CUL-DE-SAC (On The Edge Book 1) (10 page)

She stayed a moment longer in front of the
image after the woman left her. Cat thought that perhaps she looked like one of
those artists in love with their own work and themselves.

It should have made her walk away and
mingle yet again. Smiling and sipping at compliments like she did with the
champagne with an ease of someone who had heard it all before. But her feet
refused to carry her away just like her lips rejected the idea of curving into
another fake smile.

Duties, duties
, she reminded
herself and sighed softly deciding it was time to get back to it. She could
indulge herself after all was said and done.

She swiveled on her heels ready for another
performance but a professional smile froze on her face and she blinked
convinced she overdid it with champagne.

For one insane moment she entertained the
idea that Xan simply stepped out of the image she was just talking about and
somehow materialized next to her. Her lips parted slightly but no sound
emerged.
“What are you doing here?” She managed to ask, terrified he had decided he hadn’t
punished her enough before and came here to fix this oversight by ruining the
event tonight.

CHAPTER 10

Xan kept wondering what the hell he was
thinking when he decided to find Catalina at tonight’s exhibition. He had never
deluded himself that fancy events were his cup of tea, but he was still not
prepared for the reality of it.

The gallery located on Ocean Avenue was
impressive itself and the crowd inside even more so. He was curious as to how
many people gathered in the spacious place under the pretenses of admiring art
actually cared about it to begin with.

He decided that luck was his bitch tonight
since he didn’t need a special invitation to enter the Einarr and so far nobody
behaved as if he didn’t belong there. But then he took some effort to fit in
and even if he succeeded in fooling everybody around, he knew better than to
believe that himself.

He tried to shake off the feeling of unease
when he spotted one of the pictures from the club and decided that even after
seeing them before, he was not fully prepared for the effect it would have on
him.

When she threw them on the table in the
café they were small and he could try to pretend that was making them less
dangerous, less recognizable.

Now every detail was magnified,
purposefully emphasized.

Yet it still managed to conceal the true
identity of the place and the participants of the event.

At least he hoped it did. Xan didn’t think
he was capable of being impartial any longer.

His outfit allowed him to enter the
gallery, walk through it incognito, and he felt as if he spied for Tony,
assessing the damage those pictures could bring them.

Except… Tony had no clue the damn images
existed since Xan told him he had taken care of them personally. He swore
viciously under his breath, ready to turn around and walk out when he spotted
her flowing through the crowd like water.

She wore a black dress clinging to every
curve and hollow of her body in a way that stirred his blood. Judging by the
looks she was receiving, he was not the only one to notice. Yet she seemed
unaware of the interest, moving around as if she were in her private world
inaccessible to anyone else.

That or she was too used to it to care.

She looked artsy, sexy and completely
untouchable, which of course made him want to get closer and touch her so much
more.

His victory-driven mind portrayed her like
a challenge and any other male ogling her as a hindrance.

What the fuck was wrong with him?

He shook his head, trying to dislodge the
strange thoughts.

Since Catalina didn’t notice him, Xan
decided to use the opportunity to observe her in her natural environment while
she was unaware of his presence.

He didn’t think she would welcome him with
arms wide open. Not after the way he acted toward her so far, no matter how
justified his actions felt to him at the time.

Now… now he wasn’t sure what to think and
it was a highly unwelcomed realization for someone like him who had always had
a clear picture of where things stood, he thought.

Xan moved closer, close enough to hear her hushed
conversation with another woman while he did his best to ignore his own body
displayed on one of the damn photographs. He hated the hollow feeling settled
comfortably in the pit of his stomach usually heralding trouble.

His gut kept telling him to make a U turn
and leave before the situation could get more out of hand but he stayed
instead, barely able to stifle the need to chuckle when one lie after another slipped
out of Catalina’s enticing lips.

It wasn’t that she was the worst liar he
had ever come across; apparently she was good enough for the other woman to
swallow her words as if they were the only and final truth. It’s just that he
was used to much bolder ones, but then in the world he lived in the stakes were
much higher, he supposed.

Instead of mingling again, she stayed as
she was for a while and he wondered what exactly she saw or thought when she
peered at those pictures. He was about to ask her that when she straightened
her spine, turned around and gazed straight up at him.

‘
What was he doing here?’ Well, that was an
excellent question, Xan thought, and he would have answered in his usual snippy
way but she paled and there was no mistaking the look of fear in her blue eyes.

He liked when people felt a healthy dose of
unease before him, but as much as it felt utterly right to inspire agitation in
his opponents, it was a complete opposite thing to witness the nervousness in
her.

What did she expect him to do? He wondered
but didn’t really want to know the answer to it since it was obvious that it couldn’t
be anything good.
“So you tried to get my consent, huh?” He asked her and was surprised when a
faint blush covered the alabaster skin of her cheeks.

For the life of him, he couldn’t remember
the last time he witnessed the phenomenon.
“I tried to get you agree there was nothing wrong with the pictures.” Catalina
said carefully surprised she found her voice at all.

Nothing, but absolutely nothing remained of
the dangerous male ruling the ring while most people slept peacefully tucked in
their beds. He didn’t remind her of the man who faced her in the café either–the
one pitilessly attacking her in every way except physical assault.

Nothing remained… unless someone looked
deep into his eyes and saw this unspoken
something
hidden in their green
depths, she thought.

His body was covered by a fine dark,
perfectly fitting suit, making him look absolutely right for the place and
occasion although he still didn’t seem… tamed, she decided.

His devil-may-care attitude seemed only
temporarily buried under the veneer of civilization.

She didn’t think she was ever going to see
him again, prayed she wouldn’t, in fact. Especially tonight when the exhibition
meant so much to her and she was afraid that was why he came here.

Yet here he stood before her now, making
her feel at a great disadvantage even on what she considered to be her
territory. His hooded gaze was on her, giving her a slow perusal until she
could feel her exposed skin starting to burn again.

There was something about this look she
couldn’t ignore and some utterly feminine part of her was responding to it on a
level that was making her highly uncomfortable… which she suspected to be his
intention again.
“I will never concede to that, Doll.” He smirked not taking his eyes off her.
“My name is Catalina… as you already know. But I prefer Cat,” she informed him
gritting her teeth.

The impersonality of the nickname was
aggravating as if he couldn’t be bothered with remembering names… or as if
every woman was exactly the same to him.
“Cat… you are surely as curious as one.” Xan didn’t think there was anything he
could enjoy about tonight but he surely found some kind of satisfaction in
razzing her, he thought.
“You didn’t answer my initial question,” Cat noticed after a moment of silence
when he just kept looking at her.

She wanted to wrap her arms protectively
around herself but remembered at the last moment she still held a glass of
champagne in her hand. Her fingers trembled slightly and clenched around the
fragile glass now as if she tried to ground herself no matter how small the
gesture.
“You and I… we have an unfinished business.”
“Meaning?” She raised her brow slightly trying to act the only way she knew
how, by being cool and unaffected, but his words sounded ominous, like a
confirmation that he didn’t have good intentions.
“I wanted to give you this.”

Catalina blinked and looked at the small
bag he was holding wondering how was it possible she hadn’t seen it so far. She
blamed him because his presence absorbed her so much she didn’t notice anything
or anyone else. She looked up again trying to make sense of his words.
“What is it?” She took the gift bag from his hands as one might a bomb.
“Open it and see for yourself.” He suggested.

Cat loved gifts of every kind, perhaps even
more so because she rarely got any. She unwrapped it carefully, having not even
the slightest idea what it could be and why was he offering her anything in the
first place.

She held her breath as soon as the answer
came into view.
“Why?” Catalina was confused because so far he had never acted the way she
expected of him.

Nikon Df was a very nice camera with its
retro design. It was small and light to carry everywhere and technically
advanced enough to satisfy a professional photographer.

She looked at the male who confused her
more than anybody else in her life, searching for an answer in the green of his
eyes. She had exactly zero experience with someone like Xan and she instinctively
felt that the usual rules wouldn’t do in this case at all. It meant she was
left on her own, nearly crippled in the face of her shortcomings.
“I thought it self-explanatory. I destroyed something that mattered to you.” He
shrugged feeling uncomfortable now.

He wanted her to just accept the damn thing
and be done with it, not to grill him over his reasons for it.
“It’s beautiful. Thank you,” Cat said carefully, surprised by his words.

She knew that most people would just assume
she could buy a new one and they would never think more of it. Especially
someone like him, who seemed to care only about how things could affect him and
didn’t mind using other people’s weaknesses to his advantage.

She considered him the most pitiless person
she had ever come across, yet he understood the camera had much higher value to
her than the financial one.

It just didn’t make any sense whatsoever.

She was appalled by his earlier actions, by
his senseless act of destruction, even frightened of him on some visceral level.
But now… Now Catalina didn't know what to think of him, because his behavior
was likely the most unexpected gift she had ever received.

Yes, she was still mourning the loss of
what her camera represented to her, but when she looked into his eyes, something
inside of her she was unaware of being tightly clenched thawed a bit with a
sharp sensation accompanying it.
“Don’t. I still think you made a huge mistake but I am sorry for the way I…
acted. I could have handled things better,” Xan admitted, wanting to get out of
there more than anything.

He didn’t do apology well, not having much
experience with it. Accepting his wrongdoing was not any easier since he was
raised in belief that mistakes always belonged to others.

His father was the kind of a person who had
never under any circumstances taken fault upon his own shoulders, blaming
everyone else instead. Xan didn’t often think he was mistaken himself, but when
he did he
always
acknowledged every time, no matter how much it sucked.

He was sure a woman like her was used to
gifts of every kind, so he assumed her cautiousness had more to do with him
personally than anything else.

It made sense, he supposed, and was still
not sure about the motives behind his actions… or perhaps too aware of them, if
he was being honest with himself. They were the same that pushed him to search
for a camera in the first place and then look for Catalina so he could give it
to her.

When Xan was a boy he secretly collected
cards with baseball players. Secretly, because he knew if his father found them
he would destroy them just for the joy of crushing yet another hope of the
child that should have none.

So Xan kept the collection in his
pillowcase wanting to have it close enough, just in case.

But it proved futile effort on his part.

Robert Thorpe wasn’t the one who found it.
His mother did when she was changing his bedding one day and left it on his
nightstand shelf. And that was practically an invitation for the ill intentions
of his so-called father.

It was the last time Xan had tried to
collect anything and he remembered very well the immensity of his loss, not
adequate to the small collection he had.

But it wasn’t about its value, it reached
further than that.

That was what the look in Catalina’s eyes
reminded him of and probably was the reason why he couldn’t get her out of his
mind, trying to replace something that was beyond replaceable.
“I guess giving a camera to a photographer is like bringing sand to the beach,”
Xan said, finding the silence between them awkward in the place where they were
surrounded by people who were constantly talking.
“No, I think there is no such thing as having one too many.” She smiled at him
for the first time letting more than cool detachment to seep into her own gaze.
“Would you like to see the pictures now?” Cat rarely acted on impulse but
decided to do so now.

He was all but a stranger who yet felt
familiar tonight in the sea of all other faces that became one at some point.
She wouldn’t be able to recall names and connections, even if her life depended
on it, forgetting all as soon as she was moving from one group to another.

The assessing looks she was getting all
night were to be expected, but they made her feel vulnerable. It was surprising,
to say the least, to discover that
his
seemed more inviting. Probably
more than she would have found under normal circumstances. Especially after the
first impression he made on her… and the second really, she thought.
“I already saw them, remember?” He chuckled and her fingers twitched, urging
her to reach for the new camera and try it out immediately… on him.