Copyright © 2018 by H. M. Irwing
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Prologue
Los Angeles - Eighteen years earlier
"I never would have believed it, a pair of angels."
The tender words belied the menace in his tone as the masked robber stared down into the twin cradles. The six-months-old were not identical. Not only was one dark and the other fair but the baby boy had vivid blue eyes that he shared with his mother while his twin sister eyes were amber, like her father's. She was a golden cherub all over from her light hair, to her lightly bronzed skin while her brother's darker colouring more resembled his part African American father's heritage.
"Starr's kids were born with the proverbial silver spoon," said the blond woman with piercing blue eyes. "This is only fair."
Not quite the infant's mother but her identical match. Twins ran in the Shubert's family bloodline. Their genes were strong that way. Stacy and Mary Shubert shared the same long blond locks, the same baby blue eyes and the same feature. There was nothing physical to tell them apart. But the resemblance ended there. Still, their even more visceral differences hadn't mattered in the long run. Not till the rock star legend in making, Knyte Starr fell for not Stacy but her sister, Mary. Even when he'd seen her first. That had rankled. That had hurt. But no more. Not after this night. The only ones who would be hurting now will be her sister Mary and her unfortunate choice in a husband, Knyte Starr.
It's should have been her, Stacy, whom he fell in love with. Stacy whom he'd married. These should have been her children that she'd had with him. It never made sense why he'd chosen Mary over her. It never made sense that she'd be deprived of what was rightfully hers.
"What are you waiting for? Take them!" Stacy all but spat out. This was called for. After what Mary had done to her. Stealing Knyte away from her and leaving her with, with- No. This was fitting. This was fair.
"Them?" The masked man's amused tones were not at all muffled by the mask he wore. "There's no way I am taking both his brats. One is enough. One is vengeance. Both is charity." His chuckles of laughter rang out loudly and Stacy was forced to glance around in alarm before frantically shushing him.
"What are you afraid of darlin? You and me, we're here all alone babe. What say we fuck around a little. I could do you on their bed. Or right here by their babes." His chuckle rang out once more. Vicious and oddly appealing.
Stacy glanced away from him to stare at the flickering tv screen. It was a five-star hotel. The service shouldn't have been this bad. The Grammy Award flickered live on screen. They would be there, in the melee of celebrities. Mingling with the who's who of the industry. Knyte might even win his nominee for best newcomer. And where did that leave her, stuck here in their hotel room, baby-sitting their brats.
Enough was enough. It was time to puncture a hole in their fool's paradise. A hole large enough to fit one brawling baby. "Alright then, take one. And yes, fuck me first. Fuck me all over this god-awful place."
His chuckle rang out again long and lengthy and then he was reaching for the vivacious blond. He didn't understand what Knyte saw in Mary Shubert Starr. Not when Stacy clearly had all the sexual allure. Then again, he couldn't understand why Knyte had married at all. Limiting himself to just one of twin sisters, not when he could have had them both for the taking. The demure Mary and the flashy Stacy. Hell, he could have fucked them both and died a happy man. But no, Knyte chose to lock himself away in a lifelong commitment to just the one. A mistake he himself would never make. Mary Shubert Starr had been his twin to fuck first. But he could just as easily settle for fucking the other. They both looked alike anyhow. What did it matter either way? Chuckling easily, the masked man reached for Stacy's unresisting frame and proceeded to lay her bare to his gaze.
It was five hours later and well past midnight, when the alarm was raised, and the police called in and Blaze Starr, son to the up and coming celebrity singer Knyte Starr, was officially reported missing.
Eight years on
"Mama?"
Eight-year-old little Lucy called out in a hush whisper, shaking her fizzy head of golden brown hair staring confusedly at the kids staring back at her. She held tighter to her mama's hand and titled her head to stare up at her wondering if she noticed the odd stares Lucy was getting. Her amber gold eyes winced against the flare of light from the sun that glared back at her. But she could still make out her mama's angelic halo of golden blond curls and when she turned to look down at her, the bright baby blues of her mama's eyes.
But it was not the colour of her mama's hair and eyes that had Lucy clenching her little fingers tighter about her mama's, it was the fizzy texture of her own hair and the difference in the colour of their skin.
Lucy stared up imploringly at her mama wanting to leave the party, but her mama was oblivious to her silent pleas. So Little Lucy, tore her hand from her mama's grasp and took off into the crowd determined to run away from the unkind stares the other kids were giving her. But she should have known better than to run from her mama's protection. They came whenever she was alone. They came to taunt her, to call out hurtful words at her, to make fun of her hair. To make fun of the colour of her skin.
"Running away already, Lucy?" The freckled face boy was her regular bully.
Lucy firmed the sudden wobble to her chin and lifted her button nose up a notch.
"I am not running," she lied blatantly.
"Oh liar! She most certainly is running Jack," called out a little girl with a luxurious length of ebon dark hair.
"Well she should run, Sally. She should run away. She doesn't belong here. Everyone knows she's adopted." Laughed Jack. "Did you know that, Lucy? Did you know you were adopted?"
Lucy's chin wobbled threateningly, but it was really the blurring glimmer of her gaze that had her worried. She knew it wouldn't take much more to have her turn on the taps, but Lucy as a rule, didn't cry. She was stronger than that. Sure, she had wondered too if she was adopted, she wondered every single day. But her mama would have told her if she was. If not her mama then her papa would have done so, surely.
Lucy turned then to look searchingly for her papa in the crowd. He had to be there somewhere. He would rescue her from these bullies. He would set them right on the truth. But her papa was not to be found and the crowd of kids was growing around her.
Lucy tightened her hands into little fists determined to thrash it out if she had to. She was not afraid to take on the lot of them. But they were not advancing on her with fists raised. They slyly resorted to taunts they knew would hurt more.
"Adopted! Adopted! Adopted!"
The chant started as a whisper. So as not to draw the attention of the adults. But as more voices joined the chorus, a sudden hush spread over the crowd of adults. Lucy saw her father then coming for her through the parted crowds. He looked nothing like her either, pale skinned and dark eyes. Both her parents were fair while she was dark.
A fact that became even more glaringly obvious as they came for her against the backdrop of the children's mean chant. But it was not her mama or her papa who reached her first.
The little fist flew out of nowhere to land with smacking intensity on the rude boy's plump face. His freckled cheek swallowed the punch and the momentum silenced his chant and sent him sprawling to his ass. Lucy ran to her rescuer's side.
"Jace!"
Jace turned to face Lucy at the call of his name. The expression in his eyes was something she had never seen before in her easy-go-lucky happy friend. His baby blue gaze stared into hers with an expression that was far older than his ten years. Jace reached out his hand for hers. Lucy was quick to slip her hand into his.
Turning back to face the crowd of gaping children, Jace muttered with a hard glare, "Leave my friend alone!"
Lucy was promptly led back to the safety of her mama, but the Little family didn't stay long at the party after that.
"See you tomorrow," Jace called out to Lucy as she left with her family. Waving back at Jace, Lucy offered him a wide smile. "You sure will, Jace." Then she mouthed the words at him. Thank you. With another wide beaming smile, Lucy was gone. But her need to find out the truth was burning more brightly in her little heart than ever. That wouldn't be gone until she racked up the nerve to ask the question that had been haunting her for just about forever. Who was she? Was she really her parent's kid?
Why did she look so different from them?
If nothing else, Lucy was more determined than ever to have her fizzy head of hair shorn short.
Two years on and Lucy Little was ten when she discovered that she had two-real names. Her first had been Luxy Ara Starr but now she was only Lucy Little.
"Shhh...," whispered Jace pressing a finger to his lips.
Lucy giggled but followed silently where he led. They made their way along the long corridor that led off to Jace's room. He led her inside and to the large bed dressed in batman printed sheets. It was his secret pleasure that only Lucy knew. At fourteen, Jace felt he was too old for DC hero sheets and didn't like it bandied about that he still slept on them.
"Look at what I got, Lucy," he said, pointing to the shiny object that sat on the middle of his bed.
"Oh my, is that... is that," stuttered Lucy in her excitement, "A guitar?"
"A present from my dad," said Jace with an indifferent shrug. "I told him I wanted to learn."
"Why'd you say that, Jace?" Lucy knew Jace was not musically inclined. He was more the type to spend his days out doors. He was athletically inclined, like Lucy.
"I thought I could take lessons," he smiled. "Then you could sing along."
Lucy beamed but then her smile wavered. She'd just had some upsetting news and she was not yet sure just how she should take it. She may only be ten, but she knew that her news would be as devastating to Jace as it had been to her. Jace was the best of friends like that. He felt her pain and shared it and Lucy liked to think she did as much for him.
"I don't know if I want to sing, Jace."
That earned a laugh off him. "But Lucy, you sing all the freaking time."
"I do not."
"You do."
"Do not!"
Jace sighed, knowing from experience just where this was heading. Lucy had shorn her fizzy hair short but that did nothing to temper her swift rise to anger.
"Well you could sing along, if you wanted to." Jace compromised.
Lucy stared at the guitar on his bed. Her fingers tingled. She loved music. She loved to sing. But her heart felt too heavy to contemplate singing just now. She doubted she could ever bring herself to sing again.
But she didn't think she could tell Jace that. Not yet. Not till she got a grip of things herself. It was an awful thing to have all your worst suspicions be proven true. That's exactly what happened to Lucy. She felt her eyes tear up but held her breath and refused to let it drop.
It didn't matter.
What mama had told her, didn't matter. She had a papa, the only papa she wanted, and he loved her too. He'd said so. This other man didn't matter. She didn't know him. She didn't want to know him. But then her heart pinged- and a brother. Lucy found out she had one of those too. Her very own twin. Just as her little sister Emily had Cat and her little sister Cat had Emily. Only Lucy's twin was missing. Missing? What did that even mean?
Lucy was hesitant to ask more questions, but she knew she had plenty, all bottled up within her and growing more pressing with each passing day. Would she ever have them all answered? Did she even want to know any more?
Fear unlike any she had ever experienced before had her in its grasps. It had been building and building within her till she felt all choked up with it. Any moment now and she would burst. The fear would over power her. A strangled sound that was entirely raw escaped her lips and Lucy turned anguished tawny eyes to meet Jace's startled gaze.
"Are you all right Lucy?"
He came to stare down at her.
Lucy shook her head helplessly up at him. She didn't know what to say. He was her only friend. She didn't want that to change too. She couldn't afford to be maudlin and cry. Crying wouldn't solve anything. She would still be exactly who she was, a girl with two fathers. One she's known her whole life and the other she's never met.
"Do you want to meet him, Lucy?"
It was a question her mama had asked. What was she supposed to say? Should she lie and say yes? Or tell her the truth? That she already had a papa, and he was all she wanted. But mama had said, Knyte Starr was her real father.
Did that mean Patrick Little was fake? Had he been pretending to be her father all this while? Lucy didn't think so. The love she knew he felt for her was real. That love wouldn't let her think otherwise. But that was what led to her greatest fear. What did her real father think? Did he love her too? More importantly, would he come and take her from the papa she already loved?
"Perhaps, I should learn too," said Lucy, instead. Reaching past Jace to lift the heavy guitar up in her thin arms. "Maybe you're right, Jace. Maybe, I should sing along some."
She lifted her gaze then to meet his, offering him a brittle smile. She would tell him all, but not yet. For now, she would take pleasure in the gift he gave her, and it was a gift. Lucy was not so stupid not to recognise it for what it was.
The music, the guitar was his gift to her, not his fathers to him. Music was her love. Music was her life. Not Jace's. Jace knew this. He was also right. She didn't have to leave it completely, just because her real father was a famous singer. But even he no longer sang anymore. Not since her brother went missing anyhow. Or so mama said.
Lucy had known instantly, that she should stop singing too. She took too much pleasure in her singing and that couldn't be right. It couldn't be fair if her brother was missing. But looking at Jace's eager face now, Lucy knew didn't have to stop singing completely. Jace liked her singing. She shouldn't stop for him. She could sing for Jace alone.
Three years on and Lucy Little was all of thirteen.
"I can't believe he did it!"
Lucy didn't usually speak aloud to herself, but this was just too much to contain. It was her birthday! Hers and her twins' Blaze. Not the birthday she celebrated with her family but her real birthday. The day she was born thirteen years ago. She couldn't believe the father, who claimed in his letters to love her, would do this now. Not after he'd vowed not to.
She couldn't believe he released a new single. Even now her ears burned to the unique mix of soul with new wave. The combination was electric, positively singular in its ability to rock charts. There was no questioning it was number one she was listening to. But the deep soothing timber of her birth father's voice was not something she was pleased to hear.
Her pace was angry as she stomped her way up the stairs to Jace's room. The only good thing that had come off her confrontation with her mum that morning had been her willingness to drop Lucy over at Jace's. Perhaps, dropping by at Jace's unannounced wasn't the smartest thing she could have done but when one was scant for choices as was Lucy, she landed up running to Jace with all her troubles.
Nearing her goal, her momentum picked up with her anger, so that when she lifted her hands to shove his door open, Lucy's face was already contorted with the anger she wanted her friend to channel out of her. She opened her mouth to call out Jace's name when the sight that met her eyes had a gasping a big 'O' instead.
Mum had told her she had no business marching in on a boy unannounced. She had been telling her the same for quite some time now, since Jace turned thirteen to be exact but till now, Lucy had never wondered over her reasons why. Sure, she'd known Jace had an active... life. But knowing it and seeing it were two very different things.
"Ewww! Jace!"
"Lucy!"
Perhaps calling him out on it had not been her best of ideas but she never expected the barrage of foul language he threw at her.
"Get the hell out, Lucy!"
She ran. Back the way she came, down the stairs and out the door. The tears she never shed gushing down her cheeks in a torrent then. Not just because of what her father had done, a betrayal of sorts for releasing that single when he had said that night thirteen years back, that he would never sing again, not till his son was found.
But Blaze remained missing still. And yet, his father had sung.
That had angered Lucy, enough to break into a fight with her mum and then to come storming over here to relay it all to Jace. But it was what Jace had done that set the tears rolling down her cheeks unchecked. How could he have said all that to her? Sure, they'd had their spats in the past. Each one violent in the verbal assault they unleashed at each other but this... this had been over the top. And all for some floozy she'd caught him in bed with.
Lucy's cheeks flushed red in anger. Anger and tears were a horrible mix. It made one do horrible things. And with Lucy, it made her want to break that vow of never singing for anyone other than Jace again. To more like never singing for Jace again. Perhaps she should take a leaf out of her father's book and keep her voice open for only those who meant nothing to her at all.
Her feet picked up speed. It was a long way back home. A long run on foot. But she should be back by nightfall, and she would have her song to guide her. Her melody to soothe her. Her words to rip into the hurt and anger that dodged her every step of the way.
Four years on and seventeen-year-old Lucy eyed her best friend interestedly. Lucy found there was not much not to like about her best bud. Not his careless longish locks of blond hair, nor his flashing baby blue eyes and certainly it was not his tall frame complete with his six-pack abs. But it was really his flashing white grin that she found irresistibly charming.
Even so, she was not giving in her win. Aerial ping-pong might not be her forte but she sure as hell was going to give it all she got. Lucy was not built feeble despite her relatively dainty frame but that was like comparing a lamb to a charging bull. There was no defeating Jace when it became a match of the bulk.
He outweighed her, out muscled her and sad to say, yes, out gunned her but that did not mean she was going to simply roll over and give it up to him. If he wanted it, he was going to have to come get it. Sadly, the wicked grin he was wearing said he was going to relish every moment of the attempt.
Lucy firmed her chin and gritted her teeth panting hard. Sweat dropped down her brow from the unexpected heat. But not all that heat had been due to the exertion of the game. Rugby was no gentle sports by anyone's account but with Jace, Lucy tended to take a beating to the senses more than anything else. Already she was bombarded with sensations, and all of them overly pleasant. When was she going to get over this ridiculous attraction to her best friend?
"Ready?" He called out, slipping easily into position.
"Huh?" Lucy gaped momentarily spell bound by his supple grace.
Jace chuckled, cocking his head to the side he flicked the ball between his hands consideringly, he tried again this time more slowly, in a sing-song tone, as if talking to an infant. "Are-you-ready, Lucy?"
"Ready," she hollered out, spreading her legs and crouching into position. Her eye fixed on the ball. Jace was going down.
Jace grinned then drop kicked the ball into a high arch. They both took a moment to stare at each other before they took off laughingly after the ball. Of all their games together, rugby was never serious. It couldn't be with just two mismatched players trying to cover every angle of the game. Jace with his longer strides easily took over and was swiftly closing in. He would have caught the ball in a second had Lucy not jump tackled him.
They both went down in a thud, luckily for Lucy with him landing beneath her and cushioning her fall. But he was swift to break free, crawling forward to make a mad dash for the fallen ball. Lucy was not having it, she elbowed him and ignoring his exaggerated howl of pain lunged for the ball, only to find herself tackled onto her back for her efforts. Lucy's peal of laughter rang over the oval as Jace's nimble fingers were swift to seek retribution. He knew she had ticklish sides and was not afraid to exploit it.
"If you guys are finished...," interrupted the sugar-coated voice of Jace's latest squeeze. "I'd like my boyfriend back, Lucy." The buxom bottled-blond shot her brows up at Lucy. "If you really want to grapple with a man Lucy, why don't you find your own boyfriend?" She suggested sweetly, accurately hitting the nail on the head.
Lucy desperately did want to grapple with a man but no other would do but Jace.