Sympathy for the Devil (International Bad Boys Book 4) Read Online Free PDF Page A

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