“Sniffing around? Jesus, mate, I wasn’t sniffing around. I’m not a dog.”
“Oh, don’t give me that shit. I knew you back then and I know you now. You were a girl a week type of guy and I don’t see that anything’s changed.”
His hands clenched into fists. “How do you know?”
Joseph stopped pacing. “Isn’t that what you did to her before?”
A cold hand reached inside him and squeezed. “That was a long time ago. It’s different now.”
“Different?” The look on his friend’s face was almost murderous. “How is it different? Did you even see the paper this morning?”
“What about the paper?”
“Page three. The picture of you and Lisa Vine looking like you’re about to rip each other’s clothes off.”
Oh shit. “Nothing happened with Lisa, okay? It was just—”
“I don’t care what it was, Caleb. If you’re messing around on my little—”
“She’s not little anymore, Joe. She’s freaking twenty-six.”
“I don’t care how old she is, she’s still my bloody sister!” Joseph stalked closer. “I don’t want you seeing her, okay? I don’t want you anywhere near her. And if you touch her again, I’ll kill—” He stopped dead, his gaze going past Caleb to the doorway behind him.
Caleb jerked round to see Judith standing in the doorway, dressed in nothing but the white shirt he’d worn the previous evening. She looked so heartbreakingly beautiful, he almost couldn’t breathe.
“Guys,” Judith said. “The testosterone overload is killing me here.”
“Jude—” Joseph began.
“It’s my choice, Joe,” she interrupted. “You got that? Caleb tried to push me away, but I didn’t want him to. I basically threw myself at him.”
“Jude—” Joseph said again.
“You don’t get to tell me who I see and who I can’t, okay?” She’d crossed the room, much to Joseph’s obvious discomfort, standing there with her hands on her hips, glaring at him. “And I don’t want you coming round here and shouting at him. We know what we’re doing.”
For a long moment Joseph just stared at Judith, then switched his hostile gaze to Caleb. “And what the hell is that?”
It was the one question Caleb didn’t want to answer because he really didn’t know. “Look, mate—”
“We’re having a hot affair,” Judith said before he could finish, lifting her chin. “You really want more details?”
Her brother looked away. “Jesus, no.”
“Well, then. It’s no big deal.”
“It was a pretty big deal eight years ago if I recall. I know you think you hid it well but you didn’t. Believe me, I knew. I saw how hurt you were.”
“Joe, I’d really like it if you left,” Judith said with quiet dignity. “Please. This isn’t the time or the place.”
The silence that filled the room was so full of painful awkwardness it made Caleb’s skin crawl.
“You should read the paper before you make any decisions, Jude,” Joseph said at last.
“Why?”
“Because there’s a picture of me in it with an actress I used to date,” Caleb said before his friend could do any more damage. He looked at Judith. “Nothing happened, okay? I need you know that straight up.”
She’d gone pale, her mouth tight.
Joseph shook his head. “Jude—”
“Get out, Joe.”
Her brother let out a breath. “All right. Fine. I’ll go.” He went toward the doorway then stopped right beside Caleb and looked him in the eye. “I will kill you if you hurt her. And I don’t mean metaphorically.”
“Yeah,” he replied. “I know.”
“Good. Oh, and you’ll never be good enough for her.”
A small kernel of ice settled down into his heart. “I know that, too.”
A long second passed as they stared at each other, then Joseph turned away, stalking off down the hallway. Judith shot Caleb a glance, then ran after her brother.
Caleb walked down one end of the room, staring unseeing at the landscape photographs on the wall.
Shit. Shit. Shit.
We know what we’re doing.
And what the hell is that?
The kernel of ice began to grow like a snowball rolling down a hill, picking up layer after layer of new snow, becoming larger and larger as it gathered momentum.
No, they didn’t know what they were doing, not him and not Judith. Oh, she might think of it as merely a hot affair but that’s not what the look in her eyes had told him this morning. The same look she’d given him all those years ago.