by Stacy Gail
No pressure there.
A colorful mandala-covered mug caught her eye, and she plucked it off the shelf to give it a closer study. The mandala itself was done in rainbow hues and melting to a center point at the bottom, reminding her of crayon wax art. It was beautiful, but if she had been in charge of how the design had been placed on the mug, she would have had it so the dripping colors flowed into the handle itself…
Inspiration struck hard. A nanosecond later she cursed a blue streak under her breath. She’d been in such a hurry to escape her brother that she’d left her sketchbook up in his booth. With a frustrated sigh, she headed for the cashier, mug in hand. This was Twist’s fault, she decided on a irritated huff. If he hadn’t been preaching so incessantly on the virtues of not talking to strange men, she wouldn’t have needed to make a bid for freedom. Now she was stuck waiting around for heaven knew how long before she could get her book back.
Fabulous.
Leaving the gift shop behind, Essie headed toward the reception area at the front of the building. While most of her time had been spent upstairs in either Payne’s office or her brother’s booth, it was the entirety of the downstairs floor she liked best. Tinted floor-to-ceiling windows in the reception area looked out onto the never-ending traffic of The Loop. The black marble floor gleamed like a skating rink under the bright white lights overhead, and beyond the reception area was a sophisticated art gallery, where the House’s more famous pieces were displayed on stark white modular walls.
At House Of Payne, art reigned supreme.
“Hey, Scout.” Essie smiled at the woman behind the state-of-the-art reception desk. “I’ve got a question for you.”
“I hope I’ve got an answer.” Scout looked up from her tablet and returned her smile. “What’s up?”
“See this gorgeous thing?” Essie handed the mug over to the other woman. “Do you happen to know who the artist is who made it?”
“I think that’s Max’s work… aha, yep.” She turned the mug over, then showed the name to Essie. “He usually specializes in retro tats—you know, giving it that forties and fifties look down to the last detail. But every now and again, he goes Salvador Dali on us and melts whatever he’s working on. It’s weird, but cool.”
“I love the melty part, but I was kind of hoping I could manipulate the way it looks… ugh,” Essie interrupted herself and gave a tiny stomp of her foot. “It’s too hard to explain without my sketchbook, which I left upstairs in Twist’s booth. I don’t suppose my brother’s going to be done with his client any time soon, is he?”
“Let’s see.” Scout set the mug on the desk and let her fingers fly over a keyboard embedded in the console, her eyes on a large monitor. “Nope, sorry. Twist is going to be socked in there for another three hours or so.”
Naturally. “Well, that might give me some time to chat with this Maximo dude. I don’t suppose he’s available during the next three hours, is he?”
“No, and I strongly advise making an appointment, if you’re sure you absolutely have to talk to Maximo,” came the quelling reply. “He’s got a couple of nicknames around here—The Mad Russian, and Mad Max. See the common thread going on there?”
“Mm-hm.” Essie plucked the mug back up and contemplated the melting mandala. It was simply too cool to not use. “Just how mad is he?”
“In all honesty, I find your brother to be way more of a handful than Max. But he is like the rest of you weirdo artists—very hard to predict.”
“I’m not a weirdo. In fact, I’m the most normal fashion designer I’ve ever met.”
“That’s not saying much, but at least you don’t refer to yourself in the third person,” Scout added fairly when Essie opened her mouth to protest. “Maybe you’ll see what I mean when you talk to Max… that is, if you still think you want to talk to him?”
“I definitely do, even if it’s only for five minutes. I have a great idea for some activewear for this design, but I need to make sure the artist is cool with what I intend to do with it.”
“Okay, I’ll—”
“Scout, we’ve got company coming, so drop what you’re doing and listen up.” Payne appeared around the corner along with Ezekiel Steele—or Steele—his aura crackling with intensity. Surprised, Essie’s glance caught Steele’s, and all at once she forgot why she was there.
Pow.
The impact of his gaze slammed into her hard enough to punch the air out of her lungs. She heard herself gasp even as her heart sprouted happy-feet and started skipping all over the place. Her hand fluttered to her chest—just in case she needed to perform CPR on herself—and tried to remember when she’d ever had such a profound reaction to someone simply looking at her.
And he had been looking. His gaze had already been trained on her by the time she’d looked his way, and that fact made her entire nervous system light up. Unlike every other human being on the planet, Steele didn’t seem thrown by her clothing-camouflage that made her invisible. For some reason, this man saw her.
She liked that.
A lot.
Scout arched her brows at Payne’s announcement. “What’s going on?”
“I just got a call from the personal secretary of one the Royals—”
“Stop right there.” She held up a hand like a traffic cop. “Kansas City baseball, Buckingham or a cast member from that TV series?”
“Buckingham. It doesn’t matter who, so I’m not going to say,” he tacked on when Scout’s eyes went huge. Essie deflated and pooched out her lips in a disappointment she couldn’t help. Well, boo. Nothing cool ever happened in her life, but being in the same building with an English Royal was definitely cool. At the very least she’d like to know who it was going to be.
A low huff of laughter made her glance up, only to find Steele watching—and apparently enjoying—her pouty reaction. The moment she looked up at him, his meticulously kept professional mask slipped even more, and he winked at her.
Oh… wow.
Her breath shallowed out and her pulse took off like a rocket. Good grief. Who knew a simple wink from a man could look so damn hot?
“All that matters,” Payne was saying while she struggled not to pearl-clutch, “is that we get my schedule cleared for the day.”
“I take it you’re the one who’s going to be slinging some royal ink?”
“You got it. They’re going to be here in about an hour, so we need to reschedule the appointment I had, with our apologies and a discount.”
“As you know, I’m all for catering to our heavy-hitter clients, but I don’t like people getting preferential treatment just because they’ve got crowns and tiaras and shit.” Scout turned her attention back to the calendar displayed on the monitor, tapped the screen twice, then dragged her finger to another box. “You should’ve told them you were booked for the next ten months, and to take a number like everyone else.”
“Not everyone else can influence the masses by getting a House Of Payne tattoo, so I don’t want to hear any bitching about it.”
“Yeah, yeah. Is there anything you do want to hear?”
“Yeah, I want to hear that you’ll help Steele with all the security issues this unexpected visit kicks off.”
“Right.” Clearly torn between being thrilled with the Royal arrival, and irritated on behalf of all the working-class everywhere, Scout nodded to their chief of security. “What do you need?”
“No drop-ins will be allowed from now until however long the Royal is in-house.” At last Steele pulled his gaze from Essie to turn his attention to Scout, who’d once again grabbed up her tablet. “I’ve called for more warm bodies to be posted at all points of egress to make sure we control who comes in and out.”
“Points of egress. Sweet. I’ve always wanted an excuse to say that phrase. What else?”
“I need you to email me a list of the names of all the House’s clients who are scheduled to come in today, so that my team can check them in at the door.”
“Wow, really
? You don’t want us to cancel everyone?”
“Absolutely not. We want to give the appearance that everything at House Of Payne is business as usual. That means everyone keeps their appointments with their various tattooists, just like they would on any other day.”
“Sure, this is just another normal day here at the House, getting balls-to-the-walls ready for Prince Charming or whoever’s going to be waltzing through the door.” Looking down at her tablet, Scout worked it like a concert pianist. “I guess it’d be weird to roll out the red carpet since we’re wanting to keep a low profile?”
Essie loved the slow rise of Steele’s scarred eyebrow. “Yeah. It’d be weird.”
“Okay, nix on the red carpet, you killjoy, you. When’s your team due in to lock this place down like Fort Knox?”
“The next fifteen minutes or so, is my guess. However long it takes them to get from PSI to here.”
“PSI?” Essie asked, then immediately clamped a hand over her mouth. “Sorry.”
“It stands for Private Security International. We’ve been contracted to do security for the House.” Again, Steele’s gaze drifted to Essie. That looked like a hint to her, so she straightened away from the counter.
“Do you want me to leave? I should leave, right? Sorry about that.”
“What? No.” A half-smile softened Steele’s all-business mask before he moved to stand at the corner of the counter closest to her, as if to prevent her from going anywhere. “After careful consideration, it’s my professional opinion that you’re not a threat to some English Royal who may or may not be able to take the pain of a tattoo needle. I mean, you might look like a dangerous desperado, but I think it’s safe enough for you to stay.”
Oh, yeah, she silently snorted. Dangerous. That was her, all right. “Good, because I can’t leave until I get my sketchbook out of Twist’s booth, and finish making an appointment with some artist named Maximo.” She held up her mug, letting it dangle from her fingers by its handle. “Cool design, yeah?”
“You’re interested in Mad Max’s work?” Payne cast a curious glance their way. “Fair warning, Es—Max is what you might call eccentric. You can be chatting about something as simple as the merits of microwavable mac and cheese, and suddenly he’s turned the whole conversation into sexual innuendo. He doesn’t do it to be offensive. That’s just the way his mind works, and he seems to assume that everyone’s like that.”
“Aha.” Not sure whether she was put off or amused, she found herself grinning at Payne. Amusement won. “Thanks for the warning.”
“When’s your appointment with this guy?” Steele’s expression had slipped back into stone-faced professional mode, with his mouth a flat line.
“Um.” Surprised at his interest, she nodded at Scout. “I was just about to make an appointment when you guys rolled up.”
“Sorry, honey, but I have to put that on the backburner for now.” Scout spoke without looking up, busily typing away. “Could you do me a favor and remind me to make you an appointment later? I’ve got to get this done.”
“I’ll shoot you an email so that when you do have time, you can go ahead and get it then. No rush,” she added with a quick smile when the other woman looked up with a grateful glance. “It’d probably be best if this doesn’t even happen today, considering how busy everyone is, so it’s all good.”
Scout paused in her super-sonic typing just long enough to blow her a kiss. “You are so much easier to deal with than your brother. Email me right now so you don’t forget.”
“Got it.” As she dug for her phone to thumb at the screen, she listened absently to Payne brief Steele on just how many Royal bodyguards would be invading the House. Since it sounded like sensitive information that shouldn’t be heard by totally normal people like her, she wandered toward the front door, head down over her phone as she pulled up Scout’s email and began to type. It was sweet of Payne to give her fair warning about this Maximo dude, but she wasn’t fragile. A few naughty suggestions or dirty words weren’t going to send her into a—
Unintelligible male voices yelling at each other reached her ears as two men hurtled through House Of Payne’s front doors. She only had enough time to get an impression of them—a stocky Hispanic with a heavy Groucho-style mustache and hair pulled back in a bushy ponytail, the other a bald Caucasian bowling ball, as wide as he was tall. Both had their phones out and held up in such a way that she thought they were recording something, and yelling pure profanity at each other. That was all she managed to register before they plowed into her without even acknowledging her existence.
As she flew through the air, she had enough time to ponder that there was a definite downside to being invisible.
The shattering of her newly purchased mug almost drowned out her startled yelp. Pain sliced into her hand at the fleshy base of her thumb as she sprawled on the floor, rolling over the sad remains of her mug like she’d been thrown from a car.
It took her a moment to realize she was still in one piece, unlike her poor mug, even as all hell broke loose around her. The hubbub that the shouting men had kicked off was nothing compared to what was unleashed around her—running footsteps, a flurry of movement, a furious screech from Scout, and Payne going off like a volcano packed full of nuclear F-bombs. It was total chaos, and she smartly kept her head down until the worst of it was over. Then she was being hauled to her feet by Payne while she still clutched her phone and the sad, busted handle of her mug.
“Motherfuckers better not twitch a goddamn hair, or I’ll kill ‘em myself,” Payne snarled, holding Essie by the arms while staring pure death at a point beyond her shoulder. Dazedly she looked back to take in the scene in its entirety. The two men who’d trampled her now looked as though they had been trampled themselves. The dude with the Groucho mustache was curled up in a fetal position, rocking noiselessly with his hands between his knees.
Ouch.
The round bald guy was ass-end up and on his knees, his jowly cheek pressed to the floor while Steele stood over him. He had the guy in an arm-lock that looked excruciating to Essie, as if Steele was trying to see if he could bend the dude’s fingers forward along the man’s forearm to see if they could touch the elbow.
Considering how the bald dude was screaming, excruciating was probably an accurate description.
“Essie.” Steele’s eyes were darker than she’d ever seen them as he looked to her, not moving from his position over the screaming man. “You okay?”
Embarrassment nearly strangled her to death. Seriously, why did stupid things always happen to her? “Yeah, I’m fine. Sorry about that. I didn’t have a chance to get out of their—”
“Don’t apologize.” Steele’s voice turned deadly as he bent over the bowling ball of a man. “Who do you think should apologize here, asshole? Who?”
“Me! Meeeeeee!”
“Well?”
“I’m sorry, I’m sor-reeeee…”
“Essie, honey.” Scout somehow jogged up to her in another totally kickass pair of stilettos, and pressed a paper towel into her hand. “You’re dripping blood like a faucet, girlfriend. This isn’t your dominant hand, is it? I don’t want you to be handicapped in the contest.”
“What?” Icy prickles washed over Essie as she looked down. The white paper towel Scout had pressed into her hand was fast turning a dark crimson.
Oh, God.
Blood.
The scent of it hit her. All at once her brain spewed out disjointed memories as if it had suddenly become a nightmare factory.
Screaming and blood.
Pain and blood.
Horror and blood.
Blood.
She hated the scent of blood.
Spots of darkness grew around the edges of her vision. Half blind, she looked to Steele, though she couldn’t begin to explain why.
“Blood,” she croaked.
As if from far away, she watched him drop the bald man, leaping over him to get to her even as the floor seemed to vanish ou
t from under her feet.
Chapter Six
“For the last time, I’m fine.”
Steele paused at the head of the narrow back stairwell when Essie’s sultry contralto voice reached his ears. He’d already been around the entirety of her building to check its overall security. It wasn’t awful, but one of the residents had held the door open for him so he could gain entrance. Not to mention both the front and the back doors were made of tempered glass. If someone was determined enough to get in, they could do it.
“How am I not supposed to worry about you? You fucking fainted.”
The male voice was one Steele recognized right away; Oliver “Twist” Santiago, Essie’s oldest brother. He sounded about as exasperated as a man could be, and Steele couldn’t blame him. From his position at the far end of the hall, he even cheered him on for being a protective presence in Essie’s life. It was clear that it was this protective stance in Twist that made him not a fan of Steele’s, but the feeling was far from mutual. Steele thoroughly approved of just about everything Twist stood for when it came to Essie’s safety.
“I didn’t actually faint, Twist. And if you tell Mom and Dad that I did, I’ll rip your head off.”
Aw. She was kind of cute when she threw around empty threats.
“I haven’t told them anything. If I had, they’d be here in your face instead of me, and you know it. You know they hate that you’re living in this dump.”
“This dump is what I can afford. And don’t worry about my living here. Since this frigging stupid contest has now locked me into yet another two months with no paycheck, I’ll probably be moving into Mom’s and Dad’s place like a total loser.”
Steele’s brows came together. Damn. He hadn’t thought about money being a problem, but it made sense. Unlike the other two designers who already had jobs in the area, Essie had come up from Texas for a job at House of Payne—a job that Payne had turned into a months-long contest without pay.
