Priceless Ink: A Small Town Romance

by Lagomarsino, Giulia

  “Why are you telling me this?”

  “Because if you think he won’t try that again, you’re mistaken. Maybe he won’t go through me, but he’ll still try and find a way to screw you over. It’s what he does.”

  “I’m just his banking associate.”

  “You hold the keys to his fortune. You give him investment advice and handle all his accounts. Do you really think he won’t try and use that to his advantage as your father-in-law?”

  “The same could be said about me. I could try and use the information against him.”

  “But you won’t, because he has all the leverage he needs to keep you in check, just like he does with me.”

  He sighed, his jaw ticking with anger because he knew I was right. “So, what exactly are you proposing?”

  “Nothing really. Just that we speak to one another, so that we can be prepared if he tries anything. I don’t want anything from you. I’m not trying to cheat you in any way. I just don’t want my father having anything else over our heads.”

  “There was a time you would have done anything he asked,” he said cooly, still not believing that I just wanted to be on the same side.

  “You’re right, but that was before.”

  “Yeah? And what changed? Do you really expect me to believe that you ran away for a few months and suddenly you’re a changed person?”

  I wasn’t sure what I could say to convince him that I was telling him the truth, so I said the only thing I could think of. “Have you once seen me wear makeup since I’ve come to live here? Do you see me dressed in the most expensive clothes or wear heels all day long like I used to?”

  His gaze swept over me, taking in the shorts and t-shirt and my flip-flops. After seeing what he had for me, I had called his personal shopper and requested a new wardrobe.

  “I know you may not believe me, but I ran away and found peace and happiness. I found freedom to do things I wanted or to dress in whatever I wanted. I may have to wear the fancy clothes when we go out, but around here, I’m that girl back in that small town. Check with your personal shopper. All the clothes I asked her to get me are from Target. Does that sound like someone that married you and plans to screw you over?”

  He smirked slightly at me. “You really have changed, haven’t you?”

  I swallowed hard, unease rippling through me. Something about the way he was looking at me made me think that this wasn’t going to go the way I planned.

  “You’ve got your new clothes and your new outlook on life. You really did change in just a few months.”

  “Graham—“

  He stalked toward me and cut me off with just a glare. “Here’s the thing, Sofia. I don’t give a shit about your new found perspective on life. You’re my wife and the only thing you’re good for is standing by my side and saying yes, dear when we’re in public together. I don’t need an ally.” His hand shot out and grabbed my chin, holding my gaze to his. His voice was low and threatening, so steely that I was actually terrified of him. “I don’t want you to have my back or help me go up against your father. The only thing I want from you is to do your fucking job. Am I clear?”

  I tried to nod, but he held my chin firmly in place.

  “I don’t want a fucking nod. I want you to say, Yes, I understand clearly, Graham.”

  I didn’t want to do it, but what choice did I have? He held all the cards here. I was just a pawn in a sick and twisted game.

  “Yes, Graham, I understand clearly.”

  “Good.” He jerked his hand away and turned to leave, but at the last second stopped. “Oh, and get rid of those clothes. You’re my fucking wife, not a bartender. And if you ever order anything without my approval again, I’ll make sure that it’s the kid that suffers. Now, we have a dinner to go to tomorrow night. I expect you to be dressed in the clothes I bought for you by six. And do something about your face. I don’t want you looking like the slut you are.”

  With that, he turned on his heel and walked out of the room. I slumped against the wall, shaken and disturbed. I wasn’t sure why I thought I could make things work with him, but clearly I was mistaken. There was nothing I could say to get through to him.

  Joe

  I looked at the note again and tried to talk myself out of what I was about to do. I had asked Andrew to look up Graham’s address. It took him only fifteen minutes to find it. With their previous engagement in the society pages, he easily found a last name. The rest was a cakewalk for him.

  Decision made, I got off my bike and headed for the house, but there was a gated entrance. After giving my name, the guard at the entrance opened the gates for me and I walked up the drive to the house. Staring at the mansion in front of me, I began to seriously have my doubts about confronting Sofia. This was so far beyond what I had imagined, and if this was what she wanted, I knew there was no way I could ever give her something like this.

  I was about to knock when the door swung open and a man in an expensive suit stepped out, trying to intimidate me. His gaze swung over my leather jacket and disgust filled his face.

  “So, you’re the man Sofia went slumming with.”

  I narrowed my eyes at him. I knew I was not wealthy, but I wasn’t about to stand here and let this asshole talk shit about me.

  “I wouldn’t consider it slumming to be with the person you love.”

  A smirk crossed his face. “What did you come here for? Did you really think that you could show up here and she would come running back to you?”

  Well, yeah, I did kind of hope for that. “I just came to talk to her.”

  “She’s not available.”

  I heard a gasp behind the guy and shuffled to see around him. Sofia stood there, wide-eyed as she stared at me with tears in her eyes. I scanned her body, noting that she looked withdrawn and sad. But overall, she appeared fine.

  “Are you okay?”

  She looked shocked to see me, but then the guy stepped in front of her, blocking my view. “Don’t you dare speak to my wife.”

  I stepped back in shock. She rushed up behind him, but he wouldn’t let her through. “Graham—“

  He cut her off with a glare.

  “You married him already?” I asked in shock.

  “Joe—“

  “Go back in the house,” he snapped at her. Her eyes dropped and she retreated into the house. That was the last glimpse I got of her. He turned to me with a proud gleam in his eyes. “Did you really think she would stay with you when she could have all this? You’re nothing.”

  I had never really let someone get to me like this, but I had to admit, my pride was taking a beating right now.

  “Did you really think she would raise the baby in that slum you call a home?”

  My eyes shot up to his as his words hit me. She was pregnant? If that was true, the baby was mine. She hadn’t been with him long enough to get pregnant, and I was her first. That baby was mine.

  “I want to talk to her.”

  “You’ll never talk to her again. If you even think about coming back here, I’ll make sure everything you have is taken from you.”

  I swallowed the lump rising in my throat. I had never known evil like this before. “Why?”

  “She doesn’t want you. She thought she loved you, but a woman like Sofia needs more than the scraps you can give her. She doesn’t ever want to see you again. Don’t try and come back for the child. I’ll make sure it’s provided for.”

  I didn’t understand. “If you didn’t want me to come back, why would you tell me she’s pregnant?”

  He smirked. “You took something that should have been mine. I was supposed to be her first. Now I’m taking something that should have been yours. And you can live with the fact that you’ll never see your child.” He turned on his heel and walked into the house. “Get the fuck off my property.”

  He slammed the door behind me, leaving me reeling. She was pregnant with my kid. Holy shit. I stumbled back toward the gate and back to my bike. I had no idea where
to go from here. I didn’t have the resources to fight a guy like this, and he knew it. He fucking knew that he could bury me in court.

  Swinging my leg over my bike, I started it up and felt anger take over. She was ditching me because she was pregnant. But I had to be sure. If that was really the reason she left, there had to be some proof of it. She would have taken a test.

  I broke every speed limit to get home, and when I ran up the stairs to the apartment, I ignored Andrew’s questions about how my visit went and marched right into my bedroom. Flinging open the drawers of the dresser, I started yanking everything out, searching for any sign that she hid a pregnancy test. After the drawers were emptied, I moved on to the night stand and under the bed. I could feel Andrew’s gaze on me, but he said nothing as I tore the room apart.

  I ran to the bathroom and dug through the garbage. There was nothing there. I yanked open the first drawer and emptied it’s contents, then moved on to the second. The third drawer stuck as I tried to pull it open. I slid my hand in there, wincing as the cabinet pulled at my skin, and found what I was looking for. I yanked out the box and stared down at the pregnancy test in front of me.

  “Holy shit,” Andrew muttered behind me.

  I swallowed hard as I emptied the box into my hand. My heart pounded out of control as I turned the test over and stared at the two pink lines on the test. It was true. She was pregnant.

  “That’s why she left me,” I said quietly. “She’s pregnant and she doesn’t think I can take care of her or the baby.”

  “Joe…“ He didn’t say anything else as he stared down at me. My mind ran a million miles an hour as I tried to figure out my next step, but the truth was, I couldn’t see a way out of the situation. I didn’t want to walk away from my kid, but she didn’t want me in her life, and her new husband was threatening to rip my life apart. Then I really wouldn’t be able to give my kid anything.

  “What are you going to do?” Andrew asked.

  I got off the floor of the bathroom and stood, shoving the test back in the box. “Nothing.”

  “Nothing?” he asked incredulously.

  “She ran away for a reason.”

  “And you’re okay with that? This is your kid!”

  “I know that,” I shouted angrily. “But she doesn’t want me in her life, and her husband made it pretty damn clear that if I went near her again, he would destroy my life.”

  “So, you’re not even going to fight for her?”

  “With what? You should have seen this guy’s house,” I scoffed. “If I go up against him, there’s no way I can win. I have no proof the kid is mine and he could bury me in paperwork for the next twenty years. Unless she puts down on the birth certificate that I’m the father, I’m not sure how I could prove in court that the kid is mine. So, yeah. I’m just walking away, because I don’t know how to fight this battle.”

  I shoved past him and headed downstairs to bury my head in my own damn paperwork. I may not have the woman I love, but I still had my business and it wouldn’t continue to function if I wasn’t paying attention.

  Sofia

  “Why did you do that?” I asked as he slammed the door behind him. “I could have talked to him. I could have—”

  “What did I tell you?” he seethed. “I said you were never to see him again. I did what I had to do.”

  I ignored the fact that my parents were in the other room and we were eating a family dinner. This whole thing had gotten out of control.

  “You threw it in his face that I’m pregnant with his child! He didn’t need to know.”

  “Let’s get something straight here, I make the decisions in this family. Do you know what it feels like, to know that something that was supposed to be mine was taken by another man?”

  I stared at him in shock. “This is about my virginity? You can’t be serious. You’ve slept with more women than I can count.”

  “This has nothing to do with who I slept with. The contract I negotiated with your father was that you were supposed to be mine. And then you went out and whored yourself out to that piece of trash. Unfortunately, whether I want you now or not doesn’t matter. I’m stuck with you.”

  He marched out of the room and I hurried upstairs. From my bedroom window, I could see Joe getting on his bike. He looked devastated and it was all my fault. As he drove away, I wished that I had some way to contact him, to explain what was happening. But after my father and now Graham deciding things for me, maybe it was better if Joe was never in my life again. I couldn’t control what was happening to me, but he didn’t need to be dragged into this as well.

  My door swung open and my mother came inside. “Sofia, we’re waiting for you in the dining room,” she said in a clipped tone.

  “Do you ever get tired of it?”

  “Get tired of what?”

  I looked at her with a sad face. “Tired of pretending all the time, keeping up the perfect appearance for your husband. Don’t you ever just want a day where you can be your own person and do your own thing?”

  She stiffened, obviously irritated with me. “I am my own person. Your father and I have an understanding of how things are in our world. If you would just do what you’re supposed to, you’d find that life would be much more comfortable.”

  I laughed humorlessly. “I don’t want a comfortable life. If Father hadn’t come to Joe’s and threatened him, I would be there now, happy and living my life the way I want to. For the first time in my life, I had friends that didn’t talk about me behind my back or tell me how fat I was. I didn’t have my mother constantly picking at my appearance or the way I was behaving. I wasn’t locked in a room and starved for days because of something I did wrong in your eyes! And now I’m here, in another prison, and I hate it. There will never be a day that I stay at this house and find myself comfortable. Everything about this life is uncomfortable to me.”

  She just stared at me like she was bored. I could see a flicker of irritation on her face at being called out for being a terrible mother, but nothing would break that exterior.

  “When you’re done throwing your tantrum, come back downstairs to finish dinner. You’re being disrespectful to your husband.”

  I looked out the window one last time, wishing that I could have spoken to Joe. I knew it was for the best that I didn’t get to, but I wanted to hold him one last time. I wanted to see that look in his eyes that told me how much he loved me. But that was never going to happen. My life was no longer my own. I was stuck in this marriage and if I wanted to get Graham at all on my side, I had to behave the way he wanted, whether I liked it or not.

  I stood and straightened my dress, making sure I was calm before I walked into the lion’s den. I opened the door and made my way downstairs. I was stronger than this, and I would not fall to pieces right now.

  Derek

  I stared through the window at the woman strapped to the chair. She was obviously uncomfortable in her current position. The black dress stretched over her shapely body as she wiggled her hips to try and get out of her restraints. Her dress was creeping up higher and I would bet that her captors were getting a good view right now.

  I could see the tears streaming down her face as she begged and pleaded for them to just let her go. I gripped my knife tight in my hand as I took a deep breath and turned away from the window. Slipping through the shadows along the abandoned building, I approached the door at the front that had two guards standing outside.

  My Sig was burning a hole in my thigh holster, but I didn’t dare pull it out. I couldn’t risk the hostage’s life by alerting her captors that help was here. I pulled out a second knife and flipped it twice in my hand before sending it flying through the air to lodge in one guard’s neck. Just as the other guard jerked in response, I ran forward and slashed the knife through the guard’s neck, carefully lowering him to the ground so I didn’t make any more noise.

  I pushed the door open slightly, peeking inside to see where the guards were. It looked like there were
two more just outside the room that the hostage was in. Yanking the knife out of the first guy’s throat, I wiped it on him before moving back to the door. With one final glance inside, I took a deep breath and flung the door open, whipping both blades, one after another at the guards. I knew that I had made too much noise and immediately pulled my Sig Sauer as I rushed to the doors. I could hear her screaming inside, begging for me to help. My heart pounded in my chest as I rushed through the door, weapon drawn as I prepared to shoot anyone.

  My phone buzzed in my pocket, but I ignored it as I took out one of the scumbags in the room. Just as I was about to take out the second, my phone buzzed again. It was fucking with my concentration. I quickly put two bullets in the second guy, and turned my attention to the hostage. With a knife to her throat, she looked absolutely terrified. I took a deep breath, hoping she would sense my calm.

  “Let her go,” I said firmly.

  “So you can kill me? No way.”

  “You pull that knife away from her throat, and you can run out of here. I won’t try to stop you.”

  I didn’t mention that I had backup waiting outside for him.

  “How do I know that you’re telling the truth?”

  I slowly held up both hands, slowly lowering my weapon to the ground. I had a second gun at the small of my back and one around my ankle, but he didn’t need to know that. My phone buzzed again in my pocket.

  “I’m putting my gun down. Now, just let her go and we can all walk away from this in one piece.”

  I could see the hesitation on his face, but then something flashed in his eyes and I knew we were fucked. He was going to kill her unless I put a bullet between his eyes. Rage filled his eyes and I saw his hand flinch. It was now or never.