Sympathy for the Devil (International Bad Boys Book 4) (4 page)

His eyes narrowed. “Am I in any of those photos?”

“A few. A silhouette, nothing more.” Okay, maybe that was a lie. Maybe she’d zoomed in a little, wanting to capture his face, but the light had been too low for serious photography. The pictures were only for her.

“You’d need permission from me to use them.”

“If the pictures identify you, then yes.”

“You don’t have it.”

“Good to know. Nothing like a warm welcome home, is there?”

“You want a warm welcome?”

“Right now, I’d settle for an indifferent one.”

“I never did get the hang of indifference where you’re concerned.”

Likewise, apparently.

“My sister-in-law wants to employ you to take pictures for her,” he said next. “She’s a costume designer. A good one.”

So Cutter had said. “I’m really not here to work.” She gave him the same reply she’d given his brother. “It’s okay. I’ll stay away.”

“Bree—”

“No, really. If you want my reassurance that I’m not going to make trouble for you, you have it. It’s been
years
. People move on. I’m sure you’ve moved on.”

The look he gave her set an inferno burning low in her stomach. “You married, Bree?”

“No.”

“Any significant other?”

There’d been others. No one significant. “No.”

“No one to cheat on, then?”

Maybe she deserved that crack. Maybe her actions all those years ago had haunted her more than he’d ever know. “What do you want from me, Caleb? An apology? Fine. You can have one. I’m sorry for what I did all those years ago. I took advantage of you. Not my finest moment.”

Although quite possibly one of her most pleasurable one.

“You don’t need to apologize to me for what happened. Ever.” He sounded harder than he used to. As if he’d travelled a lot of miles, most of them rough.

“I chased you,” she said.

“I let you. You think I couldn’t have stopped you if I’d wanted to?”

Bree didn’t know what to say anymore. In her mind, she’d been the aggressor. She’d never once imagined that Caleb might hold a different view.

“Here’s the thing,” he said. “Cutter knew you’d been with someone else that night. He knew it and he still spoke up for you the other day. He thought you might like the distraction of a job. Maybe you do.”

“Cutter
knew
?” Sick dismay took up residence in her stomach. “About me and you?”

“He doesn’t know it was me.”

“He will
never
hear it from me. I wouldn’t do that. Let him hate me—that’s fine. I’m not family.”

“You always did have a thing about the sanctity of family.”

“I was just trying to protect you from the fallout of my bad decisions.”

“
Our
bad decisions. My brother doesn’t hate you, Bree. The way Cutter tells it, neither of you were serious and it’s all water under the bridge. He has no qualms whatsoever about you and Zoey working together. Neither do I.”

“Wait . . . ” She really wasn’t keeping up. “You
want
me to take this job?”

“You said it yourself. People move on. If you want the job, go for it. I’ll stay out of your way.”

As if he wouldn’t take up all the space available, whether he was there or not. “Chances are your costume designer is going to want you modelling for her at some stage. I would.”

“I can say no.”

“No.” She shook her head and hugged herself tighter. “I appreciate your . . . support. Cutter’s too, if that’s what this is. I’ve spent . . . ‘
years
’ . . . a lot of time wishing I could undo the wrongs I inflicted on you both. I would if I could—I’d go back and do everything differently, but that’s not how life works. Wouldn’t it be best if I just stayed away?”

Caleb said nothing.

“I can give your sister-in-law the names of some good photographers. I can provide introductions. Other than that, I don’t want to get involved.”

“All right.” He kicked his big body off the edge of the car and headed for the driver’s side, opening the door before looking over at her, his expression inscrutable. “You broke your promise to me, Bree. I didn’t think you’d do that.”

“I’ve never told a soul. I never will.”

“Not that promise. You said you’d always look back on us with love and with pleasure.” His smile came bittersweet and dangerous. “You promised me no regrets.”

*     *     *

Breanna stayed at
the beach for another hour or more after he’d got in his truck and left. She huddled down in the dunes, drawing patterns with her hand and gathering up fistfuls of the stuff only to let it run through her fingers. She was trying to get her mind to go quiet and peaceful and her heart to stop beating frantically like a trapped bird’s, but it was no use.

Beautiful Caleb, inside and out.

She’d set out to seduce him all those years ago with the single minded deliberation of a courtesan. She’d wanted to taste him, just once, before a brave new world opened up and swallowed her whole, and she’d wanted it with a ferocity that left no room for reason. She’d barely acknowledged what she’d been asking of him—betray your own brother for me and then I’ll leave, I’ll never tell, no one will ever know.

Foolish, selfish girl, thinking that was never going to haunt her.

And not going to hurt him.

First forbidden love. Such blind and careless love. Confronting. Overwhelming.

So perfect, the warmth of his lips and the feel of him moving inside her. So gloriously all-consuming.

Making love had only ever gone downhill from there.

Bree liked the sound of the Zoey Jackson job. If the costumes were good they could have a ball with textures and colors, beautiful poses and light. Put a camera in her hands and Bree could make Zoey’s online customers
want
those beautiful pieces enough to pay top dollar for them. That was what she did.

But not this time.

“Stay away,” she murmured as golden sand ran through her fingers and anointed her feet. “Don’t risk losing your way again, Bree, even if he would.”

Just stay the hell away from him.

*     *     *

Croissants were the
Gods’ gift to troubled souls, decided Bree, as she pulled up out front of her parents’ tidy two story house on the hill not ten minutes later. She zapped the car locked and headed for the door, never sure about calling this place home because she’d only ever lived here for one year of her life. Her father had done a lot of locum medical work when she’d been growing up. Lightning Ridge. Broken Hill. Papua New Guinea. Those were the places she called home, not this sleepy little paradise by the beach. Not that she disliked sleepy little beachside playgrounds because, first and foremost . . .
beach
.

But it didn’t feel like home.

Marguerite Tucker sat at the kitchen table, her dark hair twisted into a businesslike bun as she wrestled with the crossword in the morning paper. Bree pressed her lips to her mother’s cheek and set a bag full of fresh croissants on the table.

“I figured we could use a treat,” she told her mother and studied the wan smile she received in reply. “How’s Dad?”

“Tired, in pain and difficult. He had a bad night. He’s currently telling his specialists that he knows more about the advances in cancer treatments than they do.”

“He probably does.”

“They do say that doctors make the worst patients. How was the sunrise?”

“I got a couple of good shots. Not as many as I’d have liked.” Bree paused and chose her next words carefully. “I ran into Caleb Jackson down at the beach. He hasn’t changed much.”

“If you mean that he’s still far too gorgeous for his own good, then I agree. That hasn’t changed at all,” her mother offered dryly. “He and his brother still raise holy hell wherever they go.”

“So they still hang out together?”

Her mother nodded. “And work together. Justine did not raise lazy boys, I’ll give her that.”

“Do they ever fight between themselves?”

“If they do, they keep it to themselves.”

“And the family business? The marina and the fishing boats . . . it’s all going well?”

“They’ve added boat building to their repertoire. Judging by the number of contracts I draw up for them, I’d say it’s going very well. Why do you ask?”

“Just curious.”

“Cutter Jackson’s still a hellion, my sweet, if you’re looking in that direction again.”

“I wasn’t,” Bree hastily assured her. “I’m not.”

“And from all accounts, Caleb’s worse.”

“How could he be
worse
?”

“At least, the eldest one respects the sanctity of marriage—not that he’s ever been married. The middle one doesn’t appear to care if they’re married or not.”

“Who’d he do?” Breanna was all ears and sinking heart.

“Allegedly? Because there’s never any proof.”

“Allegedly, then.”

“Rainey Lincoln, solicitor’s wife. Gemma Brucker, she’s gone now. Then there was the Spanish aristocrat’s wife. She was a client of theirs—she had a yacht built for her husband.”

“So he just . . . what? Gets them to break their wedding vows and then doesn’t want them anymore?”

“Darling, how would anyone besides the parties involved ever know? And, to be honest, the gossip mill is divided as to whether the couples had split before Caleb turned up. All I am saying with confidence is that with the exception of the youngest boy, who
is
married, the Jackson lads run through women the way water runs through a sieve.”

“Yeah, well. They kind of always did.” It was time for caffeine, way past time. “I wouldn’t have thought that about Caleb though. Want another coffee?”

Her mother nodded and turned her attention back to the crossword. Bree reached for the coffee with an almost steady hand. She made coffee for her mother and took her own out to the back porch. Time to sit and embrace the sun on her face and the cloudless summer sky, the joys of small town gossip and the faint hope that her father might come out and join her later in the day. A good man, her father. A trustworthy one.

She’d gotten lucky with her parents, she really had.

Yes, she’d had to fight for the right to follow her photography dreams. She’d left home at eighteen with half-a-year’s rent in her bank account and her father’s disapproval snapping at her heels. There’d been rocky years when it had seemed easier all around just to go her way and let her parents go theirs. Lonely years, in which where she’d honed her focus and turned her passion for photography into the thriving business that she commanded today. Better years, once her parents had tentatively reached out to her and everyone had begun to paste over the cracks left by angry words. Angry loving words about not living up to her potential and about wasting the opportunities given to her.

Her parents respected her business skills these days, even if they still didn’t understand her passion for photography.

The verandah door creaked open and she turned her head and smiled as her father shuffled over to his favorite chair. He looked ill, his skin pasty, lines of pain drawn heavy on his face. Hormone therapy hadn’t worked for him. Radiotherapy hadn’t worked. And chemotherapy wasn’t being kind.

“Morning,” she said.

“Your mother said you were up taking photos of the sunrise.”

“I went to Green Point. Little stroll down memory lane. I used to go there a lot.”

“Anything changed?”

“Some things never change. The beauty of sunrise over the ocean is one of them.”

“What will you do with today’s pictures?”

Her father had never been more interested in her career. Bree spun him an answer that she hoped he’d like. “I’ll put half a dozen of them up for grabs on a royalty-free stock photo site and hope that they catch people’s eye.”

“Does that make money?”

“A little.”

“But not enough?”

“Not to live on. The money’s in contracted photo shoots. Magazine shoots. Brochures. Advertising. Did I tell you that Cutter Jackson told me about a possible photo shoot job here in the Bay?” She made her voice light and playful. “His sister-in-law makes costumes and she wants someone to take pictures of them for her website. Who knew we had a costume designer in Brunswick Bay?”