Destiny Maybe

PROLOGUE

Warning: before proceeding further, understand that this isn’t like any of those novels where the nerdy girl gets trampled and bullied and then meets her prince charming.

In this grand story, I’m the royal bully. The Queen Bee. The warden. The bitch. Name it: I’m the evil incarnate. You can hate me, it doesn’t matter.

I’m the daughter of the owner of Helterground Corporations, the top conglomerate in the United States. That’s not where my fortune ends. I’m also the owner and the face of Fallen Grace, a clothing line that I founded two years ago.

“Lucy, Zette wants you in the dressing room now!” Maylene Maurice, my friend and make-up artist, yells from the other side of the studio. I’m sitting in my chair, having a shot of martini, while the rest of the crew arranges the set for the next shoot. We have been spending the last two weeks preparing for the preview of the launching of our autumn collection and my designers have certainly outdone themselves this time. I have also hired several models who were not picked by Victoria’s Secret to this year’s Fashion Show just to mock the company for having such impossibly high standards and for endorsing a false image of how women should look like.

I pretend not to hear the crazy girl yelling thirty feet across from me as I relish the headlines that would undoubtedly appear after the launch.

“Lucy, I know you can hear me!” she continues to shrill. I sigh for the hundredth time today.

That’s me, Lucy Ferdelance Woods. My manager, Jesuzette Harper, jokingly said my first and middle names sound Lucifer when pronounced out loud. Instead of getting mad, I agreed. That joke went around the production crew for two weeks during photoshoot, but no one dared to call me Lucifer to my face. Even now. I think my mother was joking when she named me. She must have had a premonition who her daughter would grow up to be. And she got that right.

I grin mischievously. I couldn’t blame myself, could I? I prefer the fun life than the corporate life my father wants me to have. I have bigger dreams than spending my entire life inside an office trying to control the business world.

Well, so much for being too serious.

Still ignoring Maylene, I let my sharp green eyes land on my first victim of the day: a young girl holding a cup of Starbucks, about to pass by the spot where I am sitting. Without warning, I thrust my right foot in her way and then there is a gasp, then a loud thud as she hits the hard ground.

Muffled gasps and guffaws erupt as the poor girl struggles to stand. Her shirt is drenched in espresso, spoiling her probably newly bought Abercrombie & Fitch designer’s item. A crew member rushes to help the girl up. Smirking, I stand and flip my hair. She looks up at me with reddening face and teary eyes and my grin widens even more.

“Welcome to hell, bitch.”