Summary: Dark Lace. A follow up to last year’s Devil’s Due. A few months after the conclusion of their deal, Lacey finds herself missing her devil, and she’s very pleased to see him again.
Written for the @a-monthly-rumbelling prompt: Bright lights, missing piece
Rated: T
Speak of the Devil
There are moments in Lacey’s life when she wonders if her deal with the devil was all just a dream. She spent the five years between making the deal and him collecting on it in a state of constant awareness that her fame was all his demonic doing.
Now he’s collected, and they’re even, and her life is still continuing on its upwards trajectory, but this time without his inevitable return hanging over her like the Sword of Damocles. A part of her keeps waiting for the other shoe to drop, but sometimes she catches herself in a moment of freedom, grateful for how blessed she has turned out to be.
It’s only when she returns to her lonely bed of an evening that she really remembers the price that she has paid.
Her devil has bewitched her, and he is the only one she will ever want. Her heart yearns for him, constantly reminding her of the single kiss that they shared, the kiss from her that was his price for helping her out of obscurity all those years ago.
She had asked if she would see him again, but he had not given her a definitive answer, and she wonders if this is the ongoing price that she must pay for her ambition, the kink in the deal that had seemed set out so neatly at the time. She will forever be alone; the one person who can sate this need inside her will never come to her again.
Lacey tries to tell herself that it doesn’t matter, and for most of the time, she can make it work. She throws herself into her work, gathering praise for her roles from all corners. In the end, though, the moments where it brings her no satisfaction are becoming more and more frequent.
She wonders if this is part of his plan all along, to make her so desperate for him that she will call upon him and make another deal, but despite sometimes losing sight of the bargain she originally made, Lacey always snaps out of her false sense of security sooner rather than later, and she is still as genre-savvy as they come. She wouldn’t have managed to keep her cool during their last encounter if she had not been.
He had liked that about her. He had liked that she had taken him seriously and been ready for him. He had liked that she had not forgotten where all of her fortune had come from, and she knows that she cannot forget it now. Well, it would be hard to do so when he is on her mind more and more. She won’t call on him. She doesn’t know how she would do it, even if she wanted to. She had not called on him in the first place, not consciously at least. Maybe he sensed something in her, the hunger, the desperation, and it had called out to him in spite of her.
A small part of her wonders if it will do it again, that he will appear in her hour of need just as he did last time without any intervention on her part. She quickly pushes that thought aside. As much as she wants him, she knows that she has to be on her guard. If he is expecting her to cave, then she will not give him that satisfaction, because a part of her knows that it will give him infinitely more satisfaction to see her last out against him. She’s a curiosity in his mind, to be so strong-willed, so keen to meet him on his own terms and read the small print that he might try to hide away.
Lacey looks in the mirror as she puts the final touches to her make-up. The limo is waiting outside to take her to the premiere of her latest masterpiece, and there’s a part of her that doesn’t want to go. Suddenly, the bright lights and the glamour hold no meaning for her. She wouldn’t go so far to say that they were all she ever wanted; she’s more practical than that.
It’s still a jarring thought, and it leaves her wondering where her loyalties lie. Is she ungrateful for the life that he has given her? Is this the great moral lesson that she must learn; that fame and success can’t buy happiness and love? Lacey’s happy, but she’s lonely, lonely for one man (if he even is a man) in particular.
She makes her way down the stairs and out to the car. On the journey tonight, she feels the absence of someone by her side more acutely, like a missing piece in her life that she tries to convince herself that she has no desire to fill.
The red carpet is waiting for her, with the camera flashes and the microphones so familiar to her now that they can almost be called friends and family in their own right. It’s time to run the press gauntlet again. Lacey checks her make-up one final time in her compact and steps out of the limo.
As always, all eyes immediately fall on her as she arrives. Lacey likes to make a fashion statement at these kinds of events. The more people talk about her dress, the more it distracts them from the fact that she has once again come to one of her premieres unescorted.
Today, she’s chosen a long gown in clinging black satin that hugs every curve, the back open and plunging down to the base of her spine, material trailing long behind her as she walks. For a moment, she can block out the shouts of the crowd as background noise, just a distraction, but then she is pulled back into loud and bright reality as people begin to call her name, all clamouring for a piece of her.
Lacey smiles graciously and goes over to the nearest reporter.
“So, Lacey, first things first, you’ve got to tell us about the dress.”
“Oh, this lovely number? This is from Esmeralda Paris’s new collection…” Lacey trails off as she feels a shiver run down her spine, like someone walking over her grave or the feel of phantom fingers touching her skin. She’s felt it before, when she wakes hot and bothered in the middle of the night, desperate for a certain man’s hands on her, but she’s always shoved it crossly to the back of her mind. This time, though, she has to glance over her shoulder.
There’s nothing there. She knew that there wouldn’t be, but it doesn’t stop the pervading thought gnawing at her that there was something different about this occasion. She doesn’t want to give herself false hope, but at the same time…
She continues to talk to the journalists as she makes her way down the red carpet. She answers the same questions so many times that she’s got them down rote, and it’s only an unexpected query that jars her back into the present.
“So, no one special to bring to the premiere, Lacey?”
She’s startled into silence for a moment because she’s avoided the relationship question so far, and she’s been so caught up in her own tumultuous thoughts that she forgot it would inevitably be coming at some point. She’s never managed to get to the end of an event without hearing it.
“No,” she says eventually. “No, there never is. I’ve always preferred my own company.”
It’s not strictly true, but it’s far from a lie. She was always a longer, even before she made her deal. Even so, she feels that shiver again, and again, she has to look over her shoulder.
She doesn’t see him at first, but then again, she didn’t see him the first time either. He appears without fanfare as if he’s always been there, standing at the other end of the red carpet, unobtrusive, everyone acting as if he’s got every right to be there. Well, of course he has. He’s the devil in disguise after all. He can get away with just about anything.
Lacey blinks, and looks to the journalist and back to him, but he’s still there. He’s solid and real and tangible, at least, she hopes he will be by the time she gets to him. At length, he finally meets her eyes, his mouth curling up in a smirk and showing her that glint of gold in his teeth.
She can’t lose him now, not when she spent so long missing him with no expectation of seeing him again. Murmuring an apology to the reporter, she begins to run down the red carpet towards him. She can hear the commotion she causes among the journalists, almost blinded by the camera flashes, but she never takes her eyes off him.
He’s still there when she reaches him. He’s as solid and real and tangible as she hoped he’d be.
“Well, that was quite the sprint, dearie,” he quips. “Do I take it that you missed me? I must admit, I was incredibly impressed with how well you took the separation. Not once did you waver from your resolve not to call on me.” He smiles. “I do admire you, Lacey.”
Lacey doesn’t reply, grabbing the lapels of his tux and yanking him in for a kiss. She’s oblivious to the roar of the crowd around her and the thousands of flash bulbs illuminating them like a supernova.
He returns the kiss just as ferociously, his hands searing on her bare back and his mouth tasting of that familiar and delicious forbidden fruit.
“What happens now?” she asks as she finally pulls away.
“Well, dearie, that depends entirely on whether the fiercely independent Lacey French would like a companion on the next part of her journey.”
Lacey gives a decided nod before kissing him again. She doesn’t know how long he will stay, but for now, she has her missing piece, and she couldn’t care less for the media storm that they have just created together.
