Pretty in Ink (Voretti Family Book 3) Read Online Free PDF Page A

prize, and made it to the final round. She’d upped her hours at Hannigan’s. And she’d moved in with her parents to save on rent; even if she did win Design Divas , the prize wouldn’t cover the cost of starting her business, and she was going to open her shop one way or another. Starting a business was something an adult did, and with her mistake-of-an-ex’s name tattooed on her arm for all time, she desperately needed to prove to herself that she was an adult.
    “Here you go.” Mom handed her a sandwich.
    While Liv had been daydreaming, her parents had made her turkey and cheese with the crusts cut off. Her favorite food—at age five.  
    “Thanks,” she said, even though she’d wanted pastrami. “It looks great.”
    “Eat up,” Dad commanded. He leaned against the counter, watching to make sure she followed orders. Mom slid onto one of the stools behind the counter, in case Dad needed backup.
    Liv took a bite.
    Dad nodded in approval. Mom beamed like Liv was about to accept a Nobel Prize for curing cancer.
    Mom never beamed at her , and the shock of it finally jolted Liv out of her self-involved bubble. She saw what she should have noticed five minutes ago. There, at the edge of the counter. A purple folder covered with sketches of crazy dresses. The folder she’d used for her business plan.
    Her heart fast-forwarded through a minute’s worth of beats, though she wasn’t sure why. It wasn’t like the plan was a secret. Not exactly . “Where did you get that?”
    Mom couldn’t quite meet her gaze. “I was in your bedroom, dusting that thing.” She waved her hands around like a magician trying to distract the audience.  
    “My desk?”
    “Yes. It fell out of your desk while I was dusting.”
    More like Mom had unearthed the folder from the depths of Liv’s file cabinet while tossing the place to make sure Liv wasn’t hiding any drug paraphernalia or sex toys. It was no fun moving back in with your overprotective parents at age twenty-two. But saving the money to get her business off the ground was worth the sacrifice. At least, that’s what she kept telling herself.  
    “Why didn’t you show us?” Dad sounded…hurt.
    “I was going to. I was waiting for the right moment.” She’d wanted to have the money in her account before she made any announcements. She’d made too many promises that she hadn’t followed through on. She’d wanted everyone to know she was serious about this.
    Dad opened the folder. “So…” He flipped through the pages. “How much do you need?”
    “How much…?”
    “Tell us how much money you need, and we’ll loan it to you.”
    She stared at the page he was looking at—her detailed budget projections for year one—but it still took a second for the words to penetrate. “You want to loan me the money to start Designs by Olivia ?”  
    If her parents loaned her the money, she’d be able to open her doors in a few months instead of a few years.  
    “Absolutely.” Mom hugged her close, sandwich and all. “We’re so proud of you, Livvy. We know you’re going to make this business a success.”
    Liv swallowed the lump in her throat. When was the last time her parents had told her they were proud of her? She couldn’t remember it happening since her dance recital in kindergarten. For the ballet class she’d promptly quit.
    With one last pat, Mom let her go.
    Liv hadn’t understood the value of her family’s faith back then, but she did now. And she wasn’t going to lose it. She blinked back a couple of tears that had come out of nowhere. “Are you sure you want to do this? It might be a while before I can pay you back.”
    Dad waved that away, as though the possible loss of a huge portion of his savings was no big deal. “Yes. Of course. But we do have one condition.” He paused, giving her that look she was all too familiar with. The one that said he wanted to believe her, but he wasn’t that much of a sucker. “Promise us you’re not seeing