“I could just tell.” She didn’t sound hostile, just a little down.
He wanted to stay silent, god, how he wanted to stay silent, but he knew he owed her. “I wasn’t trying to fuck you around when I said yes to drinks, but things changed, and yeah…”
“I get it.” Daniella hoisted her bag higher on her shoulder. “Good luck.”
“Yeah. Don’t let this stop you asking guys out, it’s fucking ballsy.”
Daniella’s smile returned, only this time it was warm. “Thanks. Well, follow my example with Nikki and hopefully you’ll have good news when I come in for my next tatt.”
“Yeah, maybe—”
The tiger doorbell roared, and as though she’d been summoned by the use of her nickname, Nicole DaSilva stepped into the studio. She was done up like he’d never seen her done up; black leather skirt, tight black top, her hair pulled into a glossy black pile on her head. He’d never seen her in black before. It made her skin look snow white and her blue eyes and red lipstick pop like fireworks. She looked like a dominatrix. Or a supermodel dressed up as a dominatrix for a weird fashion thing.
He gaped, and out of the corner of his eye he saw Daniella doing the same thing. He had no idea where the girl who’d drunk his wine and moaned in his bed had gone. Maybe this Nicole had eaten her.
“Hey,” he said. “Where you been?”
“Around.” She headed for the hallway, her heels clicking like dominos.
“Nice to see you again,” Daniella said.
Nicole flashed her a tight smile. “You too. Have such a fun time going out with Noah. I hear he’s a real dark horse.” She disappeared up the hall, heels snapping on the hardwood floor.
Daniella raised her eyebrows. “Looks like you’ve got work to do.”
“Yeah,” he said, because yelling ‘It’s not what it fuckin’ looks like, okay? I was doing the opposite of that!’ wasn’t an option. “Have a good day.”
“You too.” She grinned. “Dark horse.”
Noah was going to kill…someone. Something. After he got Nicole to explain what the fuck was going on.
He waited until Daniella was gone to head up the hall. Gil, Tabby, and Sam were all with clients, their music playing over the burr of their tattooing machines. Nicole had shut Edgar’s office door. He knocked, but she didn’t say anything.
Well fuck that. He pushed the door open and his heart kicked inward—she was so fucking pretty. Why was she so pretty? How was this fair? “Hey.”
She didn’t look up from the computer. “Can I help you?”
“Yeah, you can tell me why you look like Morticia Adams.”
That got her to make eye-contact, albeit eye-contact as frosty as the arctic tundra. “I had an appointment.”
“At a haunted house?”
Her smile was saccharine sweet. “A laser clinic.”
He looked at her wrist, the diamond watch covering what he knew was beneath, and his mouth damn near fell open. “You’re getting your dad’s work taken off?”
“No, I’m having a tattoo I don’t want removed.”
“Why the hell would you do that?”
“Because it’s my body and I can do what I want with it.”
“Right.” Heat rose in the back of his neck. “And what you want is to get rid of the tattoo your whole family shares?”
Red bloomed in Nicole’s cheeks. “I was eighteen when I got it. I wasn’t ready. I didn’t know what it would mean.”
“And what does it mean?”