I was being a dick. She was uncomfortable and I was the cause, but I didn’t want to stop touching her. It was fucking weird.
“She picked the one you liked,” Lisa said, elbowing me in the ribs.
It was a not-so-covert way of telling me to back off. I ignored her. I swept Tenley’s hair over her shoulder. It was as soft as her skin and silky as it slipped through my fingers. The kind of hair I’d like to bury my face in or wrap around my hand. I tucked it behind her ear, exposing a ladder of rings traveling the shell. A minor show of rebellion, which denoted a hidden predilection. Interesting. Maybe she was a closet deviant.
She met my curious stare with a timid one. The uncertainty there flared to life and she took a step back, severing our contact. A slight tremor passed through her. If I hadn’t been paying such close attention, I never would have caught it. Tenley brought her fingers to the place mine had been, confusion marring her otherwise flawless features. I’d made an impact. It made her all the more intriguing.
“I should probably get back.”
“Already?” That was a disappointment. I tapped the books sitting in a neat pile on the counter. “Tell Cassie I appreciate her letting you bring these by for me.”
I would personally thank Cassie the next time I saw her and dig for more information on this girl. There was something about her I liked, beyond the fact that she was gorgeous and clearly into steel.
“It’s not a problem.” Tenley edged toward the door and away from me. “What do I owe you?” she asked Lisa.
Before Lisa could reply, I cut in, “Don’t worry about it. This one’s on the house as long as you promise to come by again.”
Chris coughed.
“But it wasn’t just the—”
Lisa cut her off. “It’s cool. We can work it out next time. I’ll stop by Serendipity tomorrow.”
“Okay.” Tenley nodded, her face fiery as she looked anywhere but at me.
That sucked. Apparently I’d overstepped my boundaries more than usual. She said a hasty good-bye and rushed out of the shop, almost tripping on the curb when she crossed the street. We all stood there, staring at the door after she left. Well, I stood there staring at the door while everyone else stared at me.
Lisa was the first one to break the silence. She punched me in the shoulder.
“Ow. What was that for?”
“Are you serious? What the hell is wrong with you?”
I gave her my best bewildered look. I probably came off a little too . . . me. But Tenley was hot and I found her intriguing. Maybe it was because she seemed so damn uncomfortable around me and completely at ease with Chris and Lisa. Maybe it was the hint of rebellion hidden beneath that hair. I still planned to corner her again and attempt a real conversation. One that consisted of more than a couple of sentences.
“Dude. You have a problem.” Chris scoffed and hid a grin with his fist. I wanted to knock it off his face.
“What’s the deal?” I asked, looking back and forth between him and Lisa. I understood I might have breached the whole personal space continuum, but other than that I couldn’t see a horrific social faux pas.
Chris pointed at my crotch and snickered. I looked down. Huh. My brain wasn’t the only part of me that found Tenley enthralling. I seriously hoped she hadn’t noticed, because my shirt didn’t come close to camouflaging the issue.
“That’s just disturbing.” Lisa covered her eyes with her hands. “You need to get a handle on yourself.”
“It’s probably better if I wait until I get home.” The masturbation joke wasn’t appropriate, but I was deflecting.
Lisa ignored my attempt at juvenile humor. “She wants a tattoo, you know.”
“Oh? Where? What kind of design?” Chris was way too interested.
I pointed a finger right in his face. “You’re not touching her. So don’t even think about it.”
My territorialism was unwarranted. We took clients based on our skill sets. Chris specialized in lettering and tribal art, Jamie had a talent for portrait pieces, and I ran the gamut from dark and sinister to light and feminine. Whatever body art Tenley wanted could fit any one of our strengths.
“Have you seen the design?” I asked.
“No. But I almost convinced her to bring it by so you could have a look. Then you ruined it when you got all up in her space and tried to dry hump her.”
“I didn’t try to dry hump her.”
“You would have if there hadn’t been witnesses present.”
It was hard to argue, given my current issue. “I wasn’t intentionally being a dick.”
“I’ll see Tenley tomorrow and do damage control. If I can get her to agree to bring the design over, you have to promise you’ll keep your hands to yourself.”
“You do realize that won’t be possible if I’m putting ink on her, right?”
“I’m serious.”
“So am I.”
Lisa shook her head. “I don’t know why I even bother with you. It’s like herding a cat.”
I laughed. She wasn’t wrong. When it came to walking the line, I didn’t have much patience. People stuck to social codes because they worried about what other people might think. I didn’t give a shit. Mostly. There were a select few whose opinions impacted on my decisions. Aunt Cassie’s was one, and Lisa’s was another. For that reason I would try to be on my best behavior where Tenley was concerned, but I couldn’t guarantee I’d be successful.
Want more Hayden and Tenley? Follow their story in
Inked Armor
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1
tenley
At 6:23 in the morning, the front door opened downstairs and the security system let out a chirp, signaling Trey’s arrival. I held my breath as I listened for the sound of the code being punched in, then a warning beep, followed by Trey’s irate curse.
Last night I’d changed the security code for the seventh time in as many days. I started doing it after I woke up to him standing over my bed, screaming bloody murder about the tattoo on my back. Verbal abuse from my almost brother-in-law was not a good way to wake up. Since he’d thwarted my attempts to have the lock changed, I made the alarm system the bane of his existence.
Trey strung together creative new phrases describing exactly what he thought of me; he knew the alarm would start shrieking at any moment. I reached for my iPhone, jammed in the earbuds, and scrolled to the playlist I’d created for this freak show. Hard rock filled my ears as the alarm went into full panic mode.
Before long he started pounding on my door. Nabbing the remote from my night table, I turned on the surround sound hooked up to the flat-screen and blasted techno beats, then went into my bathroom to shower. Trey hated techno.
The pounding had ended by the time I’d showered and dressed. With practiced stealth, I silently turned the dead bolt on my bedroom door. Opening it a crack, I peeked out. No Trey, but that didn’t mean he was gone. He’d waited for hours before; his persistence knew no bounds.
Just outside the door was a pile of papers and a pen for me to sign over the property. He’d shown up each morning without fail, but in the past week his tactics had changed slightly. Occasionally he left the papers and ambushed me later in the day or the evening. The past couple of days, he’d gone back to waiting me out.
My response never changed. I always tore up the papers and watched them scatter like fat snowflakes on the floor. Their destruction had become a ritual I enjoyed.
I was about to shred the ones left for me this morning when I noticed they weren’t the usual documents. The stack was thinner. I leafed through the pages, frowning as I absorbed the content. The back page held my sloppy signature. Based on what I was reading, I’d signed over power of attorney to Trey.
I had absolutely no recollection of reading this document, never mind signing it. According to the date, it was drafted and made legal two months after the accident. I’d been released from the hospital at that point, but I hadn’t been in any sta
te to care for myself, and Trey had put himself in charge of my medication. Now I understood why.
“Trey!” I crushed the documents in my fist and rushed down the stairs.
He was sitting at the kitchen island, typing away on his laptop with a coffee at his side. As if it were his house and not mine. I slammed the laptop shut on his hands.
“What the hell is wrong with you?” He stood, his chair toppling backward. The metallic clatter echoed in the open space.
“What’s wrong with me?” I shoved the papers into his chest. “What’s wrong with you? Do you think you can bully me into signing the house over?”
He seized my wrists to stop me from attacking him. His lip curled. “I have power of attorney. I can take everything if I want to.”
“Have you lost your mind? Do you honestly think this is going to hold? I wasn’t even lucid when I signed this.” I struggled against him, the bones in my wrists grinding painfully as his grip tightened.
“Sign over the house and it won’t be a problem.”
“Not to you, and especially not now!” I spat.
“Sign over the fucking house, goddamnit!” he roared.
“Why are you so intent on making me do this?” I screamed back.
“Because the estate is useless to me until I have possession of this house!”
He released my wrists and turned away to lurch around the kitchen, his wiry body jerking as he tried to get a handle on himself. Trey had never before lost control. I rubbed my wrists, red marks marring the skin where he’d held me too hard. His nostrils flared, eyes burning with hatred. He took a deep breath and adjusted his tie.
“There are five houses on the property; why do you need this one?” I asked, his motivation lost on me. Although, with him, logic need not apply.
“Are you really that stupid? I can’t sell the estate unless I own all the houses.”
“But in your parents’ will—”
“The will doesn’t matter anymore! My parents are dead, no thanks to your brilliant wedding plans, so what they wanted is irrelevant.”
The shot of guilt hit me like a bullet to the heart. “That’s not fair.”
“You don’t like the truth? Is it too much for you to handle? Should I get you a pill?”
“Enough.” I held up my hand.
I could never live in this house—not when it symbolized everything that might have been, but would never be. I couldn’t stand the thought of it leaving his family. Especially when he had so many close relatives who would jump at the opportunity to call the estate home if they could afford it. The property had been in his family for generations.
“Even if I signed over this house, your uncles still own the summer home, don’t they?” I asked.
“My uncles will sell.”
“How can you be sure?”
“Because everyone has a price. I’m just not sure what yours is. I mean, you stayed with Connor even after he fucked his way through half the female population of Cornell while you were on your little break, or whatever you called it,” Trey sneered. “And then you jumped all over that fucking proposal. So maybe the money is more important than you’re letting on. You’ve been more than willing to relinquish your self-respect these days, from what I witnessed in Chicago. What if I doubled the offer? Would you take it then?”
Any shred of empathy I may have had for Trey dissolved. Connor hadn’t been perfect, and neither had our relationship, but Trey’s allegation sounded like another of his ploys to hurt me. True or not, I didn’t need that stain on Connor’s memory.
“Why do you have to be so cruel?”
Trey’s smile was malicious. “You are the only thing standing in my way, and I will do anything in my power to get what I need. If you don’t sign it over, I will take it. The request was a courtesy, but I see you’re too self-absorbed to understand that. As usual.”
I held up the crumpled papers, my resolve hardening. “This will never hold.”
“We’ll see about that.”
He righted the toppled chair and picked up his suit jacket. He tucked the laptop into his briefcase, but before he closed the case he withdrew yet another set of papers. These I recognized.
“I’ll just leave these for you, shall I? In case you change that little mind of yours.” With that, he turned and walked out the door.
As soon as Trey’s car disappeared around the bend in the drive, I sank down in one of the chairs. His words were like slivers working deep into my skin.
My relationship with Connor had always been tricky. He was older by several years, and he’d had some unrealistic expectations, mostly old-fashioned notions of propriety. In hindsight, it had been all about keeping up appearances. If we’d gotten married, I would have had to balance that my entire life. All my “little quirks,” as Connor called them, would have been shelved or channeled into more acceptable things. Or hidden under clothing or hair, as my tiny tattoo and ear piercings had been.
Connor had been halfway across the country for years, only coming back to Minnesota during the summer months and holidays. When we started dating, he flew back more often. But the distance strained the relationship, and in my final semester of college it became too much to juggle. I needed to focus on school, not pine for a boyfriend so far away. So I gave him a reprieve. It lasted eight weeks. I’d never asked him about that span of time. It hadn’t seemed necessary to know, because shortly thereafter he proposed.
Unfortunately, that little barb from Trey brought up other concerns that had nothing to do with Connor. An image of Hayden with Sienna all over him popped into my head. The thought made my stomach turn. I couldn’t stand the idea of him with anyone but me. Which wasn’t fair because I left him, not the other way around.
If he went back to her in my absence, I had no one to blame but myself. Two weeks was long enough for her to find a way to sink her claws back into him, especially with how I’d left things. It made the urgency of tying up loose ends even more pressing. I missed him so much it was a constant, painful distraction.
I smoothed the power-of-attorney papers out on the counter. Unlike sorting through Connor’s effects or managing the financial aspects of the settlement, this wasn’t something I could handle on my own. I snatched up my purse and the documents and headed for the garage.
The familiar drive to Minneapolis didn’t take long, and I soon reached Williams and Williams Attorneys at Law. I should have called ahead, but Frank Williams was a longtime friend of my father’s. I was certain he would see me, even without an appointment.
The elevator ride to the twelfth floor took forever. The confined space made me anxious; I hadn’t been to Frank’s office since I signed the paperwork regarding the settlement from the airline and my parents’ will.
The receptionist looked surprised as I entered. “Tenley!”
“Hi, Catherine. I’m afraid I don’t have an appointment, but I’m happy to wait if Frank is available.”
“Is everything okay? Is there a problem with the settlement?”
“It’s about Connor’s estate. I have . . . some questions.”
“I’ll be right back.” She went down the hall to Frank’s office, and less than a minute later he appeared, Catherine following behind.
“Tenley! It’s so good to see you.” Though he smiled, I saw his concern as he folded me in a fatherly embrace. I hugged him back. “How is Chicago treating you?”
“I’m taking a short break. There are some things that need my attention here.”
“Why don’t you come to my office and we can talk.” He looked to Catherine. “Can you reschedule that lunch meeting?”
“Of course.”
“I’ll let you know if we need to rearrange anything else this afternoon,” Frank said, and led me to his office.
Once the doors were closed, I filled him in, handing over the documents. Frank lifted the bifocals hanging around his neck, his frown deepening as he scanned the pages.
“Why haven’t I seen this before?” he
asked.
“I just found out about it this morning. I came directly to you. Is Trey right? Can he take everything?” The property and the value attached to it didn’t concern me. It was having control stripped away, the potential for more loss too much to handle.
“This is your signature?” He flipped to the back page and turned it toward me.
“Yes, but I had just been released from the hospital and was on a lot of medications. I don’t remember signing that.”
“That son of a—” Frank shook his head. “He can be disbarred for this.”
“Is there anything we can do?”
“I’ll need a few days, but I’m sure I can have this rescinded. He should be taken to task over this—but I have a feeling you won’t be interested in going that route.”
“I don’t have the energy to take him to court. I just want to make sure he doesn’t have any power over me, and that he doesn’t get the house. I want this behind me so I can move on.”
“If that’s what you prefer. Now, Catherine said something about Connor’s estate. Is there more we need to deal with?”
“Yes.” I pulled out a copy of Trey’s transfer-of-ownership papers and the proposed remuneration.
So much had changed since I’d signed the papers for the settlement. I’d been drowning in guilt over accepting financial compensation for such overwhelming emotional losses. For the past year I’d believed the loss was a direct result of my selfishness. Trey had played on that, but I’d finally seen that what had happened was far beyond anyone’s control. I wouldn’t allow him to hold that over me anymore.
* * *
Four days later I was back in Frank’s office with Connor’s cousin Weston.
Frank had been able to overturn the power of attorney. He’d also uncovered some information about a recent proposal for the Hoffman estate, which sprawled over ten acres with five houses. Trey had applied to the city council for commercial zoning and demolition.
My house and its two-acre parcel of land was a gift from Connor’s parents, meant for us once we were married. We were supposed to move in when we returned from Hawaii—except that hadn’t happened.
Cracks in the Armor Page 6