Riley was gone.

Giovanni spent the rest of the night contemplating the sudden fear in her eyes and the flighty way she’d spoken after she’d risen from bed. It was hard to imagine that she could walk at all after sex like that, but he’d watched her wobble away on her four-inch heels, snatching her oversized bag as she went.

The bed was lonely without her.

It wasn’t like Giovanni to pine over a woman, but it wasn’t every day that someone like Riley Byrne came along, either. He lay back on the empty bed and stared at the ceiling, wondering what he’d done to make her leave. The sex had been great on his end, but he knew he might have come on too strong. Riley was strong-willed, but he’d seen her fragility firsthand. Beneath the hardened exterior was a woman who was vulnerable, and he’d pushed her beyond her limits.

If she showed up for work tomorrow, he’d be surprised. It wouldn’t be the first time a woman had come into his life only to leave it again.

Giovanni lifted one hand skyward and flexed his fingers. The spider web tattoo on the back of his hand was starting to fade and needed to be touched up. He stared at the line work, appreciating how straight the lines were and how skillful the design, anything to distract himself from the crippling emotional pain destroying him from the inside.

Art had always been his passion, but in his adult life, it had become his escape. Sitting down with a human canvas and burying his nose in his work meant that his mind was free of the ruinous thoughts that so often plagued him. Women and their fickle, fleeting nature. The death of his father. His own financial status and the uncertainty of his future. Every difficult thought was silenced by the buzz of a tattoo machine in his hand, and the sour taste on his tongue was turned sweet by the colors he saturated into each client’s skin.

Even black and white tattoos had their own flavor, a mellow, subtle taste that went down smooth, better than any high-priced bottle of wine.

If he worked hard enough, he could forget about Riley. The workshops may grind to a halt, and the progress they’d made toward reversing Thorn Tattoo’s financial straits would be slowed, but he could power on. All his life Giovanni had looked after himself. He wasn’t counting on Riley to save him.

He could do it himself.

With a sigh, he climbed out of bed and headed into the bathroom to shower. There was a Jacuzzi tub, but he wasn’t looking for comfort. Instead, he stepped into the shower. The overhead nozzle misted water downward at first, and he adjusted the flow until the beads that fell were full and heavy, beating against his skin until it turned red. He needed to scrub free his thoughts of her and shake Riley Byrne free from his head. Thinking that she would stick around, that maybe she might feel the way he did was ludicrous. He would never be boyfriend material.

Giovanni lathered the thoughts of her away and let their time together go.

It wasn’t the first time he’d have to move on.

But it was definitely the hardest.

* * *

Giovanni arrived at the shop early the next morning and checked the digital agenda on the computer at the front desk. There were three clients booked that day that he’d be responsible for. The fact that they hadn’t hired another artist yet ate at him, but it was clear that his resources were better spent on the floor since Riley was proficient at managing.

If she didn’t come back, he could reallocate her salary into hiring someone to take his place, and then he could go back to managing and taking clients on the side.

Giovanni had a feeling that he’d need to begin his search today.

When the first client walked through their doors at noon, he brought her back to the tattoo bay and lost himself in his work. The design The News had created needed to be touched up, and Giovanni did the alterations as the client watched. As he worked, he did his best to explain his choices. Most times, he wouldn’t bother. All clients cared about was whether a tattoo looked solid or not. Yet, with the workshop coming up tomorrow, he felt the need to practice his communication skills.

“One of the first rules of tattooing is that you want to have anything with eyes facing inward, not outward,” he explained, pointing to the skull The News had designed. A strand of pearls flowed from its mouth and looped around behind its cranium. “The way he designed it, the skull would be facing the wrong direction. It just wouldn’t look right. That’s the first thing we need to fix.”

“Oh,” the woman said. “Then why don’t you simply invert the image?”

“Because the placement of the tattoo on your body wouldn’t look right if we did that,” Giovanni said. As he spoke, he remembered explaining similar things to Riley after the interview with Derrick Destruction. His chest ached, and he clenched his jaw. “We’ve got to work with your natural curves if we want it to look right, so that means I’m going to have to change the layout a little. We can keep the pearls and the roses you want, but I need to rearrange them.”

“I guess that’s not bad,” the woman murmured. “I mean, it can still go on my ribs, right?”

“Yeah.” The pain wasn’t fading. Giovanni bit down on his tongue to try to distract himself. “The ribs are a painful part of your body to get tattooed. Have you ever sat before?”

“Um, I’ve got a little tattoo on my shoulder blade. It took maybe an hour?”

“This is going to take at least four,” Giovanni said. “It’s going to be hard. Tattooing on the ribs is nothing like what it feels like to be tattooed on your shoulder blade. I’m not trying to talk you out of it, but I want to let you know. If you can’t sit for it, you may need to come back and the total price will increase.”

“Oh, well, yeah.” She laughed. “I’m super tough, so you don’t even need to worry. I’ll sit for it really well and we’ll get it done in one try.”

Giovanni wasn’t so sure, but he didn’t share his hesitation. He finished the sketch, got her approval, and then set up for the tattoo. Hopefully, the clients he had later in the day weren’t going to be too big of a challenge. By the looks of it, both of them wanted smaller flash tattoos. Giovanni was confident he could knock those out in an hour, maybe two.

Giovanni lowered the chair’s back so that it formed a flat surface with the seat, and the client stripped off her shirt and lounged across it. Already he could tell that the tattoo wasn’t going to be easy—she was so skinny there wasn’t a lot of padding between her skin and her ribs.

As he prepared his inks and settled in to tattoo, the doors to the tattoo bay swung open. Giovanni lifted his head only to widen his eyes in shock. There stood Riley, dressed in a flowy blouse, a blazer, and tight jeans. He was convinced she would have skipped town and never come back after how she’d run away last night, but there she was not six feet from him, smiling like it was another day as usual at the shop.

“Coming in to let you know I sent off payroll to Antonio’s accountant, so you don’t need to worry about it. I also rearranged the schedule tomorrow so you can leave a few hours early to help set up the conference room for the workshop. All the supplies for the workshop have arrived, and all of the payments have cleared, so we have our final attendance list. We’re looking at a group of thirty-two, and I’ve got thirty-five artificial canvases available for use.”

Even though the things Riley spoke about were business related, Giovanni couldn’t slow the rapid beating of his heart upon hearing her voice. His brain couldn’t wrap around the fact that she wasn’t on the next flight back to the east coast. What the hell was she still doing here, and what had happened last night that had made her run from him like that?

He wanted to ask her, but on the floor in front of a client wasn’t the best time to do it.

“I, uh, thanks,” he managed to say. “That all sounds great.”

“I think so, too.” Riley smiled. The sight of her drove his heart to beat faster, and he focused on pouring his ink to escape the sight of her. “Everything’s working out great and Antonio’s pleased with our progress. I’ve been corresponding with him regularly.”

Giovanni wanted to make things right between them and pick Riley’s mind for answers to his questions, but he held back. Impulse control was never his strong suit, but he did his best to hold back for her. A spark of hope inside of him said that it was worth it, and the fact that she hadn’t run was encouraging. There was a chance, no matter how small, that her affection for him wasn’t fickle.

He was starting to think that what he felt for her was far from just a passing phase.

“Great.” Giovanni wheeled his stool over to the client and examined the placement of lines on her skin. Looking at Riley was too risky. After last night, she looked more beautiful to him than ever. It was simple to see through her now that he’d seen her nude. Giovanni couldn’t get over the gentle swell of her breasts, or how stunning her slit had looked wet and glistening for him.

A boner was the last thing he needed right now.

“Well, that’s all. I’m off to tend to everything else. I’ll keep you up to date,” Riley said. She stepped toward the doors, but before she could push her way through them, Giovanni stopped her.

“Wait. There’s one more thing.”

“What is it?”

He tested the foot pedal to make sure the calibration of the machine was right. It buzzed to life and sounded healthy. Giovanni took that second to draw in a breath. He’d wanted to own her, to lay his claims, and to make her submit. Now he realized that there was much more give-and-take involved than he ever could have anticipated. “Tell the guys that everyone’s staying after we lock the doors tonight so I can run through an abridged version of my presentation. I need to explain myself in front of an audience who knows what the fuck I’m talking about so that they can call me out if I’m veering off course or if they disagree with any of my points.”

Riley said nothing for a moment, and he made the mistake of looking up at her to see if she was listening. As he lifted his head, his gaze locked on hers. The bottom of Giovanni’s stomach dropped out, and he had to hold himself back from rushing to her side to pin her against the partition and kiss her senseless.

The glow she had this morning was unbelievable, like she was an airbrushed model off the pages of a magazine. All of it, he thought, was because of what they’d shared last night. Even though she’d run from him, he’d done her good.

The hope in his chest sparked brighter.

“I… I mean, yeah, I’ll tell them,” she said softly. “Does that include me?”

“Every shop employee is expected to attend.” Giovanni didn’t need her to stay, but he was too selfish to let her go. The more time they spent together, the better he felt. “As long as you’re on Antonio’s payroll, you should be there.”

There was no room for argument in his voice, and Riley nodded her head simply and stepped back. “Okay,” she said. The innocence was back, and it sank down through his stomach and heated his groin. “I guess I’ll see you then.”

Giovanni watched as she left before turning back to his client and getting to work. The end of the day couldn’t come quickly enough.