Read Online CUL-DE-SAC (On The Edge Book 1) by M.E. YILDIRIM - Free Book Online

camera – any really would do – and capture his
implacability. In her mind’s eye she placed him somewhere in the wild where the
simplicity and rawness of the nature could magnify his roughness.
    But then a ray of the sun glided over his
features, softening them and confusing her, causing her thoughts to scamper off
for a moment.
    The woman in her took her turn feeling
disturbed by his harsh masculinity, not to mention his presence alone so she
pushed it all aside. When he stubbornly kept to his original assessment, she
wondered how she could believe even if for a second there could be anything
soft about him while he was all rough edges.
“It’s not your call, Xan. I had made the decision to accept the job with all
consequences. Putting it simply and to the point; it is not your business but
mine.” She smiled, oh-so-sweetly, at him refusing to back down under the weight
of his piercing gaze and unrefined judgment.
    A smirk was his only answer and she felt
tempted to ask him what it meant but he reached under the table and she
instantly changed her mind, convinced he was finally going to act rationally
and give back the camera he had taken from her.
    And it was her device he put on the table
between them but its condition stilled the air in her lungs. She blinked
helplessly hoping for the sight to change.
    Sadly it didn’t.
    Something tightened painfully in her chest
when she drew her head back as if he slapped her.
“Why?” Her voice hitched and then broke forcing Cat to clear her throat in
order to speak again. “Why did you do it?” She looked into his eyes and the
coldness and indifference in his gaze were making him look as closed off as
ever.
    But no matter how uninviting he seemed, she
still preferred to examine him than the broken camera he was offering her back.
It wasn’t about its financial worth; for Cat her Canon was far more than that:
it held a sentimental value because it was a gift from her father.
    He had showed her that a camera could be a
tool of communication between her and the world as she saw it. Photography was
his passion, the hobby he had never been allowed to turn into a profession, but
he told his daughter she should always ever listen only to herself and be whom
she wanted to be, because only she could decide how to use opportunities and
what to make out of endless possibilities.
    It not only represented her freedom of
choice but was also the very last gift from her father before he was murdered.
“Why? Because I could.” Xan looked her straight in the eye but his flippant
answer threatened to burn his tongue when he saw the expression transforming
her face.
    She seemed so smug when she basically told
him she would do with pictures as she pleased and he could do nothing about it,
that he wanted to pay her in kind.
    In Xan’s world, there was only one rule:
eye for an eye, and he learned to be pretty fond of it after too much time
wasted tilting at windmills.
    And now Catalina’s apparent distress was
making him regret who and how he was which didn’t make sense.
    She could easily replace the damn thing, he
thought angrily, but something told him that if that were the case she wouldn’t
react the way she had.
    She shot to her feet without a warning and
for a second he thought she was going to grab his glass and throw its content
into his face or slap him instead. He was prepared for either, but of course
she did no such thing, reaching for the broken device instead, no matter its
pitiful condition.
    He gripped her wrist before he could think
better of it. He had no intentions of stopping her, yet he was stalling for
some reason.
“You are hurting me.” She informed him and he knew it cost her to say it calmly
while she was struggling with her anguish.
“You hurt yourself by thinking I am something I’m not.” He told her instead of
trying to fix the situation as his gut was pushing him to do.
    But Xan was not known for apologizing or for
his forgiving nature.
“Could I