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  HOUSE OF PAYNE: STEELE

  (House of Payne #5)

  Stacy Gail

  House of Payne: Steele

  TRIGGER WARNING: This book deals with the sensitive subjects of surviving rape, trauma suffered during combat, child abuse, and possible sterility. If you have issues with these elements, this book might not be for you.

  Raped. Tortured. Beaten. Essie Santiago’s life fell apart when she was sixteen, and it’s taken eight years to put it back together. There are some pieces that can never be mended; it would take a miracle for her to get pregnant, and physical closeness is something that makes her shudder. Only her love of creating beauty in the form of fashion gets her through the worst of the darkness.

  When a mortar attack destroyed half his face and all of his life as he knew it, something vital died inside of former Marine, Ezekiel Steele. For years he’s felt nothing… until he sees Essie trying her best to be invisible. But the feisty spark inside the lovely fashion designer is too bright to be concealed, and like a moth to a flame, he’s helpless to resist her.

  Chicago’s premiere tattoo studio, House Of Payne, is taking the world of fashion by storm, holding a contest to find the best designer the city has to offer. Competition is fierce, but all Essie can concentrate on are Steele’s dirty-talking lessons in sex. But when the student surpasses the master when it comes to love, Steele’s inner demons get the better of him. If he can't face them down, he’ll lose Essie forever.

  123,000 words

  ***This standalone, mildly erotic contemporary romance contains a dirty-talking Alpha with a penchant for having sex in public places. No cheating, no love triangles and no cliffhangers. Fairy tale HEA guaranteed. Due to adult language and sexual content, this book is not intended for people under the age of 18***

  Discover Other Titles by Stacy Gail:

  Bitterthorn, Texas Series:

  Ugly Ducklings Finish First

  Starting From Scratch (novella)

  One Hot Second

  Where There’s A Will

  Earth Angels Series:

  Nobody’s Angel (novella)

  Savage Angel

  Wounded Angel

  Dangerous Angel

  House Of Payne Series:

  House of Payne: Payne

  House of Payne: Scout

  House of Payne: Twist

  House of Payne: Rude

  House of Payne: Steele

  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_

  Instagram: https://instagram.com/stacygailsworld/

  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 ©2016 by Stacy Gail

  Cover image ©2015 vishstudio Shutterstock imagine ID #: 54725959

  Acknowledgments

  As always, to Jade C. Jamison, for sparking the inspiration for House Of Payne so long ago when she invited me to do the INKED charity anthology with her. I’ll always be so grateful to you, you beautiful woman!

  To Dr. Patricia Amparan, a tremendous friend and priceless source of information in matters of PTSD, the multitude of ways that triggers work, and how we fragile human beings can overcome even the worst nightmares to live out our dreams. Your positivity and strength of spirit is an inspiration, Patti!

  Thanks to a long-ago TV show, Designing Women, and the moment one of the characters had the back of her skirt stuck up in her pantyhose. For some reason, that horrifying image stuck all through childhood as the worst possible thing that could ever happen to a lady. I just had to write about it, if only to exorcise that particular nightmare.

  Lastly, to my mother Sue, who went through horrible medical issues during the writing of this book. You’re the strongest woman I know. I love you, Mom.

  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

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Epilogue

  Note from the Author

  About the Author

  Connect With Stacy Gail

  Chapter One

  Essie Santiago clamped her lips together. It was the only way to keep from throwing up.

  She was such an idiot. Why the hell hadn’t she just stayed in Texas? She’d had a kickass rep down there. Everyone in wardrobe design knew her name as the wardrobe mistress in the theater department at University of Texas. No one was better when it came to setting a scene or capturing a vibe, all with needle and thread. If she couldn’t produce a costume that spoke a thousand words about a character before the actor could speak even one, then she hadn’t done her job.

  But was she in Texas now? Of course not. Instead of being grateful for the rare costume design gig that brought in a solid paycheck, she was jobless, going more broke by the day, and chasing a dream she wasn’t sure she wanted in her old hometown of Chicago.

  Yeah, she thought, clutching her worn leather sketchbook close to her chest. She was a total freaking idiot.

  “Essie, your pacing’s driving me around the fucking bend.” Scowling, her oldest brother, Oliver “Twist” Santiago sat on a stool next to a padded tattooist’s table. The tattoo booth itself was relatively small, and framed in frosted privacy glass embossed with the House Of Payne logo. The table itself was currently occupied by his wife of two months, Angel. She looked more like a mad fairy than an angel, with long blonde hair, a few cotton-candy pink dreads sprinkled in, and a tiny dancer’s body liberally decorated with colorful, psychedelic tattoos. She and Angel were still in the getting-to-know-each-other phase, but Essie had a pretty good idea she had her new sister-in-law convinced she was a nut job.

  There. That was another reason she should bounce back to Texas. She should leave now before she did any more damage to their budding relationship by completely losing her shit.

  “It’ll be okay, Essie.” Angel’s voice matched her appearance; sweet and ethereal, like she was dreaming with her eyes open. Only when Twist pissed her off—for which her brother seemed to have an exceptional talent—did Essie hear the
iron fist hidden within Angel’s velvet-glove exterior. “The House is notorious for its soul-crushing auditions, yet you flew through that part with ease.”

  “I wouldn’t say ease,” Essie muttered, turning at the wall to pace toward the door. Maybe she should open it and just keep on walking… “I can’t believe how cutthroat this whole process has been.”

  “House Of Payne is well-known for having the best tattoo artists in the world under its roof,” Angel pointed out. “Payne is just holding his would-be fashion designers to the same high standard. If you think about it, that says a lot about how good you are. You’re still here.”

  “Yeah. Yippee.”

  “Quit your bitchin’, Es,” Twist suggested, in true big-brother form. “There are hundreds of designers that’d kill to be in your shoes right now, don’t you get that? You rocketed through that first audition round like it was nothing, then you got through the semi-finalist round with that cool messenger bag.” He glanced over at his workstation, where that same messenger bag now hung. The shoulder strap was made up of her brother’s more famous Goth tattoo designs. She’d pieced them together so that they interlocked and flowed seamlessly from one tattoo design to the next, while the bag itself had House Of Payne’s logo branded onto it, complete with the telltale scorch marks of a true branding, and not something that had just been painted on. “Even more than that, you’ve got a secret weapon that the other contestants don’t have.”

  “Are you talking about my superhuman ability to overthink things? Or the fact that my inner critic is an asshole on steroids?”

  “I’m talking about me and Angel, dumbass. Since we’re family, we automatically give you a leg up on everyone else. Angel’s been here since the House opened, and I’m their go-to Goth tattoo artist. They’ll be keeping it in the family when they hire you, you’ll see.”

  “If, not when.” As Essie made another circuit around her brother’s tattoo booth, she shot Twist an irritated glance. Like her, Twist’s hair was as black as the bottom of an inkwell at midnight, and it had that signature Santiago unruly curl going on. But unlike her length that trailed down all the way to the small of her back, his stopped at his shoulders. His scruff was trying to cross the line into full-on Grizzly Adams beard status, and his intense black eyes—the only difference between them in their overall coloring—would have no doubt intimidated the crap out of her if he hadn’t been her overprotective big brother. “I don’t want to be given the job because you guys are already valued artists here at the House. I want to earn that job for myself—to prove that I can create total kickass fashion for House Of Payne’s new clothing line. If I had my way, people wouldn’t even know we’re related.”

  “Who cares if people know? Payne knows, so that cat’s already out of the bag. And having us in your corner obviously isn’t hindering you because you’re here now as a finalist, so why worry about it?”

  Her pacing screeched to a halt, and she clutched her sketchbook harder than ever. “Wait. Are you saying… you think the only reason I’ve made it this far in the fashion contest is because of my connection to you?” Crap. If that was the case, she should have headed for Texas five minutes ago.

  “Essie, don’t pay any attention to your brother, he’s not the best communicator when it comes to discussing… well, anything,” Angel said when Twist looked like he was about to blow a gasket at the conclusion she’d jumped to. “Your work is amazing, and if you can’t believe me, you can believe Payne. Family ties are nice, but they don’t pay the bills. Sebastian Payne isn’t the type of businessman who’d ever allow a substandard artist to come within a mile of House Of Payne just because you’re tied to us.”

  Despite the chaos churning in her stomach, Essie had no choice but to believe that. House Of Payne was arguably the greatest tattoo studio the world had ever seen. Fashioned after fine art galleries, the House held itself to an elite standard never before seen in the world of ink. It was an innovative trailblazer when it came to body art, and pioneered new techniques and styles, from 3D-imaging to watercolor tattooing, and everything in between. People flocked to the House from all over the world to get their ink done by Payne or any of the other tattooists who’d become household names in the world of body art. Not a week went by without her brother telling her about some famous personality rolling through the House’s front doors. Sports stars, music icons and Hollywood A-listers were commonplace. Twist’s favorite client was a well-known ultra-conservative politician who had a back covered in gravestones, skulls and flesh-eating zombies.

  To have ink done at the House meant that the penultimate of coolness had been achieved.

  But she wasn’t a tattooist. She’d never been cool. She didn’t even have a single tattoo on her. She was a freaking costume designer who understood stage and setting. She was a total fish out of water, and if she didn’t get back to her own world soon, she was going to go belly-up.

  Before she could figure out how best to bail without looking like a spineless wimp, the booth’s frosted glass door swung open. Scout Upton, the statuesque, floral-tattooed manager for the House, stepped in with a smile.

  “I figured you were in here getting one last pep talk from your brother,” Scout announced, so bright and cheerful Essie wanted to pull the veiling cardigan she wore over her head and never come out again. “Payne’s ready for you and the other finalists.”

  “Oh. ‘Kay.” Somewhere in her mind, the image of a fish out of water slowly, sadly, gave its last gasp.

  “I want to go on record by saying this whole ridiculous show of looking for a new designer fucking sucks, Scout, and you damn well know why.” Not at all overcome with nerves—or a filter—Twist accompanied Scout and Essie out of the tattoo booth and into a spacious, carpeted hallway. That hallway opened up to a common area at the head of a set of stairs that led to the sweeping art gallery and reception area below. The common area itself was dominated by a set of highly conspicuous double doors, and Essie’s mouth dried up as they headed right for them. “You had me call my sister—who was perfectly content with a great-paying gig in Austin—because you needed your ass pulled out of the fire. So I begged Essie to come back to Chicago to help us out, and you backed me up by offering her a contract that made her old paycheck look like pocket change. She quits her job, comes up here, and what happens? Instead of a fucking J-O-B, the girl’s put through some lame hoop-jumping show that Payne’s playing out all over the internet like some twisted, inked-up version of Project Runway. My baby sister didn’t sign up for this shit, and you know it.”

  “Put a cork in it, Santiago, before I put one in it for you.” From sweetness and sunshine, Scout turned into a snarling Chicago street tough who could tie a man’s legs in a knot. “You know I’m not calling the fucking shots on this, or haven’t you figured that shit out by now? This is Payne’s baby, so if either of you have a bitch about how he runs things, take it up with him.”

  Twist, please stop trying to help. “Uh, I don’t have a bitch with anything.”

  “She doesn’t.” Angel had followed them out and made a subtle move to lace her fingers through Twist’s. “Essie is one of the quiet Santiagos, so biting her head off is probably only going to make her nerves worse. We don’t want that, do we?”

  Essie blinked. A quiet Santiago? Did she really come off that way? How embarrassing. She’d have to work on that.

  “Yikes.” Scout slid Essie a sheepish glance. “Please forgive the friendly fire, Essie. I enjoy taking shots at your brother, because more often than not he deserves it. You, however, don’t. And you don’t need to be nervous about this meeting, either. You’re in the home stretch now, so take a breath and enjoy the moment, okay?”

  Sure, Essie thought as Scout opened the double doors for her, before blocking Twist and Angel from entering with her. Enjoy the moment of entering the lion’s den. Those snarls and flashing claws and killer teeth were just for show. Really.

  Texas was looking better by the second.

  When the
doors shut behind her, Essie tried to look cool even as a wave of sweat-inducing nerves rolled over her. The two other would-be designers for House Of Payne who’d made it to the final cut were already there, seated on a low-slung black leather couch situated beneath framed artwork she recognized as Payne’s tattoos. Sebastian Payne wasn’t just the dynamic, steely-minded businessman and founder of the House; he was also one hell of an artist whose tattoos had won worldwide recognition as being the best in the business. Was it any wonder he now wanted the same for his merchandise, the very items that would go out into the world and represent what House Of Payne was?

  With her queasiness ratcheting up another notch, Essie did her best not to wobble like a drunken sailor to a chair placed at a right angle to the already-occupied couch. With a polite nod to her competitors—who eyeballed her like she was a juvenile delinquent who’d come in late to class—she tried to appear calm as she laid her sketchbook on her lap.

  Let the games begin.

  Contestant Number One was Olivier. Not Oliver. Olivier. Despite the French name, he was an Asian man who unfortunately reminded her of Mr. Chow in The Hangover movies, but sadly without the comedic flair. On the contrary, Olivier looked as though he’d never smiled a day in his life. He did, however, seem to be the type who’d be happy to step over however many bodies it took to get to wherever it was he wanted to go.

  If she happened to be one of those bodies, he’d probably pause only long enough to wipe his feet on her.

  Contestant Number Two was Dizzy Izz. Dizzy Izz was maybe a few years younger than Essie’s mother, was borderline anorexic, and had permanent eyeliner and eyebrows done in the same shade of shoe-polish black as her uber-stylish pixie cut.

  Dizzy Izz also spoke in the third person.

  This defined the term ugh better than anything Essie had come across in her life. If they ever got stranded on a deserted island together, she’d no doubt kill Dizzy Izz. It would be the only way to save her sanity.