Mistress of the Game

Chapter Sixteen

LEXI LAY SPRAWLED OUT ON THE BLUE-AND-WHITE-STRIPED Ralph Lauren couch at Cedar Hill House, poring over the guest list for her party.

At sixteen, Lexi Templeton had fully emerged from her awkward early teen years. Gone were the hated braces on her teeth and the mornings spent staring longingly in the mirror trying to make her breasts grow through sheer force of will. Draped over the couch like Cleopatra in a pair of cutoff denim hot pants, her lithe, tanned legs stretching out for miles, Lexi was at last a full-fledged sex kitten. Her brown stomach was as smooth and flat as a Kansas prairie, despite the three bowls of Cocoa Krispies she'd wolfed down for breakfast that morning. A simple white bikini top covered breasts as full, round and perfect as small honeydew melons.

To be strictly accurate, the guest list she was studying was not for her party. Much to Lexi's chagrin, next week's celebration at Cedar Hill House was officially a joint sixteenth for her and Max.

Why should I have to share my birthday with him? Can't I have any life of my own?

Whatever Lexi did these days, her cousin seemed to show up like a bad penny.

Lexi's father felt sorry for him: "I think he's lonely, honey. Stuck in that apartment with his mother all vacation long. He probably doesn't have many friends."

I'm not surprised. He's so arrogant and stuck-up.

Peter had always put Max's moody silences down to shyness. Over the course of their childhoods, Lexi had formed a different view. Max wasn't shy. He was aloof. She called it his superiority complex, and it irritated the hell out of her.

On the plus side, at least Max's lack of social skills meant that a solid 80 percent of the birthday guests would be Lexi's friends from Exeter, and not a bunch of stuffed shirts from Choate, Max's prestigious Connecticut boarding school.

Lexi examined her list again:

Donna Mastroni, Lisa Babbington, Jamie Summerfield...oh, crap. Lisa can't sit next to Jamie. He screwed her over spring break when he was still dating Anna Massey. Where the hell can I put Lisa?

The answer was obvious: Lisa Babbington should sit at Max's table. God knew there were enough spaces. Lexi hesitated. Somehow the idea of seating one of her most attractive girlfriends next to her cousin did not appeal.

The truth was, though she would have died before admitting it, Lexi Templeton had mixed feelings about Max Webster. Three-quarters of the time, she hated him. He followed her around like a bad smell. He was rude, weird and more arrogant than any boy she'd ever met. During their joint internship at Kruger-Brent last Christmas (I can't even get a job on my own) Max had made it perfectly plain that he saw himself as Lexi's superior, intellectually and in every other way. Even at fifteen, the staff had begun to defer to him the way they used to defer to Robbie. Because of Lexi's deafness, people just assumed that Max would inherit the company one day. This assumption, fueled by Max's own sense of entitlement, drove Lexi crazy. At Kruger-Brent, Max made a point of playing up Lexi's disability, treating her with kid gloves as if she were some fragile flower. He never treats me like that when we're alone.

Lexi might be deaf but she wasn't blind. She saw what Max was up to and it incensed her. She also saw, much as it pained her to admit it, that her cousin had grown into an incredibly good-looking young man. Black-haired and even blacker-eyed, Max had an irresistible air of danger and wildness about him, like Heathcliff or a young Lord Byron. Most boys Lexi's age were gauche and immature. Even the jocks at Exeter seemed to have a built-in geekiness that surfaced in the presence of attractive girls like Lexi. But not Max Webster.

Max looked through Lexi as if she didn't exist.

So why does he hang around me all the time? If I'm so goddamn invisible, so beneath his royal notice, why doesn't he get a life of his own?

Lexi began scratching out names with a pen, rearranging the seating chart.

Lisa Babbington could sit next to Grady Jones.

If Max didn't have enough friends to fill his table, it wasn't her problem.

"Do you like it? I know it's not your official birthday yet, but Rachel thought you might want to wear it for the party."

Lexi's interpreter, Rachel, was her more or less constant companion. Peter Templeton had relied heavily on Rachel's advice when it came to choosing Lexi's birthday present. Watching Lexi's face light up now, he was glad he had.

"Daddy, I love it. Oh my goodness."

"Really?" He beamed with pleasure.

"Really."

Lexi ran her fingertips in wonder over the gossamer beaded silk dress. It was Chanel, from the new season's collection. The delicate fabric was the exact same shade of champagne blond as Lexi's hair. The cut was exquisite, plunging and clinging in all the right places, but too much of a work of art to look slutty. It was, without question, the most beautiful item of clothing in existence.

"A beautiful dress for my beautiful girl. You'll look like a princess, my angel."

Lexi smiled. "Thank you, Daddy." He still thinks I'm six years old. "It's an amazing present."

And it's gonna help me get the birthday present I really want:

Christian Harle.

Lexi learned early that her deafness was a double-edged sword when it came to dating.

Going to school with an interpreter who rarely left her side was a definite minus. Lexi's lip-reading was excellent and her speech by no means poor, but she was self-conscious about her imagined slurring and preferred to sign whenever possible and have Rachel speak for her.

She was lucky to have had the same interpreter for almost eight years now, since her early days in the hospital. Peter knew that consistency of caregivers would be crucial to his daughter's recovery. Consequently he had thrown money and perks at the then twenty-year-old Rachel, upping the ante every year to make sure she wasn't tempted to leave. Now twenty-eight, Rachel was considerably chubbier than she had been back then, but just as hardworking and sunny-natured. Lexi herself had long since passed the point where she actively noticed her interpreter's presence. To her, Rachel was like her shadow: always there, yet somehow almost invisible.

Unfortunately, boys didn't see it that way.

"Can't you lose Chubby Checker for half an hour after school?"

Pete Harris, a rebel with floppy blond hair, skater tattoos on his chest, and a reputation as the biggest player in tenth grade, leaned over in math class and whispered in Lexi's ear.

His warm breath on her earlobe felt nice. Lexi could pretty much get the gist of his intentions from pheremones alone. But of course, without being able to see his lips, the words themselves meant nothing.

She signed to Rachel. "Ask him to say it again. Tell him to look at me when he speaks."

Rachel duly did as she was asked. Suddenly the whole class had turned around to stare at Pete Harris. He didn't feel so cool anymore.

"Harris, you moron! Don't you know she needs to see your lips to read them?"

"Yeah, c'mon, Pete. Share with the class, man. What'd you say?"

"You guys should definitely date. Deaf and Dumb, what a couple!"

"I...I'm sorry," Pete Harris blurted, blushing to the roots of his blond hair. "You're cute, but I...I can't do this."

Lexi was philosophical about Pete Harris. He was hot, but he was kind of a moron. Besides, she had her sights set on a much bigger fish: Christian Harle.

Lexi had begun Operation Christian in the eighth grade. At fourteen, she was still far too lowly a minnow in the Exeter High School pond for a guy like Christian Harle to notice. Two years her senior, with the body of an Olympic athlete and a face that could make Brad Pitt cry, Christian Harle dated only cheerleaders or models. The fact that he was astronomically out of Lexi's league didn't faze her in the least. On the contrary, it made this the perfect time for her to lay the groundwork of her operation.

Her plan was simple. She would find out what Christian looked for in a woman. (Big tits, pretty face, ditzy manner, IQ of dung beetle.) She would then transform herself into his ideal mate.

Lexi checked off the points on Christian's wish list one by one.

My tits are nonexistent, but they'll grow.

My face is already pretty, or it will be once the braces come off.

I'm smart enough to pretend to be stupid. So what's left?

Ah yes. Ditzy and helpless.

If having Rachel around was a dating minus, Lexi's deafness also provided some unique dating pluses. Because of her disability, boys tended to think of her as sweet and vulnerable - the poor little deaf heiress who needed their protection. Lexi quickly learned how to turn this misconception to her advantage. By ninth grade, she had her phony damsel-in-distress shtick down to a fine art.

"Rachel? Would you ask Johnny to help me with my books? I'm so tired this morning, I really couldn't walk another step."

"I'm sorry, Mr. Thomas, but I'm afraid I couldn't finish my assignment this week. I've been having terrible nightmares. Flashbacks about my ordeal."

Lexi's big gray eyes welled with tears. Rachel thought: She's a fine little actress, this one. She's got them all fooled.

Christian liked ditzy? Lexi would give him ditzy.

Right along with this stupid-ass virginity burning a hole in my panties.