by Stacy Gail
“We’ll bug Andreas when we get home so he can wrangle something up. It might not be tacos, but then again with Andreas, you never know.” His grin quickly faded as he positioned the tattoo machine over her. “I’m sorry if this hurts, baby. The first minute’s the worst, but then it gets easier.”
If he hesitated one more time, she’d brain him. “Are you going to be a little girl about this, or are you going to do it already?”
“Becks, I…” He bit his lip, laughed once, and with a shake of his head, began to put his mark on her.
Payne hadn’t lied. It hurt. And he definitely knew what he was talking about when it came to those first couple of minutes. They were about as much fun as getting stung by a hive full of seriously pissed-off bees. But he was also right about the pain becoming manageable as time went on, and since he’d seemed genuinely freaked out about her comfort level, she made sure she kept herself relaxed. He had assured her it would only take one session to complete his special design made up of just four colors—black, gray, white and small accents of red. It didn’t cover a large expanse of skin either, stretching in a narrow-sided diamond between her breasts, from the bottom of her sternum to just where the softness of her stomach began. The center of her, as he had said.
“I remember when I got my first tattoo.” Payne’s voice was distant, a sort of lost-in-concentration tone that she often heard when they were in the studio together. He had a habit of answering her absently, then swearing later on that the conversation they’d had never happened. It was just one of the more exasperatingly endearing things that made her love him all the more. “My mom had taken me out to my favorite burger and shake shop when I was sixteen. No special reason, she said. I was happy for the unexpected treat, so I didn’t think anything was wrong. After we’d had dinner, she told me she had cancer, and though it looked bad and things were probably going to get scary, she was going to fight it like the tigress she was, so I wasn’t to worry about it. I don’t know if she ever knew, but when I went to bed that night, I’m not ashamed to admit that I cried myself to sleep.”
Becks watched his beloved face and had to blink when her vision blurred with a warm wash of tears. There was so much love in his expression. So much tenderness. This, she realized, was what all children should feel for their mother. Mixed in with that quiet, never-lost sadness in Payne’s eyes, there was the serenity of knowing he’d been loved. She could only hope that one day her own children would know that same serenity.
“That day was etched in my memory, because it was the day my life changed. I changed,” he added, turning to an ink cap for more red. “I tried so hard to act normally so she wouldn’t worry, but inside I knew my childhood was over. I wanted to commemorate that. I had the date of when she told me about the cancer diagnosis placed along my right shoulder on top of the trapezius muscle in Roman numerals. Then I had her birthday put on top of the left shoulder in Roman numerals to celebrate the fact that she existed, all the while certain she’d never know what they meant. But years later when she was in hospice, she touched my shoulder very gently and whispered, ‘Don’t put the date of when I die anywhere on you, baby boy. Because I’ll never die in your heart, just as you will never die in mine. I’ll always be with you.’ So I never did.” He looked up with a crooked smile, which vanished in alarm the moment he saw her tears. “Becks… oh, shit, you’re crying. Is the pain too much? Do you need a break?”
Good grief, men could be such thick bricks. “Everything about you moves me all the way to my soul, yet you’re sitting there wondering why I’m crying. Really?”
For the first time since she’d known him, dark color spread across his cheeks. Sebastian Payne was blushing. “Oh. Ah… hm.”
“I can’t help but think your mother would be proud to know that her memory, and the love you’ll always have for her, has molded you into the wonderful man you are today.”
“She would have loved you.” Clearly relieved for the subject change, he grinned and wiped the excess ink away. “She may have worked as a maid to keep us from starving to death, and I’ll forever be grateful to her for that sacrifice. But the fact is she was really a brilliant artist, a caricaturist in the same vein as Al Hirschfeld, and twice as clever. I have one of her creations on my left chest,” he added, absently indicating the mother-son caricature near his heart. “When we first met and you made it clear you understood the value of your art, I said I wished my mom had known you, remember? That confidence you have in your work…that was the one thing my mom lacked. She always downplayed her work by calling them doodles.”
Something inside Becks flinched at the insulting word her own father loved to fling at her. “I love that caricature on your chest. That’s no doodle. That came from the mind and hand of a truly gifted artist.”
“That’s why I think she would have loved you. You have no idea how dazzling your confidence is, and it’s made all the more so now that I know you didn’t come from a supportive background. You fought through a private kind of hell to create your art, and I…” He shrugged and turned off the machine. “I love that. You’re all done, by the way. You ready to see it?”
All at once a swarm of butterflies invaded her stomach. Okay, she reminded herself grimly, allowing him to lead her to a full-length mirror while she shrugged into her shirt to use it like a temporary robe. Whatever it was, even if it really was some dumbass thing like a frog riding a chicken, she would have to say she loved it. After all, it came from him, and he seemed to have put a lot of thought into whatever he’d created for her, so no matter what, she’d have to love it…
The moment she caught sight of it, her breath stopped. The design her skin now bore was that of a small metalwork plate for an old-fashioned keyhole. The scrollwork surrounding the keyhole was incredibly intricate and had a 3D effect thanks to the expertly done gray and white shading that made the scrollwork and edges appear raised. She was so impressed by the optical illusion that it took her several seconds to realize that embedded in the fanciful curls and flourishes were Payne’s initials. On the top of the narrow diamond-shaped design was a chess piece tipped in red, no bigger than her pinky nail.
“The chess piece represents you,” he explained when she leaned in to give it a closer look. “You’re the ultimate gatekeeper of your heart and soul, which is the center of who you are. That explains the concept of the lock itself, as well as its placement. But I also wanted to illustrate your strength when it comes to how you’ve made your own moves—building a good and fulfilling life for yourself as an artist. That chess piece, the Queen, is definitely the right choice for you.”
“I never would have thought of that.” She almost burst into tears when she looked closer and saw the top of the keyhole itself was crowned with a miniscule Wonder Woman tiara. If she hadn’t loved him already, she would have fallen for him like a ton of bricks then and there. “And your initials?”
“I want to protect you, too. Even when I’m not by your side, I want a part of me with you.” Very gently, almost as if he feared she might reject him, Payne rested his hands on her shoulders. “So? Do you like it?”
“It’s so perfect I can’t even find the words to tell you how much I love it.” Relieved and so touched by how much thought he put into the design, she turned to hug him only to wince when she raised her arms.
“Yeah, sorry about the discomfort.” He grimaced and bent to kiss her. “You and I are going to be a little sore for the next couple of days, but I don’t want you to worry. We should be raring to go by the time the exhibit rolls around.”
She blinked. “Why would you be sore?”
“I’d think that would be obvious,” he said, unbuttoning his shirt. “If there’s a keyhole somewhere in this world, there must be a key that was created to fit it.”
With that, he peeled back his shirt, revealing a three-inch white gauze rectangle roughly over the same area she’d just had tattooed. Carefully he removed it, grimacing as he did so. “I had Angel do this while you and
Scout were out and about today dealing with the caterers. What do you think? Pretty cool, yeah?”
“Oh… wow.” The skeleton key stood vertically over his heart, and no bigger than her index finger. Just like her tattoo, the image was intricately scrolled with that realistic metalwork appearance, and even had the faintest of shadows beneath it to give it added depth. It was so perfect in its three-dimensionality it looked ready to fall off his chest at any moment. Her abbreviated name, Becks, made up the portion of the key that turned a lock’s tumblers, before twining along the object’s thin body to create the hint of a stylized Betty Boop figure in the gray-on-black surface. The head of the key was topped, finial-style, with another chess piece—the King to her Queen.
“I told you I’d work Betty in there somewhere,” he said, clearly proud of his cleverness. “So? Are you okay with how—”
Ignoring how much it hurt to reach up, Becks caught his face in her hands and kissed him with the force of all the love raging inside her. The need to tell him was there, straining to be free, but she held in check with a ruthlessness borne from years of bitter rejection. How many times had she told the people in her life that she loved them, only to have it ignored? The final time she had told her brother she loved him was one that was still a nightmare for her to think about. She’d expressly told him the reason she’d picked him up from the party the night he was killed was because she loved him so much. His slurred and angry response had stayed with her every day since, as they were the last word he’d ever uttered.
“Fuck off, Becks. I hate you.”
So she kept it bottled up, refusing to give it a voice despite its desperate need to be released. Those words only led to disappointment. Hell, no one knew better than she did that nothing she could say or do would ever make anyone love her back.
Saying those words out loud was just so frigging pointless.
But that didn’t mean she couldn’t show Payne the joy his presence in her life gave her. With everything she had, she tried to convey her love through the glide of her fingers through his hair and the heat of her lips as they melded to his. With his mark decorating her body, Payne had given her the gift of his art, his vision, his bold sense of permanence. The least she could do was give him her heart in return.
Even if he didn’t know it.
When they at last broke apart, she smiled into his eyes. “This is the most amazing gift anyone’s ever given me. Thank you, Payne. Thank you for being so gifted, and so incredibly wonderful.”
“No problem.” His face relaxed into a cheeky grin before he caught her up in a bear hug. “Now, about your next tattoo—”
She couldn’t stop the eye roll if her life depended on it. “I’ve already figured it out, though I’m not sure when I’ll be emotionally ready for it.”
“Why? What is it?”
“The piece that represents the death of my little brother, Justin—Missing Piece. One day, when I’m up to it, I’d like to have you put that on me.”
Payne looked down at her in surprise before compassion softened his eyes. “I didn’t know you had a brother.”
She nodded, struggling to keep her throat from knotting with useless tears. “He died four years ago. That’s why my dad hates me so much. Well, no,” she corrected while Payne took a step back in surprise. “That’s not true. My dad always hated me, I get that now. But at least his overt dislike was kept under a tight lid. Then my brother died, and that lid blew with a vengeance. Probably because he had the excuse of blaming me for Justin’s death,” she added with a thoughtful frown, at long last gaining enough emotional distance to look at Martin Delgado objectively. What she saw was an unwell, very small man who resented anyone different from him, and had zero parenting skills. She no longer held herself responsible for all that he lacked, because she’d finally figure out the problem wasn’t her. It was him. She wasn’t unlovable. Martin Delgado simply wasn’t capable of the beautiful, selfless love most parents had for the children they brought into the world.
“Four years ago?” Payne’s hands were on her shoulders, gripping so tightly it was almost painful. “Becks, how did your brother die?”
She twitched her shoulders, then sighed in relief with his fingers loosened. “Car accident. I was driving my brother home after he’d gotten drunk at a frat party. His football coach called me in the middle of the night and told me I needed to come pick him up.”
Payne’s expression was like stone. “A car accident.”
She nodded. “It was all so out of the blue. I was a sophomore at Colombia and living in a dorm at the time. I didn’t even know Justin had my number, and I still don’t know how he got my contact information to his coach, he was so totally wasted, but…” She shrugged. It didn’t matter. All that mattered was the end result. “Justin fought me and his coach when we tried to buckle him in, so I made the biggest mistake of both our lives and took off for our parents’ house without making sure my little brother was safe. We were speeding up to get onto the freeway when someone ran out into the road.” She shook her head, staring at her feet. She didn’t want him to see her eyes now, not when she was reliving the worst moment of her life. “I don’t remember the impact. I don’t even remember how I got out of the car. All I know is that when I woke up a week later, my back was broken, I had trouble with my memory, and my father was screaming that I was a drunken murderer. Those were the first words I recall hearing—drunken murderer. Five days later they cut off my medical insurance, froze the college fund that I’d helped pay into, and kicked me out with only the clothes on my back. They left me on the sidewalk outside the hospital and never looked back.”
“Goddamn it. Just…goddamn it.” He pulled her into a fierce embrace, tucking her face against the curve of his neck. “I had no idea. I’m sorry, Becks. I’m so fucking sorry.”
“You had nothing to do with it.” At the risk of fracturing vertebrae all over again, she leaned back against the steel bands of his arms to smile up at him. “It’s just one of those crazy things that happened. After four years of living under the guilt my father heaped on me for something that was beyond my control, I’m not going to do it anymore. And I’m not going to allow anyone else to feel bad about something that was a total accident. No one was at fault here. No one.”
Payne shook his head and hugged her all the more.
Chapter Seventeen
Since House Of Payne closed its doors at midnight, Payne was almost never in the office before ten in the morning. Today, however, was different.
“This better be good, calling me in an hour before we open.” Bleary-eyed, Scout stumbled through the door and into the deserted lobby where he paced in front of the reception desk. “You know how I am if I don’t get at least seven hours of sleep. I hope you’re ready to cope if I turn into a zombie around midday.”
“You tell me whether or not calling you in was a good idea.” He stopped his restless pacing and nailed her with a hard stare. “Justin Delgado.”
The widening of Scout’s eyes confirmed his suspicion before she looked away. “Yeah. It was a good idea.”
Shit. “So you did know about him. You knew someone died in that car wreck.”
“Yes.”
“Why the fuck didn’t you tell me?”
“Because scouting out trouble is what I do,” she shot back with surprising ferocity, her chin angling up as if daring him to take a swipe. “Do me a favor and think back to how life was four years ago. It wasn’t like how it is now—all smooth sailing and calm seas. Back then the media wasn’t beating down our door begging for five minutes with you. We barely had a pot to piss in. Yeah, people had heard about some tattooist named Payne who fucked a former TV star and posted it on online, but that was all you were famous for. No one knew how talented you were, both as an artist and as a businessman. It was vital for us to educate the world on what Sebastian Payne was really like.”
“What does any of that have to do with you keeping me in the dark about Justin Delgado’s death?
”
She held up her finger and thumb, measuring out a meager inch. “You were this close to being nothing more than a skeevy porno joke who had a rep for screwing anything that walked through the door of his hole-in-the-wall tattoo parlor. You needed to focus on creating an urbane, artistic persona to go along with House Of Payne. That meant you had to be at your best. No outside distractions could be allowed.”
“Outside distractions?” The words hissed out from between his teeth. He was so angry he couldn’t get his jaw unlocked. “A nineteen-year-old kid dying of a broken neck isn’t a distraction. It’s a fucking tragedy.”
“A tragedy you had nothing to do with.”
“I had everything to do with it.”
“Bullshit! Monique Bournival was a spoiled, psychotic meth-head uber-bitch who never knew there were worse problems in the universe than her inability to choose between a winged eyeliner look and the smoky-eyed panda smudge. Or I should say, that was usually her biggest concern when she wasn’t tweaking. When she was high, she actively tried to bring everyone down with her with a malevolent glee, including you. I wasn’t about to let that happen.”
“Instead she brought down two innocent people, the Delgado siblings.”
“Yes. She did. You didn’t.”
“Responsible or not, I still should have been told all the details that you uncovered.”
She growled in frustration. “Think about that night, Payne. It was the launch party for the House. You’d been pushing nonstop for months on its promo. You were beyond exhausted, and though you don’t like to admit it, you’re just as sensitive emotionally as any artist I know. I wasn’t sure how the death of a teenaged kid with a bright future would affect you at the most critical time in your life, but I was sure it would. And not for the better.”
Payne’s gritted his teeth, pissed off that he couldn’t fight her pragmatic logic. All too well he remembered the madness of that night. Monique and her dramatic bid for attention, the ugly violence of the car smashing headlong into a bridge abutment. The flicker of flame from beneath the car where there had been no movement, no sign of life. The black smoke filling the interior to the point where it was impossible to see anything, the desperation to get the driver out before the whole thing blew up. It had been a waking nightmare, and it had rattled him even without knowing about Justin. As it was, that night had brought out the protective instinct to watch over the young woman he’d saved, to the point of needing to discover everything he could about her. At the time, when he’d learned she was an astonishingly gifted artist, he’d believed it was meant to be.
