Page 11 of Blind Sin

“You don’t know her at all.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Her voice is raised now. I’ve finished peeing, but I don’t want to go outside. I want to know what Josh thinks of me.

“You’ve only ever known her as a person locked in a room as some kind of sick extension of yourself. She’s not a puppy for you to play with. She’s a grown woman.”

“I know what you did to her, Josh. She told me.”

My heart pounds as I wait for Josh’s reply. When he does reply, his voice is much quieter. “I thought she was you.”

The pain of my bruises is nothing to the pain of hearing Josh say that. I knew he thought I was Lucy when he took me into that room on the Yacht. I’d played the part of my sister well, but deep down I’d hoped he’d see beyond what I looked like and feel something for the real me.

He sounds resigned... no, he sounds sad. Maybe Lucy isn’t the only one still in love with the past. Josh is too.

“I would never sleep with you Joshua Nix,” Lucy replies, her voice steady and hard. “And so far you’ve managed to equate both me and Lauren with dogs in the last two minutes.”

I jump as there’s a angry hammering on the door. “Lauren, you finished in there?”

I hastily wipe and pull up my pants. “One sec.”

When I open the door, Lauren grabs my arm and practically forces me back to my seat. It’s then that I realize that this isn’t the dream I thought it would be. And if Lucy and Josh are still in love with each other, it’s going to be a complete nightmare, because, however much I hate to admit it, even to myself, I like Josh too.

7

DACRE

As I grasp the boat keys, my heart races, a steady drumbeat echoing the tension in my chest. The weight of anticipation bears down on me, every nerve on edge, half-expecting someone to intervene or, worse, my estranged parents to materialize. It’s been years since I've been in Tahiti, so I doubt anyone will recognize me. However, I receive a quizzical look from the woman at the counter of the marina office as she hands me the keys and directs us to the dock where the boats are kept.

“Will you chill the fuck out,” Mercier mutters in my ear as we make our way towards the marina. “You are jitterier than a kangaroo with a vibrator wedged up its ass.”

“Easy for you to say,” I hiss back at him. “You’re not about to steal your parents' million dollar yacht. And if you haven’t fucking noticed, we’ve got the most famous woman on the planet with us and her identical twin sister.” As I say it, the pair walk past me, hand in hand.

From behind, they don’t look identical. While they are the same height, Lauren is slightly slimmer than Lucinda, and her deathly pale skin tone is made more prominent next to Lucinda’s light tan. Despite wearing caps and dark glasses as their only form of disguise, Lucinda's long blonde hair flows down her back, while Lauren conceals her blue-black cut. They don’t even walk in the same way. Lucinda strides effortlessly, long legs straight as though she’s walking a catwalk whereas Lauren takes two steps for each of Lucinda’s. I watch their asses swaying as they walk, comparing the two of them and a sour taste forms in my mouth.

“Believe me, I’ve noticed.” Mercier slaps his hands together, grins salaciously at me, and races after them past the yachts of the super wealthy.

“This is going to be a fucking nightmare,” Nix grunts, as he comes up slowly behind me, and then lopes past. I heave in a long breath and trudge after them to where my parents’ boat is docked.

At the boat, I pull Nix and Mercier to the side, out of earshot of Lucinda and Lauren. “Don’t fuck this up. Mercier, you need to bring it down a notch and Nix, your face looks like a baby’s slapped arse. Both of you get over yourselves before we get on the boat because we are in enough shit as it is.”

Mercier raises an eyebrow and Nix just sulks.

“I don’t know if there’s any food on the island,” I continue. “There’s a shop just over there, just outside the marina. Go get us supplies for a couple of weeks and do it quickly. I don’t like the way the office clerk looked at me.”

“Maybe she wondered what such an ugly fucker was doing with such a big yacht,” Mercier quips.

“Ha, bloody ha. You can talk. It’s a good job our girl is blind because she’d be running in the opposite direction if she caught a glimpse of your unsightly mug.”

Mercier raises an eyebrow, a subtle smirk playing on his lips.

Nix, in his perpetual sulking state, offers nothing but a deepening frown.”Will you two stop bickering? She’s not ‘our’ anything. Come on Mercier.”

I shake my head as the two of them head to the shop, then turn my attention to Lauren and Lucinda.

“This isn't quite what I was expecting,” Lucinda remarks as she helps Lauren onto the boat.

I rub the back of my neck, unsure what to make of her. She’s barely said a word since we got off the plane and made it very clear she’d rather Nix, Mercier and I were not here, spoiling her big getaway with her sister.

“Not grand enough for you?”

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