
“I’m… I was going to go. I don’t have anywhere to go, but I was going to get out of there,” she swore; Lucy recognized herself in her eyes.
The woman was desperate to find some strength, some pride. She was willing her to believe her.
“Obviously,” Lucy pointed towards her bag. “I’m Lucy by the way. And I have a sofa with your name on it.”
Trick
Where was she?
He frowned at nine, when he arrived and found her desk empty, pristine like she’d left it the previous day. She’d worked for him for a week and every day, she’d arrived before him. But she was nowhere to be seen.
By eleven, Trick, usually amenable, was snapping at everyone, and growing more and more furious at every second.
At one, he gave up, storming into his best friend’s office.
“Where is she?”
It took him a full second to realize that Carter hadn’t been alone - and given the fact that little Cassie was bend over the desk, a blindfold over her eyes, he hadn’t exactly been in a meeting.
“Fucking… have you heard of locks!” he yelled, before shaking his head and running out.
Twenty minutes later, he was pissed, frustrated, horny, and ultra-annoyed that he hadn’t opted for an office space where he could at least jack off, when his phone buzzed.
“Done?” he spat at Carter.
His best friend laughed on the other end of the phone.
“Sorry about that. But you could have knocked. Anyway, if your ‘where is she’ was about Lucy, she’s taken a personal day. I forgot to tell you.”
That much had been obvious, but it infuriated him to no end. He bit his lip, holding his questions back - it wasn’t his problem. If Carter - her boss - had accepted her time off, she’d done nothing wrong. But fuck, he’d looked forward to their strained exchanges; he hadn’t seen how much, until now.
Thankfully for his sanity, Carter elaborated without needing anymore prompting.
“She’s acted a little rashly again… but it’s under control. Or it will be soon.”
Trick waited for a beat, before replying. “Right. Because that made sense.”
Carter sighed.
“I know you’re not friends - and it’s personal… but you can probably help, thinking about it.”
“Anything.”
He’d meant it. He couldn’t imagine one thing Carter would have asked, that he would be reluctant to do for Lucinda Warner - not if it meant she’d smile to him, or just said thank you, if only once.
God, he was fucked.
“She got a girl out of an abusive relationship yesterday,” he said, before running through the details.
Three minutes later, Trick wanted to go right to Lucy’s, and shake some sense into her, or kiss her and throw her on the closest flat surface to make her his. He wasn’t sure. Probably both.
“What the… fuck she could have got hurt.”
Carter laughed. “I don’t think so. She’s done Muay Thai for over ten years, I think.”
Right. Because she hadn’t been sexy enough, according to the universe. She also had to have as many kick ass points as Black Widow.
“Anyway, Lucy’s apartment is tiny, and the girl’s allergic to pets, so we’re trying to find someone she can bunk with. Cassie would have her, but we just got her a puppy. The girl doesn’t have money; Lucy’s happy to pay but the girl’s pretty proud, apparently. She doesn’t want a handout…”
“Wren,” Trick immediately said, cutting Carter’s flow.
Surprisingly, his friend caught on immediately.
“Wren Richards?”
The three of them had met in college; Trick and Finn opened their family home in the Upper East Side, but the three-story townhouse with seven bedrooms was overkill for the two guys and Anna, so they’d put a couple of rooms up for rent. They’d been inundated with applications; Trick picked Carter, and Finn, unsurprisingly, picked the crazy, weird-ass med school student: Wren Richards.
Ten years later, Wren was one of the best neurosurgeons on this coast, and whatever time he didn’t spend opening people’s brains, he was normally out at a charity gala, like the responsible adult he seemed to be.
Only, Carter, Trick, and a few of their friends, met up every month, and in September, it had been Wren’s turn to host.
His magnificent house with high ceilings, humongous windows, an indoor pool, and slate countertops, was a warzone. There was no other word for it.
“He said it himself: he needs a housekeeper.”
“Fuck no,” Carter swore, “No way. Don’t you think the girl hasn’t been through enough?”
“Well, if she doesn’t want a handout…”
“It’s not just the mess,” Carter clarified.
No need to spell out what he meant: Wren was…
Peculiar.
In a “rarely wear clothes,” and a “dances like Michael Jackson while making breakfast” kind of way.
“True. Well, we can always mention him, anyway.”
That’s how, five hours later, Trick was sitting at a bar, feeling sorry for poor Wren, who was being scrutinized by a gorgeous pair of deep green eyes like the woman might jump him if he made a wrong move.
Wren had come directly from work, which meant that he wore his arrogant, professional, I save the world one life at the time smile, which was a good thing. If Lucy had met Relaxed Wren instead, she might already have dropped him.
Trick forced his attention away from the woman he couldn’t stop thinking about, and directed it towards the girl at her side. She was a pretty thing, with her cherry mouth and her chestnut hair. Her dark eyes normally were fixated on her nails or her drink - when they weren’t, they either looked up at Lucy like she hung the moon, or glanced nervously towards them. She was a little on the fence about men, that much was obvious, and understandable.
“So, you’d be happy to let Cali stay at your place if she cleaned stuff.”
Oh shit. They should have given Wren more details, because he turned to Cali herself, and winked.
“If you’d clean my stuff, I’d marry you.”
A long pause ensued. Lucy’s eyes flashed, but after the shock had passed, little Cali laughed, which lightened the mood.
“Right. And she’d have her own room. With a lock.”
Wren didn’t even glance towards Lucy, which was typical of him. He didn’t believe in appealing to the middle man. When he’d chosen the clinic where he wanted to work, he’d directly called the owner and told him he was the best surgeon they could hire for under seven figures.
Wren was an oxymoron. Excessively arrogant, incredibly modest. Very meticulous, messy as hell. A genius, and a lazy bum.
“You’d have your floor - upstairs. You can close the door at the top of the stairs and make it a private apartment. It’s pretty empty, though. There’s a room and all, but no TV, and the kitchen appliances are better downstairs. You’re welcome to use the entire house - I’m never there, anyway. But if you prefer to keep to yourself, it won’t be an issue.”
Thank fuck - they were dealing with the adult side of his brain for a minute. Trick caught Carter breathing out in surprise and relief, too.
“Also,” the man added, because unfortunately, he was always sincere, “I’ll try to wear pants.”
Lucy
She felt incredibly protective of the girl. Cali was actually older than she looked - Cassie’s age - and she’d just dealt with a lot of shit over the last two
years.
First, her entire family had fucking died. That was always a great start. Then, because that’s what they do, the bank had seized her family home to repay all the debts, leaving her with nothing. So, she had to drop out of school her last year of college, and she’d moved in with her boyfriend to save money. Smart, right? Well, not so much when the guy turned out to be an abusive ass in disguise. He’d been perfectly fine, until she’d been under his thumb, without an escape plan.
Lucy admired the shit out of her for intending to just grab her bag and leave. That showed a lot of strength - strength her mother, and a million other women, had never had.
“So, what had been the plan?” she’d asked out of interest.
“There’s a shelter,” the girl replied. “A nurse at the hospital I went to when he broke my ribs didn’t buy the fell down the stairs thing, so she gave me the address. I was going to go there, and get a job. And a restraining order, too.”
Clever girl.
If Carter and Trick’s friend had seemed even a little bit dodgy, she would have got her out of there in two seconds flat, but Lucy was good with people. That man didn’t seem dangerous. Weird? Sure. But harmless.
He’d better be, anyway.
When she dropped Cali off at his place, with a couple of suitcases full of clothes the woman had begrudgingly accepted, as long as she promised she could pay her back, her mouth dropped open.
“Holy…”
“Great place, right?” the man said, winking at Cali, who was blinking again, this time probably willing the nightmare to disappear.
The place was a disaster. Amazing house, probably worth ten million at least, but there were socks on the grand piano, dirty glasses on the bookshelves, pizza boxes on the floor.
“It’s not too late. We can get you out of here now, I don’t mind paying the deposit for a new place,” she told her.
Cali just laughed, shrugging it off. “Nah, don’t worry. I could use the work to distract myself anyway.”
