Since Marco, I’ve been living in a mirror. It all looks the same, but feels totally different.
Narrowing it down, the change is three things.
First, my whole body has decided to vibrate. Not literally, I’m not having a stroke. But my nipples tingle and my pussy gets warm whenever the vision of Marco’s face appears in my mind. That’s honestly, like eighty per cent of the time, because cooking, cleaning, and planning escape aren’t particularly exciting.
Along with that, the dull fear that has accompanied me for years, probably since my mother “disappeared” when I was eleven after a particularly angry argument with my father, has lifted. I’ve been scheming this latest escape for months, and if I’m honest with myself, putting it off to avoid another disappointment and punishment.
But since Marco’s visit, I’m confident. I can do this. A big scary creature saw something compelling in me, and that knowledge makes me believe I’ll succeed.
The third invisible change is how it feels to be watched.
Anyone involved with the mafia is always being observed. Suspicion is the stock in trade, and I’m used to all the little ways of hiding myself and what I’m doing. And that’s still present, don’t get me wrong. But there’s another layer now, a warm protection.
I guess it’s just the satisfaction of having outwitted my father—he thought I was just showing off my baking skills. For once, the punishment burn on my arm doesn’t hurt that much. I run my finger down the pale scars from previous infractions, and I think of that scar on Marco’s cheek. The similarity is a line of connection, a pale link. The same feeling as being watched over, guarded.
I’m probably imagining things.
It’s been four days and it seems like a dream when I remember him. His pale blue eyes. That grey suit. The scent of the ocean when I stood next to him.
Every night, I think of Marco and, dream or not, the wetness between my legs and the squirming need that makes me shift in my narrow bed is real. I touch myself and come to a silent, shuddering release, my body washed with relief after a whole day of turning myself inside out with wanting him. I stroke myself in the dark of night in my bedroom and think of his deep voice and his words.
I’ll be back to claim everything.
What will he claim?
I guess it doesn’t matter. I finally counted the cash I’ve been saving up and allowed myself to believe I could get away. Less than a month and I’ll have enough money to leave and I won’t see Marco again, even if he did return to claim… me.
I’d be far away, starting my new life in Scotland.
I chose Scotland for three reasons. One, it’s as far from London as you can go and still be in the same country. Important consideration, since I don’t have a passport.
Two. The best strawberries come from Scotland. Raspberries too. The sweetest, plumpest, best fruit that I use to decorate my cupcakes, arrives from the north. They’re always gorgeously red on the inside, like the lipstick Mum used to wear. Got to be a good place if they have strawberry farms, right? At a pinch, I could always work on one if I can’t make my bakery work.
I will, though.
And three is a bit silly. Romantic, especially for the daughter of a… But in my favourite historical romance book the handsome hero sweeps the heroine off to Gretna Green, just over the border into Scotland, to marry her against her father’s wishes.
Obviously I don’t have any illusions about anyone wanting to marry me. Nah, not going to happen. I’ll be on my own, as I always am, but… I dunno. I want to run to Scotland so I can imagine I’m going to Gretna Green with a man so passionately in love with me he’s defying family and convention to marry me. I’m going to Scotland because it’s a place to build the life your heart desires.
It’s all planned out and the bank notes hidden, rolled into the seams of my favourite old hoody. It will be a long road to my dreams, and even then, I’ll still be alone. No scandalously flirting with a Regency duke, marriage at Gretna Green, orgasms, babies, and a husband to love me.
The love bit is probably the most unlikely part of all that, including a duke from the Regency. I’m not very lovable. People like my cupcakes, even if everyone here has an opinion about whether they’re too sweet, moist, dry, or have too little decoration or too much. However hard I try, I’m not lovable.
Marco Brent won’t come for me. No one ever has. So I breathe deeply, tell myself escape to Scotland will be enough, and fall asleep into a sea of pale blue.
A visit to the supermarket is a red-letter day. Even before I started saving up, I loved going to the supermarket. I get to look at things and fantasise about buying whatever I want. And no one follows me around. So far as my father is concerned, shopping is a menial task that I do and he merely has to check the receipt for anything illicit.
Like, you know. Clothes. Chocolate bars. He grumbles every time he sees period stuff on the bill, like I’m inconsiderate to bleed every month.
I suggested four years ago when I’d just turned sixteen, that if he didn’t want the expense of keeping me around he should allow me to leave. His mouth made an ugly line. He said that if I was more costly than useful, he’d take me up on that offer and I’d leave in bin bags.
On balance I prefer all my limbs attached and in old pyjamas. I think that suits me better.
Hence the need for this convoluted plan and careful use of supermarket trips.
Today, it’s a bit different. I think I’m sensing a ghost? A nice one that accompanies me to the supermarket?
I have this weird tingle over my neck and scalp, and I keep almost seeing someone out of the corner of my eye. But when I look, they’re gone.
Probably I’m just so starved of positive interactions that my mind is playing tricks.
I indulge in browsing the paperbacks. I limit my imaginary purchases to three, and dither over the third book. They’re historical romances. Two are my favourite authors, a dead cert, but should I have the one with a duke who’s a spy, or a marriage of convenience with a rake? I read the blurbs and check the prices and the relative length and focus as though I’m actually going to purchase any of them.
I’m not.
In the end I go for the duke spy. Powerful and dangerous book boyfriends, who can resist, right? I hold the three books in my hands and imagine taking them home, putting them on my bed, and reading them until they’re tattered and dog-eared. I sniff the spines for that paper smell. Then I put all the books back into their correct place on the shelf, for someone else to read.
It’s only when I’m unpacking the shopping that I find the duke book.
It’s tucked between two bags of sugar. And much as I try to think of how it could have happened accidentally, they’re all just as implausible as a poltergeist.
It was a ghost. My ghost.
I won’t be able to take much with me, so the next week I look at the jewellery in the store-within-a-store. Again, just to dream.
There’s a locked cabinet with expensive rings and necklaces. I stare through the glass and imagine the weight of the metal on my finger, or over my clavicle.
I press my nose up to the cool glass and admire the way the diamond sparkles on the big engagement ring, holding my hand out and trying to see what it would look like on me.
Two more supermarket trips and I’ll have enough money saved.
There’s increased tension at home. Westminster are making bleak threats about what they’ll do if they aren’t paid soon. From that I assume Marco hasn’t fallen for my father’s scheme, and although I ought to be nervous about my family’s finances, I’m only relieved Marco won’t lose out.
I find the ring in a bag of cherries I don’t remember buying.
Exactly the one I’d been looking at. The most expensive ring in the display.
Not a ghost, but a man.
A thief? For me?
I’m heated all over that someone cares enough to give me this ring, because it’s no accident. And though I’ve never seen him, I know the feel of this man’s attention and it is the most consideration I’ve had in years.
Subtle too, not putting me in danger from my father. It’s like I’ve been given invisible armour. Someone values me, albeit anonymously.
I secret the ring into the right cuff of my hoody, but I can’t resist bringing it out and looking at it every night. I slip it onto my fourth finger and imagine a duke gave me it because he wants to marry me.
A duke with pale blue eyes, salt and pepper hair, and a scar down the side of his face.
This is the last time I’ll buy my father’s groceries, and see my ghost. I choose a greeting card that says Thank You and prop it open, sticking up out of the shelves. I know he’s watching.
In the next aisle, I browse kitchenware for a few minutes, unable to concentrate on the bowls in soft blues and greens that I usually love. I’m eager to get back to the greeting cards, but I don’t want to scare him off. I sneak looks out of the corner of my eye.
A middle-aged woman with a baby. A young guy in a T-shirt who walks past makes me blink, but no. I don’t think that’s my stalker. Then a tall shadow of a dark suit and a flash of blue eyes. So smooth and fast, by the time my brain has caught up and I’ve turned, he’s gone. I rush to the end of the aisle, and then look down the next, and the next, almost sprinting.
Where is he? Marco. Was that…?
But he’s nowhere to be found. Holding in the scream of frustration is like shutting an overflowing fizzy pop bottle. All the disappointment is there, waiting to spill over the moment I open the cap.
It wasn’t Marco.
Kingpins do not go around leaving presents for girls they met once. Maybe it was a ghost.
With heavy feet scuffing the smooth floor, I walk back to my trolley.
I almost don’t return to the card section, but go out of duty. Should put the card in its correct slot, right? No need to make more work for the shop assistants.
Where I put the thank-you card, there’s another replacing it. It’s red and white. Simple and baffling.
It’s designed to look like a playing card: the queen of hearts. It reads, And I’m playing for keeps.
I huff in irritation even as delight tingles under my ribs.
But it’s over. Next week I’m putting my plan into action.
When I get back home and I’m unloading the shopping, I tell myself I’m not expecting anything, because how can he top the ring from last week? And maybe I imagined the whole thing. Among the other confectionery, making me doubt whether I bought them myself, is something I’ve never had.
A bag of Hershey’s kisses.
I smuggle them up to my bedroom and suck each one. I relish the chocolate as it melts in my mouth.
And I try not to feel sad that I’ve never had a kiss in real life.
It’s not just anticipation of escape that makes my head full of buzzing insects all week. There’s a lot of stress about Westminster, which is convenient as my tenseness is even less noticeable. I’m so close to getting out I can almost taste it.
I look at the gifts my stalker-ghost gave me and remind myself someone thought I was worth that risk, before returning the ring to the broken seam of my hoody.
The girl who was given a ring, a book, and kisses is capable of pulling off a bold escape. I’ve got my outfit ready for tomorrow: my hoody and my favourite jeans. Though I’m wearing my hoody to bed as usual since it’s cool tonight. I’m all set to never see any of this life again.
There is one thing I’ll miss. My ghost.
Whoever it is who is stalking me, leaving me gifts and messages, and I suspect, sometimes watching me in the garden. I can’t be certain my stalker is a man, but sometimes I catch a sweep of scent. A moment of ocean salt and fresh air.
Tomorrow.
Tomorrow I will enter the supermarket and walk straight back out to the taxi rank. From there, I’ve got the route mapped out to get to Scotland.
I’m nervous. Excited. I need to sleep, because tomorrow will be big.
