Beneath This Ink

by Meghan March

  The kitchen timer unleashed a series of beeps.

  Crap. I spun, but felt a presence behind me as I reached for the oven mitts.

  “Sit down, princess. Let me get those for you.”

  Con pressed a kiss to my neck and snagged the oven mitts from the counter.

  “I’m pregnant, not helpless, Con.”

  But even with my protest, I stepped aside and took a seat at one of the giant dining tables. Con pulled open the massive oven and lifted two cookie sheets out and placed them on top of the stove.

  He chuckled. “I can tell you’re not helpless. The hundred or so bags on that prep table clued me in to that. You were supposed to make—”

  “I know. I know. And then I was supposed to come sit and watch. But I got—”

  “Carried away. I know, baby. You always get carried away.” He slipped off the oven mitts and left them on the counter before moving to where I sat. Crouching in front of me, he reached up and smoothed his thumb across my temple. “How the hell did you manage to get jam on your face and in your hair?”

  I shrugged. I could pretty much get jam anywhere. It was a talent of mine. “You didn’t complain when I put jam on your—”

  Con crushed his lips to mine, silencing my next words.

  “All right, all right. Enough with that shit, you two.” I pulled away from the kiss at the familiar voice. I jumped to my feet, knocking Con back on his ass.

  He grumbled, but didn’t stop me as I waddled across the room. “Trey!” I looked back at Con, who was pushing up to his feet. “You didn’t tell me he was home!”

  Trey reached out to hug me, but I held up my sticky hands. “I don’t want to get your uniform all messy. It looks so perfect.” He hauled me against his chest anyway.

  “None of that, now, little mama. I’ll have it all back to rights in no time. And that sure won’t stop me from hugging you.”

  Trey was devastating in his uniform—the gray-blue jacket with all those shiny brass buttons and black braid. In his final year at West Point, he rarely made it back to New Orleans. I loved that he hadn’t even bothered to change before coming to see us.

  “You just travel in that uniform to get perks on the plane,” Con laughed.

  “And how is that a bad thing?” Trey asked. “Plus, the ladies go wild for a man in uniform.”

  Trey finally released me, and I stepped back to study him. Con stopped behind me and wrapped an arm around my belly.

  We both said the same thing to him, “You look good.”

  Trey grinned at me. “So do you.” He glanced at Con. “You did good, man. Real good.”

  I rested a hand on my belly, atop Con’s, and the diamond on my ring finger sparkled in the light.

  It was Joy’s ring. The one that Andre had given her when he pledged to love her for the rest of his life. The one that had been stolen off her finger the night they’d been killed. Someone had pawned it at Chains about a year after Archer died and the foundation was dissolved. Lord had recognized it from the list of stolen items and returned it to Con.

  According to Con, it was an undisputable sign that it was time for him to make an honest woman out of me. I hadn’t argued with him—I’d just said yes. Just like I hadn’t argued with him when he’d leased out the apartment above Voodoo and moved us into Joy and Andre’s house in the Garden District shortly after he’d proposed. The house had sat empty for years, because Con had felt it was the kind of home that deserved a family. And now we were finally giving it one.

  Trey grinned when he saw the multitude of brown paper sacks on the prep table. “You expand the program more than I’d heard?”

  I could feel Con shaking his head behind me. “Not quite that big. Vanessa just gets—”

  “Carried away,” Trey finished for him.

  I beamed, not caring that everyone knew about my penchant for going overboard.

  “But we have expanded more,” I said. “We’re doing mixed martial arts in addition to boxing. We’re up to forty boys and twelve girls.” I was proud of what we were doing here. I’d taken over the administrative side of the gym and turned it into a real nonprofit organization, and applied for grants from several agencies. The gym had been expanded and now operated in an official partnership with the Boys and Girls Club. We put on joint summer camps for underprivileged kids and continued to run after-school and weekend programs. We had a staff of three, in addition to Con, Lord, Reggie, and me. We’d also expanded the sack supper program to provide for all of the kids at the Boys and Girls Club and their siblings at home. Finally, over the last four years, we’d helped obtain scholarships for more than twenty-five kids to go to college. These might not have been accomplishments on the scale of what I could have achieved by being at the helm of the L.R. Bennett Foundation, but they were immensely satisfying accomplishments all the same. I knew, without a doubt, we were making a difference. Just seeing Trey in his uniform hammered that point home.

  “Go get changed, man. We can use your help in the gym,” Con said and then paused, adding, “Unless you need to get home to your ma.”

  “Nah, she’s at work for a few more hours. I came to help.”

  “Good deal.”

  Trey flashed another brilliant smile and left the room.

  Con turned me in his arms. “Damn women are all the same.”

  “What?” I asked, confused.

  “Dazzled by a man in uniform,” he said.

  “Never got to see you in yours.” I ran my hand up Con’s chest. “Does it still fit?”

  Con rolled his eyes and leaned down. “Of course it still fits. But the only way I’m wearing it is if we get to play conquering soldier, innocent maiden.”

  This time, I rolled my eyes. I looked down at my belly. “Some innocent maiden I’d be.”

  Con’s lips brushed mine. “Just roll with it, princess. Tonight.”

  “It’s a deal.” And like all of the deals I’d made with this beautiful, tattooed, and complicated man over the years, it turned out to be a whole lot more than I’d bargained for—in all the best ways possible.

  the end

  Lucas and Lord both have secrets to hide and stories to tell. If you have a few minutes to leave a review for Beneath This Ink, also tell me whose story you want to read next! To help me tally the votes, send a link to your review to meghanmarchbooks@gmail.com, and I’ll thank you with a personal note.

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  Read on for an excerpt from Beneath This Mask, Simon and Charlie’s story.

  I stepped off the witness stand feeling like I’d been skinned and gutted, my insides laid out for public viewing. I refused to meet my father’s piercing aqua stare—the same one I saw every time I looked in the mirror. Instead, I focused on the sleeves of his navy pinstripe Armani suit jacket and his gaudy diamond cufflinks winking in the buzzing fluorescent light of the courtroom. My father was a general, flanked by his army of thousand dollar an hour defense attorneys. Not that they could save him. The disgust on the jurors’ faces spoke louder than any convoluted defense they could mount. I slipped through the swinging wooden gate and glanced at my mother, sitting primly, ankles crossed and hands folded, in her favorite Chanel suit and tasteful gold jewelry. Lisette Agoston was the quintessential picture of a woman standing by her man. She expected me to take the seat next to her. The seat I’d vacated hours before, hands sweating and stomach churning, to give my testimony and endure the brutal cross-examination. But I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t sit down and be the supportive, naïve daughter anymore. So I kept walking. I didn’t look at the gawking members of the press or the scornful sneers of the victims. I pushed open the heavy, carved wooden door and took my first deep breath of air that wasn’t laced with lies.

  I was done.

  With them.

  With this life.

&nbs
p; With all of it.

  It had all been a meticulously constructed fairy tale, and I’d been too blind and trusting to see through the façade. I was done. Burning shame swamped me. The Assistant U.S. Attorney’s words rang in my ears:

  How does it feel to realize your privileged life has been paid for with other people’s dreams?

  The objection came too late to prevent the cutting words. But no objection could erase the fact that he was right. My life had been paid for with money diverted from the hard-earned savings of tens of thousands of innocent victims. Move over Bernie Madoff. Alistair Agoston figured out a better way. Exponentially more complex and devastating, because the moment the scheme started to topple, $125 billion disappeared into thin air. Or hundreds of offshore accounts. No one was really sure. My father refused to admit anything, but the dozens of charges leveled by the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Department of Justice would ensure he spent the rest of his life in federal prison.

  And after the cross I’d just been subjected to, it was clear the Assistant U.S. Attorney thought I should be joining him in an orange jumpsuit. If trusting your father was a crime, he’d be right about that, too.

  I exited the courthouse, running down the marble stairs through the gauntlet of shouting reporters, dodging the microphones and cameras they shoved in my face.

  “Charlotte, did you know—”

  “Charlotte, where’s the money?”

  “Charlotte, are you being charged? Did you cut a deal?”

  They battered me with questions until I dove into a waiting cab and slammed the door.

  “East 60th and 3rd, please.” My plan was simple: have the cabbie drop me off a couple blocks away from home and sneak into the service entrance of our building without being seen or recognized. My strawberry blonde hair—heavy on the strawberry—was too distinctive. That would be the first thing to go as soon as I got out of this town. I clutched my purse to my chest. My future, a one-way ticket to Atlanta, where I could disappear to my final destination, was tucked inside. I was flying coach for the first time in my life—a fact I wasn’t proud of. I bundled my hair into a low bun and fished a giant pair of sunglasses and a scarf out of my purse. Somewhat disguised, I kept my head down until the car slowed to a stop. Tossing some bills at the cabbie, I slid out of the taxi.

  The service elevator trundled its way up fifty-one floors, stopping at the penthouse. My hand shook as I typed in the code required to enter. Pushing the door open, I stepped into the cavernous, ultra-modern space that was my family’s Manhattan home. After the inevitable guilty verdict came down, it’d become the property of the federal government along with the rest of the meager assets that the FBI had managed to find and freeze. To finance my escape, I’d cashed in $20,000 worth of savings bonds I’d found tucked into my First Communion bible. I tried not to dwell on the irony of my salvation being found in the good book.

  My one bag was already packed, but a casual observer would never know I had taken anything from my walk-in closet. The racks of designer suits and couture my mother insisted I wear were untouched. The shelves of Manolos and Louboutins were intact. They had no place in my future. I’d never put on another suit and walk into Agoston Investments, or any other reputable company. Never apply to Wharton and get my MBA. I’d naively thought I could somehow atone for the sins of my father by throwing myself into charity work. Put my newly earned finance degree to work for a good cause. I’d been laughed out of every organization I’d visited over the last two months. No one wanted me. And I couldn’t blame them. I wouldn’t trust anyone with my last name either.

  After the last rejection, I’d come to a decision: I would never use my degree for my own benefit. Ever. I didn’t deserve it. I might have earned it myself, but how could I profit from it with good conscience? Along with that decision came a stark realization: I had no future in this city, where I’d forever be watched under a cloud of suspicion. So I started planning my escape.

  I stripped out of my black Saint Laurent wool blazer and V-neck dress and hung them up in their appropriate places. I pulled on a pair of black skinny jeans, an American Apparel tank and hoody, and the contraband pair of black Chucks I’d kept hidden in the bottom of my closet. This was the new me. This was the me who would never set foot in this penthouse again. After I dressed, I left my cell phone on the dresser, hefted a black duffle bag over my shoulder, and headed through the kitchen to the staff entrance. It seemed fitting. Come in the front door one way and leave out the back a different person.

  Beneath This Mask is available at the following retailers:

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  This book wouldn’t exist if I didn’t have the best cheerleaders on the entire planet. They all deserve more thanks than I could ever convey. I’m so fortunate to have the most incredible people taking this journey with me. My family—your love and support humbles me on a daily basis. Thank you for encouraging me to chase my dreams. Angela Smith—my amazing friend and first reader, I love you so hard. You’re the best friend a girl could wish for, and I can’t count the number of times you’ve held me up when otherwise I would have fallen. I’m so thankful you’re part of my life. Kendall Ryan—I honestly can’t thank you enough for your encouragement, your friendship, and your insight. You give me the confidence to believe I can really do this. Chasity Jenkins-Patrick—you talked me off the ledge when I thought I’d never finish. I’m so glad I found you and the team at Rock Star PR! Serena Knautz—you’re one of the kindest, most genuine people I’ve ever met, and I feel blessed to call you a friend. I’ll gladly sit between your kids’ car seats any day. Madison Seidler—I’m not sure why you didn’t strangle me when I pushed my editing deadline back a dozen times because I couldn’t get the book to come together, and then made you work over Christmas. You deserve hazard pay. Thank you for your patience, and as always, your fantastic work. I’m ever grateful. Rachel Brookes—you are a constant source of positivity and uplifting energy, and I cannot wait for all of our dreams to come true! 2015 is going to be epic. Sarah Hansen at Okay Creations—thank you for once again creating a mind-blowingly beautiful cover. The number of people who want to lick it is a credit to you. To my Runaway Readers—thank you for loving my books and chatting about them and sharing them with others. You have no idea what your support means to me. I’ve met so many incredible people since I’ve started this writing journey, and I’d love to thank them all individually, but this part might be longer than the damn book. So, last, but certainly not least—a huge thank you to all of the book bloggers who take the time to read and review my books. Not only do you make the indie book world turn, you do it graciously, with excitement, and for the love of books.

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