Chapter 7
CHAPTER SEVEN
“ H ow are you finding the move? I bet your boy is growing up fast?”
Hugo, one of my regular clients at Inked, smiles a beaming grin. “Yeah, Joel is…” He stops talking as his eyes sheen with moisture. “He’s good. So much like his mother.”
I pull my tattoo gun back from the rainbow rose I’m adding to his vast collection of tattoos on his right rib and inspect my work. “So what’s the deal with this tat? Most of your pieces have some sort of connection to Ava, but this is the first time I’ve ever inked a flower on your body.” My voice comes out shaky, hindered by a small bout of laughter dying to break free.
Nothing against Hugo. He’s a tall brute of a man who could easily put any guy on his ass, but the majority of his torso is covered with a range of oddly chosen tattoos. Although his ink selection is one-of-a-kind, every one I’ve placed on his body has a significant meaning to his life before he moved to Ravenshoe. It didn’t take a genius to realize his tattoos revolved around one woman .
If the hidden inclusion of the name Ava in most of his tattoos didn’t give enough of a hint, the stories he shared while I added to his collection were a surefire indication. Tattoo artists are the male equivalent of hairdressers for women. The stories clients have shared while sitting in my tattoo chair could fill at least a hundred books.
After wiping the freshly-inked skin with my cloth, I lift my eyes to Hugo. He’s grinning a smile I’ve only seen on his face once before—when I inked his son’s name onto his chest. It sits just above his heart.
“I asked Ava to marry me,” Hugo admits, his smile enlarging.
My lips curl into a broad grin. “Shit, man, you work fast,” I jest. He only moved back to Rochdale three months ago.
He laughs. “That’s only the beginning. We are having a baby at the end of the year.”
I cock my brow. “Damn, you better watch out. You’ll run out of skin to ink with all those memories you’re creating.” I nudge my head to the bathroom while pulling off my latex gloves. “Go tell me what you think. You’ll have to switch off the light to see Ava’s name since you went with the invisible ink again.”
Hugo stands from my tattoo chair, filling my cubicle with his six-foot-five frame. I clean up my station while he checks out his newly inked piece in the bathroom attached to my cubicle.
He emerges thirty seconds later with a broad grin on his face.
“Good?” I query, already knowing his answer.
“Perfect.” No more words are needed. His face tells the entire story.
Hugo throws his shirt over his head while shadowing me to the counter to ring up his purchase. I’ve worked at Inked for over ten years, and he is the only client I’ve agreed to tattoo a name on without seeing a wedding band wrapped around his finger. I didn’t need to warn him about the lifetime commitment that comes with having a person’s name inked onto your skin. His eyes relayed he was well aware of the commitment he was making. The fact he’s getting married proves I didn’t misread his loyalty to Ava.
My brisk pace to the cash register slows when “Brax” sounds from a pair of lips that can cause my dick and spikes to bristle at the same time.
Things between Clara and me the past three weeks have followed a similar path they did the weeks prior to my disastrous attempt at sharing a meal with her. Although she’s a little standoffish with both the staff and me, she does exactly what she’s paid to do. And she does it well.
The only thing that has changed is our game of tit for tat. It came to a screeching halt the instant she exited the restaurant three weeks ago. I guess finding out your scornful tongue gives your boss a raging hard-on would dampen anyone’s eagerness to take part in a bit of friendly banter.
Clara walks out of my office balancing a planner in one hand while twirling a pencil in the other. “Your seven o’clock appointment just canceled. Did you want me to bump up one of your following appointments? Or…” Her words stop when they lift from the leather-stitched planner to the enormity of Hugo standing beside me.
The longer her eyes roam Hugo, the more the raging tornado in her eyes grows. I can see her short temper flaring, dying to break free.
I’m not the only one who has noticed her blazing reaction to Hugo’s presence. The buzzing of tattoo guns quiets down, and the usual hum of conversation dulls to barely a whisper.
The longer Clara glares at Hugo, the more attention she garners from her colleagues.
After sucking in a deep breath, Clara finally shifts her widened gaze to me. “You’ re busy. I’ll come back.”
I balk, staggered by her odd behavior.
She’s never been concerned about interrupting me before, so what’s changed now?
“No, let’s do this shit now, Princess. The quicker I get these appointments over with, the quicker my weekend will start.”
Her throat works hard to swallow before her narrowed gaze rockets back to Hugo. She stares at him as if she’s daring him to say something while I bounce my confused eyes between them, trying to work out how they know each other. From the dazed expression on Clara’s face and the shit-eating grin on Hugo’s, it doesn’t take a genius to realize they’ve met before.
My back molars smack together as my mind runs through various scenarios of how well they could know each other. All my skits follow along a similar path—Hugo and Clara naked together.
“Yeah, come on, Princess ,” Hugo says, his voice a thick drawl. “Brax hasn’t got all day.”
My brow cocks. Just from the contempt displayed in Hugo’s words, I think my initial assumption of his friendliness with Clara may have been wrong. But even with having my unwarranted jealousy checked, my mood is still woeful. I’ve been working with a massive headache the past two hours.
Actually, make that weeks.
She’s standing right in front of me.
The biggest fucking headache of my life.
Like my crippling headaches aren’t irritating enough, my cock’s stint in segregation has become even more severe since Clara arrived on the doorstep of Inked. Nothing kills a man’s good mood quicker than losing his mojo.
Clara’s narrowed eyes shift from glaring at Hugo to me. “We’ll continue this later,” she instructs, her tone smeared with superiority like the princess she is.
My eyes drift around the handful of the Inked crew watching the exchange between Clara and me with eagle eyes. Charity’s mouth is gaped, Johnny has his brows stitched, and Diesel is leaning against the doorjamb of my office with an amused grin etched on his face.
Not willing to let any member of my crew believe this type of behavior will be deemed acceptable at Inked, I sling my eyes back with Clara and order, “Do it now or collect your last paycheck.”
She inhales a quick, jagged breath as her eyes dance between mine, no doubt seeking any deceit in my statement. Although I said the job was hers as long as she wanted it, I won’t be disrespected in front of my crew.
I just hope she can’t see the deceit in my eyes .
Unable to determine if my threat is idle, Clara swallows harshly before marching to the counter with her head held high. She snaps open the planner and drops her eyes to it. “I contacted Clancy. He’s happy to take an earlier appointment, but he has some alterations he’d like to make to his design.”
I adjust the tilt of my head, forcing her eyes to connect with mine. “Have Clancy’s designs already been drawn up?”
After shifting her eyes from Hugo to me, Clara shakes her head.
“Then keep him at his original time. He’s fanatical about the draw-up, and it can take hours to get him to agree to a design, so he’ll hold up the appointments following him. What about Riley?” I suggest while pointing to my ten o’clock booking. “Call him and see if he can get here at seven, then slot Colby in after him.”
“Okay. I’ll make some phone calls. Once I have everyone scheduled, I will advise you of any changes,” Clara informs, her voice still high-strung.
Once she snaps the planner shut, she diverts her focus to Hugo. “If you so much as breathe a word about me working here, I will ensure it is the last breath you take,” she warns in a vicious snarl. “In fact, if you even mention you saw me in this dump, I’ll do far worse than ending your pathetic life.”
My eyes bulge, Charity’s dropped jaw gains leverage as does the grin on Diesel’s face, and Johnny… well, he’s simply staring at Clara in complete awe.
It’s not every day you see a princess sparring against a giant.
Upon hearing the shocked gasps of her work colleagues, Clara’s eyes slowly filter around the shop. The fiery anger illuminating her face with a red hue fades when she realizes her tirade has gained her the attention of half of her co-workers and a dozen clients.
Snarling, she spins on her heels and darts down the corridor. I run my hand down my face as my brain tries to work out what the fuck just happened. This is the first time in the ten years I’ve been working at Inked that I’ve had to deal with a member of my crew verbally abusing the clients.
Usually, it’s the other way around.
After gesturing for my crew to get back to work, I lock my eyes on Hugo. “Sorry about that. She’s a little high-strung at times,” I mutter, my voice hampered with frustration at being forced to apologize for the behavior of one of my crew, let alone a grown woman who should know better.
Hugo delves his hand into the back pocket of his jeans. “It’s all good. It’s nothing I haven’t handled before.”
When he passes me one of the many credit cards housed in his leather wallet, my brows furrow. “Since when did you stop paying cash?” I jest, saying anything to lessen the awkward tension plaguing the air.
“About as long as you’ve been picking up rich strays.” Hugo waggles his brows.
I laugh, grateful he can see the humor in a difficult situation. “A dangerous endeavor for us both, no doubt? ”
“You have no fucking clue,” he mutters under his breath.
After seeing Hugo out, I walk down the corridor in search of Clara. Because of the size of the shop, it doesn’t take me long to find her camped out in the supply closet. Although she appears to be busy working, the feistiness that radiates out of her in invisible waves is missing, clearly indicating she’s in hiding.
“I need to talk to you in my office.”
Clara places a bottle of blue tattoo ink onto the third shelf before hopping off the stepladder. “Okay. Let me just finish this?—”
“Now, Clara,” I interrupt, my voice conveying that this is not up for negotiation.
She places the ordering clipboard on the middle shelf and shifts on her feet to face me. When her icy-blue eyes lock with mine, my furious composure slips for the quickest second. She looks more concerned now than she did when I threatened for her to collect her last paycheck ten minutes ago. I guess this is the first time I’ve used her real name in the past six weeks.
I nudge my head to the hallway, wordlessly demanding that she follow me. Not waiting for her to reply, I spin on my heels and stride to my office. If her rich floral scent hadn’t infused the air around me, I would have assumed she wasn’t following me. She’s so quiet, not even the clicking of her heels on the tiled floor sounds through my ears as we make our way down the corridor and into my office.
I move to my desk, prop my backside on the edge, then lift my eyes to the office door. Clara is standing in the open doorway, looking prepared to flee at any moment. Her pupils are wide, and her face is flushed.
This is the one part of my job I fucking hate. Just like I’m not a violent man, I also loathe confrontation, but Clara overstepped the mark tonight, and she must be reprimanded for it. I warned her when I offered her a trial at Inked that if she scared away any of my customers, she’d be out on her ass quicker than I could snap my fingers. Although it will take more than a spiteful threat to scare off a regular client like Hugo, she still shouldn’t have said what she did.
When Clara remains standing halfway between the hallway and my office, I request, “Close the door.”
Her throat struggles to swallow before she does as requested. Once the door is closed—blocking out the buzzing of tattoo guns—I gesture to the couch.
Her eyes follow mine before she timidly shakes her head. “I’m happy to stand,” she informs me as her eyes stray from the couch to me. “If you’re going to fire me, Brax, can you hurry up and get it over with?”
A deep sigh spills from my lips. “You don’t have anything else to say? No pleading for clemency? No begging for forgiveness?”
“No,” she replies with a brisk shake of her head.
I balk, utterly shocked.
“I did nothing wrong, so why would I feel the need to apologize?” she argues to my baffled expression.
I arch my brow. “Are you fucking kidding me? You did nothing wrong?” Pushing off the desk, I walk two steps closer to her. “You not only disrespected my business, my crew, and me with the little spectacle you unleashed, you disrespected yourself.”
Her eyes bounce between mine, her confusion growing by the second.
“We’re a family at Inked. The instant you agreed to work here, you became one of us. Anything said or done to a member of our family is done to the whole family, so when you ran your mouth about my business, you were running your mouth about yourself.”
She inhales a sharp breath as the fiery spark in her eyes is smothered with shock.
I cross my arms in front of my chest. “I’d always wondered why you chose to work at Inked instead of one of those fancy boutiques you buy your dresses from. Only now does it dawn on me why you showed up on this side of town. You didn’t think anyone from your neck of the woods would turn up here.”
Clara’s tongue delves out to lick her parched lips, but she doesn’t speak a peep.
“Well, I have news for you, Princess. Having tattoos doesn’t make you trashy. I’ve doodled on judges, lawyers, doctors, and even stuck-up little princesses who have fancy-colored credit cards that cost a quarter-of-a-mil a year just to have.”
The harshness of my words dulls when I spot a sheen of moisture forming in her eyes, but it doesn’t completely stop my reprimand. “If your plan is to hide away from your country club friends in a place you won’t be seen, the door is that fucking way.” I point to the entrance of Inked. “As I guarantee you have just as much chance of being seen here as you would in some fancy dress shop on the other side of town.”
After issuing my disappointment with my eyes instead of words, I walk around my desk and take a seat in my cracked leather chair. I secure a set of invoices off my desk and shuffle through them, needing something to distract my hands from the urge to take Clara over my knee and spank the sass right out of her.
Maybe that’s half her problem? Perhaps her parents didn’t discipline her enough?
My gaze lifts from the invoices in my hand when Clara whispers, “Am I fired?”
The roaring of blood in my ears slows as my gaze drifts between her remorse-filled eyes. “I said your position at Inked is yours for as long as you want it. I’m a man who keeps my word.”
Relief swamps her eyes as she gently nods.
“But if you disrespect my crew or me again, I may reconsider. ”
She once again nods before pivoting on her heels and stalking to the door.
The furious twitch impinging my jaw lessens when the faintest murmur of, “I’m sorry, Brax,” seeps from her lips before she slips out of my office as quietly as she entered.