CUL-DE-SAC (On The Edge Book 1) (40 page)

CHAPTER 48

Traveling had been a part of Catalina’s
life since she could remember. No matter the place or length of her trips, they
all had one thing in common
–
whenever
she came back home, it felt like forever since she had left.

Yet this time it all felt slightly
different and she knew it was because of Xan’s presence. She wasn’t searching
for love, believing her work was all she needed in life to complete her.

How wrong she was, she thought when they
entered the house.

Most of the time people were unaware that
their lives were going to change or how exactly, when it came to that. There
was no way to prepare for it, but Cat realized that love didn’t require any
special measures. A person could either accept it with all its blessings or run
for the hills.

Now this was something Xan would have
considered no brainer, she decided and smiled to herself.
“I’m starving,” he said. “Let’s order in. What would you have?”
“Anything works for me; decide while I take a shower.” She started unbuttoning
her shirt and Xan’s eyebrows instantly went up.
“Now
this
works for me…” He muttered, making her laugh.
“Stop right there!” Cat ordered, pointing a finger at him. “Shower, food then
you.”
“Ouch. Way to show me my place, Kitten. I’m wounded. Come here and see how
much.” He sent her a wicked look.
“Tempting but… no.” She smiled sweetly at him.
“You could have had me in the shower... just saying!” He called out after her
and Catalina’s laughter was his only answer.

He chuckled to himself when her steps
subsided and dialed a number of the closest pizza place, thinking that if Cat
wanted something more sophisticated she shouldn’t have left him in charge.

He peeled off his T-shirt, wishing he had
something fresh to wear and the next thought that slammed into his mind gave
him pause. They loved each other, why wouldn’t they take the next step and move
in together? His heart rate accelerated, but it wasn’t due to the panic he was
expecting. No, it was excitement instead, Xan realized and shook his head.

How the mighty had fallen…

He considered the pros and cons while he
was waiting for Cat to emerge from under the spray of water. The fact she was
taking her sweet time reminded him that patience was not one of his virtues.
“I don’t smell food,” she complained, reentering the kitchen and blinked
surprised when he jumped to his feet and took her hands in his. “What did you
do?” She asked making him laugh.
“Move in with me.”
“Wait… what? What happened between the moment I left for the shower and now?”
“I love you and I want to be with you. What is stopping us?” He wanted to know.
“I…” Catalina opened up her mouth just to understand she had nothing to say.
“Think about it when I take my turn under the shower.” He kissed her lips and
walked out, leaving her blinking helplessly.

She couldn’t wrap her head around it,
trying to comprehend how he came up with the idea during the mere minutes she
was not next to him. Apparently it was ill-advised and downright dangerous to
leave him alone, even for a minute, Catalina decided.

She felt oh-so-tempted to say yes, just
because it felt like the most natural thing in the world. Yet Catalina had
never been an impulsive person. She wasn’t many things before she met him, she
thought and nearly smiled.

But shouldn’t they discuss something as
serious as that?

She tried to reason it out because her
heart was already lying at his feet and she couldn’t count on it when it came
to significant matters. Wasn’t living together something that required lists
and even longer preparations? Or was it just like love itself; something she
should be able to answer with simple
yes
or
no
without trying to build
a whole foundation around it?

She winced when the doorbell rang, but it
was the kind of distraction she craved before she drove herself insane, Cat
decided. Food was elemental and so ordinary she was almost ready to kiss the
delivery guy with relief.
“Pick up the pace if you want to eat it hot!” She called out, heading toward
the door.

She doubted Xan heard her, but at least he
wouldn’t be able to say she didn’t warn him, Catalina decided and opened the
door, planning a big tip for her ‘savior’. Yet it wasn’t a delivery guy.

Not even close.
“Grandmother,” Cat said, trying to hide her surprise along with displeasure,
not sure she pulled off either particularly well.

She hadn’t forgotten about Timothy Rodney
and their dinner that was nothing less than an ambush orchestrated by Florence.
She just didn’t think she would have to deal with the situation right after her
return to the city.
“Catalina. I was trying to reach you for two whole days,” she complained,
pushing right through the door, not leaving Cat any other option than to step
aside.
“I flew out of California.” Her tone was too close to being apologetic and she
hated the fact, but old habits died hard, she supposed.
“Holiday, my dear?” Florence raised an eyebrow.
“Not quite.” Catalina didn’t think their time in New York could be considered anything
close to that. “Maybe we should postpone it… whatever
it
is that brings
you here. I’m sorry but I am really tired.”
“Nonsense, it can’t wait any longer. I was patient enough, Catalina.”
“Oh?” She folded her arms pretending she didn’t notice it was a defensive
stance.
“I’ve let you waste time and resources on the man who is below you on every
possible level and in every meaning. Time to grow up and start acting the way
you should,” Florence told her, and the indulgent note in her voice grated on
Catalina’s nerves.
“I’m sorry… you let me? I am not a child.”
“Then stop acting like one,” her grandmother retorted and Cat could swear she
understood what people meant when they talked about seeing red.
“Enough,” Catalina said quietly.
“That’s exactly what I’ve been trying to tell you all along,” Florence agreed,
looking a bit surprised, but nothing could douse the gleam of satisfaction in
her eyes. “I understand you might have been… curious, but this is not you, not who
you are meant to be, not what your parents would have expected of you.”
“I’ve been a grown-up for a while now; maybe even from the moment my parents
were taken away from me. I am sick and tired of you telling me what to do, how
to behave, look and wear. God knows I’ve tried to live up to your high
standards and expectations. All in vain; but it ends now. I am already the
person I was meant to be and you have no idea what my parents’ expectations of
me would have been. You can’t know it because you can’t comprehend the love
they’d shared and feelings they had for me either. This is all your idea of who
I should be and I can’t pretend to want to live the life that simply wasn’t cut
out for me. I’m sorry, I truly am, that we could never see things the same way,
but it’s time to make it all clear once and for all.” Catalina exhaled shakily
but didn’t regret any word.

How could she when each was like a stone
she had carried for years, allowing its weight to pull her down?
“Well, I really shouldn’t be surprised by your attitude; you were always full
of it,” Florence told her.

Cat felt tempted to tell her that
apparently they were both full of something alright, but she stopped herself
somehow, stifling a smile when she recognized that her would-be reply was something
Xan might have said.
“I took you in. I did my duty, Catalina.”
“Yes and you never let me forget it was exactly that
–
duty. You made sure
I was taken care of, fed and taught everything you thought I should know. And I
was fed in the most literal sense but starved for everything else, for even a
sliver of the affection I knew for the first ten years of my life and that I
have lacked since my parents were murdered,” Cat pointed out, but she could see
that her words were not able to get through Florence’s cold detachment.

She was too used to being right in every
possible way to even entertain the idea she might have been wrong or at least
not one hundred percent correct.
“Your ungratefulness is a reward for all my efforts. I see.” Her lips were
nothing but a thin, forbidding line, but it wasn’t anything new to Catalina.

This kind of a grimace was what always awaited
her from her grandmother. She found it interesting and peculiar both that she
was called ungrateful; it was an echo of the words Xan’s mother threw at him
barely a few hours before. It was yet another thing they had in common, even if
it was the last similarity she would have ever searched or wished for.

Xan, she thought, remembering he was
upstairs and could come downstairs any minute now.
“I am sorry you see it that way, but I won’t tolerate you meddling in my life
any longer.”
“Meddling? Name one time I attempted such a thing.” Florence demanded.
“The latest dinner arrangement is a good example enough. Timothy seemed like a
nice man and I don’t understand: why would you decide to place us both in an
awkward and uncomfortable position?” Cat tilted her head, regarding her
grandmother curiously.
“He is a nice man indeed, available and the kind of company you should endeavor
for. I thought it might help to straighten up your point of view and put your
priorities in order. I am sad to say I overestimated you. I don’t understand
where I went wrong with you, I can’t see any other explanation but being too
lenient with you when you were growing up.”
“Lenient? You were everything but lenient with me! Why is it so hard to
understand I love Alexander?” She wanted to know.
“Love? Please Catalina.” Florence laughed coldly. “This isn’t love, it’s
desire. Let me show you what kind of a man you are lusting after.” She took a
manila folder out of her purse and laid it down on the coffee table.

Another one, Cat thought and closed her
eyes for the briefest of moments, praying for patience.
“You shouldn’t have bothered. I know all there is to him,” she informed her, wondering
if Gabriel helped her grandmother to put the file together. Well, it was going
to go well with the one she already had in her nightstand, she thought
bitterly.
“Oh, do you now? So it doesn’t give you pause that he is not only a common
thief but also a murderer? Really Catalina, I would have thought this was one
thing that would throw you off after the murder of your parents,” Florence
said.
“What are you talking about?” Cat blinked.
“Open the file.”

She itched to do exactly that but her sense
of loyalty slapped at her anxious fingers.
“You are being childish, Catalina; what are you afraid of? You said you love
him, you said you know everything.” Florence taunted her and it was more than
she could take.

She grabbed the file, flipping it open and
her fingers went numb when she saw pictures, a whole stack of them. They were
colorful, expressive and quite terse.
“What is this?” She asked.
“These are images of a young man your lover killed in cold blood.”
“How did you get it?” Cat wanted to know, as if it were the most important
part.

Yet it seemed important enough because it
was something she would have expected from Gabriel. However there was nothing
in his file pointing in the direction of a murder. She would have surely
remembered that, she thought. What was Florence’s source that even the police
was unaware of?
“As distasteful as the whole thing was, I hired a private investigator; one of
his trails led him to Tony Boden and he gave him the pictures,” Florence
explained.
“Tony Boden,” Cat repeated. “He is not a trustworthy source.”

She remembered what Xan had told her about
him, to stay away from him because he was nothing but bad news. Was it possible
he didn’t tell her the whole truth and he just wanted to keep her away from the
man for more nefarious reasons?

No, she thought, reaching for cold logic
and setting it against her heart, but the wild pounding of the love-stricken
organ was surfacing to the top each and every time.
“Is he less trustworthy than the man you’ve been sleeping with, Catalina? Why
don’t you ask him?” Florence offered.
“Yeah, why don’t you ask me, Kitten?” Xan said stepping into the room.

She flinched and looked up at him.
“How long have you been standing there?” She wanted to know.
“Long enough.”
“Tell me,” she demanded, afraid to take her eyes off him, afraid to look at him.

Afraid.
“Tell
you what exactly?”
“That what she implies is not true, that you didn’t do it, that you wouldn’t
have kept it hidden from me. Take your pick,” she said calmly, but the solemn
expression on his face was an answer enough.

No,
she thought again. This couldn’t be
happening.

Violence penetrated her life at an early
age and she strove to accept the
un
acceptable every day since that
fateful day forward. Then Xan entered her life, pulling her into his world
filled with brutality. He actively sought out the ferocity of it by picking
fight after fight.

She tried to understand this need in him, to
come to terms with it and justify it by his traumatic childhood. And now this;
a
murder
.

Her tolerance came to a screeching halt
with that and something within her broke. Something she tried to mend since the
night she was ten years old and her whole world came to its end.
“I did it, Catalina,” he said.

The man she spent the last two days
convincing that he was
nothing
like his father turned out to be a
murderer just like him. The irony of it wasn’t lost on her.