Twinkle of Love - Completed

Chapter 5

"Lucy? Aren't you going to greet your father?"

Lucy's eyes, cheeks, and nose were red from crying. But she dutifully lifted her tear-drenched lashes to peer up at her father. Not Patrick Little, within whose arms she still stood, but Knyte Starr. He stood there, familiar looking and yet not familiar at all. But that was only to be expected when one had a parent as famous as Knyte Starr. She had grown up seeing his picture splashed across the tabloids long before she even knew he was her father, and after that, she had been unavoidably drawn to those pictures. Always secretly looking at them searchingly and reading the articles in-depth that went with them, trying to gain a glimpse of the person he was beyond the glossy magazines. Now he stood there before her, lifelike and yet looking incredibly smaller than she'd imagined.

She ignored the imploring looks from her mother and moved out of Dad's arms to slowly make her way to the man who stood silently, patiently waiting. Her father was tall. As tall as Blaise. He had the same cut to his jaw and the same high forehead. His nose was a prominent feature, bold and strong. His skin darker than either Lucy's or Blaise's. But it was really his width and breadth that drew her eyes. The muscular bulk he wore like armour was not Photoshopped, like she once imagined, but real. He practically screamed danger. Tattoos spread liberally down an arm and the glint of platinum shone menacingly from his earlobes. Spikes pierced through shaping the glint that caught the sunlight. Lucy felt almost faint looking at him. He was not the soft, comforting father she had been used to all her life. He was not Patrick Little. Knyte Starr gave a new dimension to what represented a father. Lucy could only wonder, who in the hell would dare to cross him? Who in the hell could be so foolish as to antagonise this man by stealing away his kids?

She came to a trembling stop in front of him before stiffening her spine. Jace would never let her live it down if he knew she had approached him cowering, purely on the basis of his looks. She gulped past the sudden lump in her throat and muttered unconvincingly, "Hi, how are ye?" Her Australian accent coming out thick and strong in her sudden nervousness, and then she knew Jace would have a field day, laughing at her anyway. She'd just greeted the man who bore her and yet never known her with the most mundane Aussie greeting of all time. What was she thinking?

The scowl Knyte Starr wore didn't relent and instead he took a menacing step forward. All Lucy could do to hold her ground and not faint dead away was to grit her teeth and bear it. Then his arms were about her and she was enveloped in his expensive-scented hug. What was he drenched in? Clive Christian? Lucy didn't linger in his embrace but took a swift pace back, effectually tightening the scowl he already wore so menacingly.

"We should take this inside." Mary Little's voice of reason prevailed, and the initial awkwardness of the father-daughter greeting was swiftly covered with the bustle of everyone moving in. Lucy spared a moment in an equally awkward embrace of her mother's, whom she also found she could not look in the eye. It was only when she'd moved indoors and stopped gaping at the lavish display of her surroundings that she realised why she could not meet the eyes of either her mother or her father—Blaise was that reason. Staring up at the blown-up infant picture of Blaze and Luxy Ara Starr, she understood—not telling them she knew Blaise's whereabouts was akin to lying to them, and that didn't sit well with her. The urge to tell warred within her against the need to keep her promise to her brother. Her gaze tore away from the framed picture to hunt down Richard, who stood lounging by the door and staring right at her.

"Is there something I should know about you and Richard Reeves?" The voice was famously familiar but hearing it utter mundane words felt surreal, that is until the meaning of his words caught on. Almost two decades apart and the first words he said to her was to question her infatuation with Richard Reeves? Lucy turned away from the picture to stare her father straight in the eye. Amber met amber, clashed and then held, as awe took over from anger. Seeing her unusual eyes on her father's face made all the difference. No longer was he a complete stranger; they shared a bond. The bond of a similar feature. It was not as if she hadn't known before that his eyes were gold. But expecting it and actually seeing it were two very different things.