House Of Payne: Payne Read online

  HOUSE OF PAYNE: PAYNE

  (House Of Payne #1)

  Stacy Gail

  House Of Payne: Payne

  Life is supposedly what you make of it, but that’s crap as far as 3D artist, Becks Delgado is concerned. She never wanted her brother to die in a car accident…or to be the one who was behind the wheel. Her external scars are nothing compared to the raw wounds inside, and there are times when death seems to be the only way to find peace.

  Sebastian Payne took the concept of a tattoo parlor and transformed it into a sophisticated gallery of living art. House Of Payne now caters to the rich an infamous, has garnered a worldwide following and is run by Payne with an iron fist. He knows Becks is exactly what House Of Payne needs, but there’s a problem. The accident that changed her life left its mark on him as well, and whether he likes it or not, it’s time for Payne to put his House in order.

  Discover Other Titles by Stacy Gail:

  Earth Angels Series:

  Nobody’s Angel (novella)

  Savage Angel

  Wounded Angel

  Dangerous Angel

  Bitterthorn, Texas Series:

  Ugly Ducklings Finish First

  Starting From Scratch (novella)

  One Hot Second

  Where There’s A Will

  Novellas:

  Crime Wave In A Corset (Part of the steampunk holiday anthology, A Clockwork Christmas)

  How The Glitch Saved Christmas (Part of the sci-fi holiday anthology, A Galactic Holiday)

  Zero Factor (Part of the cyberpunk anthology, Cybershock)

  Best Man, Worst Man

  Connect with Stacy Gail:

  Blog: http://stacygail.blogspot.com/

  Newsletter: http://eepurl.com/RmNxH

  Facebook: http://on.fb.me/1rU3qmY

  Twitter: https://twitter.com/Stacy_Gail_

  Copyright

  All rights reserved. In accordance with the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, the scanning, uploading, and electronic sharing of any part of this book without the permission of the publisher is unlawful piracy and theft of the author’s intellectual property. Thank you for your support of the author’s rights.

  The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious or are used fictitiously. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental and not intended by the author. Characters and names of real persons who appear in the book are used fictitiously.

  Copyright © 2014 by Stacy Gail

  Cover image ©2008 FXQuadro, shutterstock image ID #: 191104433

  Dedication

  For Jade C. Jamison. If you hadn’t called me one crazy April morning to ask if I could come up with a story involving a tattoo, the world within the walls of House Of Payne never would have existed. Thank you, mah sister from another mister.

  Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Epilogue

  Preview of House Of Payne: Scout

  Note from the Author

  About The Author

  Connect with Stacy Gail

  Chapter One

  “Excuse me… Becks?”

  Becks Delgado turned from her study of the slush-covered streets of Chicago’s bustling downtown area known as the Loop. Beyond the reception area’s floor-to-ceiling windows, traffic moved at a snail’s pace, the occasional impatient honking of a horn all but muted by the thick insulated glass. God, she hated this part of town. Hated. And it wasn’t because the traffic in the financial district was usually enough to make even a saint wish for more middle fingers. This part of town represented death to her, in every sense of the word. Her little brother’s life had come to an abrupt end only a couple blocks from where she now stood, along with life as she’d known it.

  But she’d had to come. And she wouldn’t leave until she had her pound of flesh.

  “Yes?”

  The rockabilly brunette manning the reception desk smiled while flicking scarlet-tipped fingers expertly over the surface of a tablet. “You’re in luck. Payne will see you now. Right up the stairs and through the double doors.”

  The tension inside Becks ratcheted up another notch, but she nodded her thanks and headed out of the elegant lobby of House Of Payne, Chicago’s premiere tattoo studio. Though calling it a studio was a little like calling Marilyn Monroe an attractive woman.

  House Of Payne was unique in the world of ink, and it wasn’t shy about letting everyone know it. The difference was noticeable right from the moment a client entered the building. Unlike other tattoo studios, there were no tattoo stencils tacked up on walls or kept in disorganized, well-used portfolios. Instead, state-of-the-art touchscreens embedded into the V-shaped reception counter provided instant access to the House’s countless exclusive designs.

  Clearly, only the best of the best was accepted here.

  The retro-hipster atmosphere most studios adopted was also nowhere to be found. Fashioned after upscale art galleries, House Of Payne prided itself on paying homage to the glory and beauty of art. The only difference was that this particular gallery worshipped living art, and the human body was perceived as an ever-changing canvas just begging to be decorated.

  No one could overlook the gallery-like bones of the showroom beyond the open reception area. Black marble flooring, modular white walls, brilliant spotlighting and mobile floor displays of stacked flatscreen TVs that matrixed together into a complete image—all of it was a backdrop for showcasing unique artwork.

  In the center of the showroom was the true gem of the House, a 3D holographic image beamed onto a large transparent film suspended over a gilded circular plinth. As a 3D artist herself and an admirer of the “Pepper’s ghost” effect, Becks knew just how much it had cost to make that holographic image happen. But that wasn’t why she kept glancing back to that display. The 3D image, a puzzle piece falling from a human heart and turning black with death while exposing the demons within the organ… it was hers. The quiet agony it represented was known only to her, and those demons within her heart were still there. That missing piece of heart—that missing piece of her—had let the demons out when it had died.

  There was no way she’d allow that sacred part of her to be drawn onto every poser who came here just because they thought it looked cool.

  Following the brunette’s directions, Becks zipped up a glass brick staircase to the second floor where the tattoo artists did their work. Each work station was discreetly housed within its own private cubicle of frosted glass, with the subtle logo of the House Of Payne embedded into the glass itself. The trippy strains of Pink Floyd whispered overhead as she pushed through the closed double doors without knocking. So what if the man inside didn’t approve of her manners? She wasn’t there to be polite. She was there to kick the ass of arguably the most powerful man in the tattoo industry. Knocking his head against a wall was the only kind of knocking she had in mind.

  “Ah, the one and only Rebecca Delgado has finally graced House Of Payne with her presence. Gotta say, Becks, it took you long enough.”

  She slammed to a halt, irrationally pissed off now that the rug had pulled out from under her. Damn it, she’d been the one who had wanted to do the pulling. With a
vexed frown, she regarded the man lounging back against a massive glass and steel executive desk, his arms and ankles crossed as if he’d been waiting for her his whole life. From the polished brown leather lace-up boots to the tailored trousers, button-down dress shirt and shocking red suspenders, he looked like he’d just strolled off a fashion shoot. He was her definition of eye-candy, and if he hadn’t just rattled her cage so thoroughly, she would no doubt be in danger of having to wipe the drool off her chin.

  Took you long enough…?

  Sebastian Payne, or Payne, was as well-known in Chicago as Oprah or Jordan. From Hollywood’s A-Listers to European royalty, from music moguls to the gladiators of the athletic world—they all came to Payne for ink. His fame began years earlier when he posted a session online with the client’s consent. The client in question had once been a super-sweet, cavity-inducing child star before vanishing when she’d grown out of her adorable lisping phase. She’d chosen to celebrate her twenty-first birthday at Payne’s then-tiny parlor by getting a tattoo across her ass that read “Fuck It Hard.”

  Clearly, the saccharine-sweet kid was all grown up and itching to prove it.

  Payne had been more than willing to help her scratch that itch. With the camera rolling, he’d taken the tat up on its suggestion and had given that young woman what appeared to be the wildest, screaming-for-God ride of her life. She was now making a name for herself in the adult entertainment industry with a website that pulled down an estimated seven figures annually.

  Payne had become a living legend.

  It probably didn’t hurt that he was so gorgeous he didn’t seem real. With mussed tobacco brown hair, heavy-lidded hazel eyes that suggested he’d just rolled out of an overcrowded bed and a crooked smile full of sin, Becks had hatched her share of fantasies about him. So had every other woman in Chicagoland.

  But that was before he’d stooped to pirating artwork off the internet like a goddamn hack.

  “My, my. How remarkable you are.” She gave herself a mental pat on the back for her calm tone. No one would have guessed she’d spent the entire trip on the L envisioning ways of torturing him. Almost nothing could shake her out of the cocoon of numbness she’d been in for the past four years, but her art was an exception. If anyone dared to screw with it, she’d make them regret the day they were born. “You’re capable of looking me right in the eye as if you’re unaware that you’re nothing more than a common piece of shit. I’m impressed with your testicular fortitude.”

  His cocky smile dropped. She picked it up and returned it in spades.

  “Common, huh?” She’d thought those heavy-lidded eyes couldn’t get any sexier. Then he narrowed them and showed her how wrong she could be. “Even when I didn’t have a pot to piss in, I’ve never been frigging common in my life.”

  “Pirating artwork off the internet and claiming it as your own is as common as they come.”

  “True… if that was the reality of the situation.” He reached back behind him for a tablet identical to the brunette’s downstairs and danced his fingers across its surface. “There. Look familiar?”

  The last thing Becks wanted to do was take the tablet. But a superior smirk was doing its damnedest to seep into his expression, so she had no choice. A second later she clenched her jaw so her teeth wouldn’t drop all over the carpet at the sight of a familiar invoice.

  Shit.

  “You’re Future Perfect Enterprises?” There was a distinct burning in her ears and face, and it had nothing to do with anger. If she could figure out how to go back in time so she could stop her irate self from being a total ass, she’d do it in a heartbeat. “You, um… you bought Missing Piece?”

  “For five grand. You’re welcome, by the way.”

  “Please, hold your breath waiting for my thanks.” That smug expectation of groveling gratitude got her hackles up all over again, and without fanfare she handed back the tablet. “It was a business transaction. Artist that I am, I created something out of nothing, something of great value, a fact which you obviously recognized. No thanks should be required on either the buyer’s part or the seller’s.”

  “True, but it is considered polite. Though that fact may fly under your personal radar, as I suspect dealing with the public isn’t exactly your strong suit.”

  “And reading the fine print isn’t yours.” Some small voice told her to cool her jets before he decided to give her the fight she was spoiling for, but her stupid mouth wouldn’t listen. “Before anyone buys my work, they have to agree that the art they’re buying won’t be used for commercial purposes. Otherwise, it’s a copyright infringement.”

  “Right. So?”

  She bit her tongue to stop herself from making another reference to what had to be the monstrous size of his balls. “So, Missing Piece was flashed all over the local news last night. It’s the newest display in your showroom.”

  “Putting art on display is what one does with it. Unless I don’t understand the concept?”

  “Damn it, the report said that House Of Payne would be specializing in 3D tattooing and would be starting with the image of Missing Piece. That’s something you absolutely cannot do, unless you want me to sue you every time you slap it onto someone’s ass.”

  “The placement for Missing Piece could never be on the ass,” came the innocent reply, while those sleepy eyes laughed at her. “If the client wanted to get it on their ass, I’d have to do my best to talk him or her out of it. That’d be nothing short of a sin.”

  “Placement isn’t the issue!”

  “Placement’s just as important as the meaning behind the tat. Don’t you have any ink?”

  “No, and the issue is that you can’t use Missing Piece as a mass-market tattoo.”

  “I’m not.”

  Full stop. “Uh… yes, you are.”

  “Nope.”

  “The news report said you were using it.”

  “I guess they got that part all wrong. I also guess I haven’t gotten around to correcting them.” He shrugged while that smirk began to edge its way back into place. “Oops. My bad. Though I admit I had a feeling it would bring you out of the woodwork. And lo and behold, here you are. I love being right.”

  She stared at him, torn between mortification and angry confusion. One of them wasn’t making sense, and she was pretty sure it wasn’t her. “Are you saying you wanted me to come down here and read you the riot act?”

  “Well, no. The riot act wasn’t fun… wait. Scratch that. It was epic amounts of fun, because it was so fucking hilarious. The thing is,” he added, holding up a hand while her rage soared to the point where throttling him seemed like a perfectly reasonable reaction, “I’ve been trying to talk to you for months about your art, and you’ve been less than responsive. All I did was take advantage of a happy mistake.”

  Happy mistake, her ass. She’d bet her next commission he’d led the reporter into thinking Missing Piece was part of House Of Payne’s 3D collection. Then she blinked as the rest of his statement sank in. “I don’t recall being contacted by you.”

  “For the past year or so, Future Perfect Enterprises has tried several times to discuss commissioning you for exclusive 3D art, but you declined every time. In fact, your last email pretty much put it in a nutshell. ‘Stop bugging me,’ I believe it said.”

  Ah. Now she remembered. “That’s because the first email you sent was insulting. I knew I wouldn’t be able to work with whoever was on the other end of it.” Obviously, she’d been right about that.

  That brought his brows together. “How was it insulting?”

  “It deigned to offer me the opportunity to—how was it worded?—to prove that I had artistic skills during some audition. An audition that I neither wanted nor asked for.”

  “Oh.” There was a world of meaning packed into that single syllable, and that made-for-sin mouth curled at one corner. “Your artist’s ego got stung, did it? Poor thing. I’m an artist myself, though, so I guess I get it.”

  “Stung.�
� In every way, Becks considered herself a peaceful person. But if she didn’t get out of this office soon, she was going to kick him in his junk. “Listen to me very carefully. The one person I have to prove anything to is me. Not you. It’s clear you think I should view your offer as a privilege and that I should be happy to jump like a trained dog through your hoops. But it’s not a privilege. It’s irritating. I hope you can understand this and not pursue the subject any further.”

  “I do understand.” He nodded, his tone so pacifying it seemed like the audible equivalent of patting her on the head. “I realize most of us artists think we’re special snowflakes, and for the most part we are. But try and understand my position. House Of Payne is the most famous tattoo studio in the world. On an annual basis it attracts hundreds of artists who think they’re so fan-fucking-tastic their work should be exclusively showcased here. Those hoops you mentioned are how I recruit the House’s artists to separate the wheat from the chaff, which is why the people who do work here are known to be the best in the world. I’m not going to treat you any differently.”

  Becks sighed. Obviously, this arrogant ass hadn’t heard a word she said. “Allow me to correct you on the many, many ways that you’ve gone wrong.”

  The smirk vanished beneath the beginnings of a scowl. “What?”

  “I don’t work here,” she said over him, all the while wondering how often people got the opportunity to correct this man. Probably never. “Nor do I want to. In fact, now that I’ve met the great Sebastian Payne in person, it’s safe to say that I’d rather set my hair on fire than work here. With that being said, I’m afraid I’m now going to have to leave for medical reasons.”

  “Medical reasons?” The scowl didn’t leave, but she thought the faintest dash of alarm zipped through it. “What’s wrong?”

  “I have a condition. Whenever I’m confronted with things that are stupid, I get a migraine. So that means I have to go now. Have a nice day.”

  “Who the hell do you think… hey, wait a minute, you can’t walk out. Wait—”