Twenty Times Tempted: A Sexy Contemporary Romance Collection

by Petrova, Em

  “But just the photos? No clothes or even a toothbrush?” Veronica’s smile turned into a chuckle.

  “Just to be clear, I did brush my teeth that first week,” answered Caroline. “But, yes, just the photos stayed out.”

  The photos were of Mexico, on the one and only trip she had taken there with her family. While her other friends from school visited exciting places like Acapulco and Cancun, she and her parents went to Puebla, nowhere near beaches. The only point of interest was an enormous volcano called the Popocatepetl that spewed threatening smoke for her entire visit.

  Mexico didn’t look anything like the photos of paradise she had seen. It was dusty and hot, with a kind of poverty lurking around each corner that she had never seen before. To her surprise and embarrassment, her own mother, a blond-haired Texas native, without ever having set foot in Mexico, spoke better Spanish than Caroline did. It was at this point that she realized the mistake of her stubborn refusal to speak Spanish back to her father. She wouldn’t have found the language difficult and embarrassing forever, if she were to believe her mother.

  But Caroline remembered Mexico less as a visit to a foreign country and more as the location of her first real understanding of her gruff, stoic father as a person. Even now, years later, she still had a visceral reaction to the photos she had taken at the house where her father was born.

  Four generations of the family lived together in two, bougainvillea-lined houses in configurations Caroline never fully figured out. Her aunts fussed over her and asked her questions, one after another, using words that her middle-school Spanish classes hadn’t covered. Finally, Caroline slipped out to wander around the property by herself.

  One day she saw her father out, alone. She ducked behind a tree and watched him wander the property, taking in what he, the family’s hope, had bought for them. Caroline followed her father to where he sat on a tree stump, elbows leaning on his knees, staring at the old, dilapidated house where he was born.

  But it was in one attempt to capture the Popocatepetl in the distance that she had taken the photograph that she had kept hidden all these years. It was tucked away, inside a frame, behind another, more placid picture of her family, posed together by the creek. Caroline had never shown the photo to her father, but she had handled it enough so that the edges were bent. In the corner of the photo, her father’s face was filled with grief and frustration, his eyes closed at the touch of her mother’s hand on the back of his neck. Though she had studied the photos over the years for clues, she was never sure what lay behind her father’s unexpected emotions that day.

  Caroline’s mother had given her all of these pieces of her father’s history before, but Caroline had never quite figured out how to fit them together into the person she knew. For the first time, her father’s bursts of emotion, if still not predictable, at least seemed to have a reason behind them.

  Caroline leaned forward and squinted at the row of faded photos in front of her. Then she turned back to Veronica.

  “Do you believe you can know a person through a photograph?” Caroline asked.

  “Maybe,” said Veronica. “At least a part of them. Maybe if you catch the right moment, a part they keep to themselves comes out. Is that why you’ve kept these photos close all these years?”

  Caroline sighed and lay back onto her bed.

  “Both my parents would have been happier if I had become a doctor. They thought the photography thing would pass,” Caroline laughed. “But something about photos, about being able to hold onto a piece of time, a piece of someone… I’m not sure why that idea is so intriguing to me, but I want to follow it. Now that I’m half-way around the world with a job that doesn’t even come close to paying my expenses, I’m sure everyone thinks I’m completely crazy.”

  “Not really. I’m more curious about why you really stayed with Brad in the first place,” Veronica asked gently.

  Caroline sighed. “I don’t know. He was older and seemed to have everything together, and I thought that’s what I needed. You remember the guys I dated before him, right? A lot rougher and certainly not together. Toby was straight-out wild. After him, I knew I needed to do something different.”

  “Out of the frying pan and into the fire? Or maybe the slow-cooker is more appropriate for Brad?” said Veronica with a little amusement.

  “That implies heat.”

  Caroline felt the corners of her mouth pull up a little as she spoke. Only Veronica could make her laugh in the middle of a conversation like this.

  “So what got you to leave that suburban paradise?”

  Caroline shrugged. “Someone sent me a link to the magazine job as a joke, a ‘wouldn’t this be nice’ kind of thing. I didn’t tell Brad I applied, and I didn’t even tell him at first when I got the position. This might sound terrible, but it felt good to keep something this big from him. I still hadn’t really made the connection that it wasn’t just the job. That I wanted to be in control of where my life was headed.”

  “And what did Brad say when you told him that? I’m sure that’s a bit of a hard truth to hear.”

  Caroline gave a humorless laugh.

  “He told me that I was making a big mistake. That I didn’t appreciate all the things I had. That I wouldn’t make it on my own,” she said. Caroline was quiet for a moment, and then she continued.

  “You know, at first, I had hoped he would come travel with me. When I told him, part of me had hoped that he would welcome the chance to give up everything and follow me, change our lives together. That he would finally show a little passion. In a way, I guess I was testing him.”

  “And when he didn’t pass the test?”

  Caroline rubbed her forehead, trying to ease the worry lines that were only getting deeper.

  “To be honest, I guess I was a little relieved,” she said.

  Veronica sat down on the bed and gave Caroline a tight squeeze around her shoulders.

  “I’m glad he didn’t come,” said Veronica. “Then you wouldn’t be here right now.”

  Most of Caroline felt like that, too.

  Chapter Seven

  Caroline found the early morning gray of the apartment’s hallway surprisingly cheerful. It was 3:37 am, and once again, she was wide awake. What could have been explained as jet lag last week had now turned into bad sleeping habits—up late, hoping that pushing herself to the point of exhaustion would help her sleep through the night, only to awaken around 2:30 am once again, her body whispering I’m hungry or It’s light out. Why not get up? Stockholm won’t last forever.

  Veronica had told her more than once that if she wanted to adjust to the time, she had to stop taking naps in the middle of the day and stop eating breakfast at 3:00 am. And Veronica would know, too, an expert at recovering from jetlag after four years of ex-pat life. But the truth was that Caroline was actually enjoying her odd schedule.

  She threw on some clothes, grabbed her keys and pepper spray from the hall table but then she stopped, staring at the little canister in her hand. Veronica had confirmed what Niklas had suggested: It was illegal to carry pepper spray in Sweden. How she had gotten it past customs without her or the police noticing the infraction was a mystery, but Caroline wasn’t interested in breaking the law in a foreign country. She had heard stories about detentions, fines and even the loss of fingers, all out of the reach of U.S. law. Though she was fairly sure none of these news stories that had stuck in her head were about Sweden, the threat still hovered ominously. She put the pepper spray back down on the hall table and opened the door.

  Niklas’s door waited for her across the dark hallway. He had told her to knock. He would walk with her and… what? The idea of having an escort to follow her while she wandered in the park sounded worse the more she thought about it, even if that escort was exceptionally hot. In fact, her budding infatuation with him was all the more reason not to knock if she wanted to concentrate on taking photos.

  Caroline sighed and closed her door a little harder than she
had intended to. Then she turned around again toward his apartment. With her pepper spray, she had felt a certain comfort walking alone in these morning hours, but without it, she was less sure that this was a good idea. And though she had sounded confident the day before, the self-defense class she and Veronica had taken in college was hazy by now at best. Niklas had made it clear that she was nowhere near prepared to defend herself. Caroline could feel her pulse quicken at the thought of Niklas’s demonstration—and the feelings it arose in her.

  She could feel her frustration build as she walked over to the staircase. Caroline took a step down. She stopped. She knew she shouldn’t go out alone. Common sense told her she shouldn’t be wandering around the park at night.

  But restlessness tugged at her, begging her to get out. Finally, Caroline closed her eyes and told herself to go now, before she changed her mind again. Or before Niklas discovered her lingering outside his door. Of course, moments later, she could see the obvious flaws in this sequence of events. She wasn’t watching where she was going. And the stair her foot was aiming for wasn’t quite as wide as she remembered it. By the time she looked down, it was too late: Her foot had landed on the very edge of the step, and she found herself grasping for the hand railing. Her keys flew out of her hand, hitting the glass pane in the stairwell window before clattering to the ground. Her camera smacked against the wall. And as her body fell forward, Caroline grabbed the only thing in reach—the railing of the stairs.

  Then the building was silent again. Caroline pulled herself up, searching for her keys. She put tentative weight on her ankle, and it gave an angry throb. Better to sit for a minute. She lowered herself onto the step, rubbing her arm. Aside from her ankle and a tugging strain at her wrist, she seemed to have survived the stumble relatively uninjured. But the smack of her camera still rang in her ears, and she took it off her neck to inspect it.

  She could hear footsteps. Just as she was about to push the power button of her camera, from behind her, she heard a door open. Even before she turned around, she knew it was Niklas. Caroline smoothed the jumble of curls she knew were sticking out everywhere and tried to look less like someone who had just tripped down the stairs.

  “Was that your idea of knocking?” asked Niklas with a smirk, sitting down next to her. He was dressed in a t-shirt, shorts and running shoes again, and the long, bare muscles of his arms and legs were only inches from her now. “Are you okay?”

  The staircase was narrow, and as he turned to look at her, his hand brushed up against her leg, awakening her body in the stillness between them. She wasn’t even looking at him now, but the feeling was there again, the pull between them. Caroline could feel her pulse racing, and she took a soft, slow breath to calm it.

  “I think I broke my camera,” she said, pressing the power button. Nothing happened. She could feel his eyes on her as she opened a compartment at the bottom of the camera. She dumped out the batteries and then reinserted them, trying to stop her hands from shaking. Then she pressed the power button again. This time the screen lit up.

  “Nice,” he said. She felt the warmth of his breath as he looked over her shoulder. He was so close, and she wondered if he could see how nervous he was making her. The thump of her heart in her ears was surely loud enough for him to hear, and she had to consciously steady her breath again. Niklas hovered over her, only inches away.

  “That’s just the first step,” she said. Her voice sounded surprisingly natural, considering the thoughts going through her head. “Now I need to see if I broke my lens.”

  What happened next Caroline would replay in her mind many times over the next weeks. And each time, she’d wonder if this single event changed her own life’s course. What would have happened if Niklas hadn’t broken her camera? Would things have turned out differently between them? But in the end, he broke it.

  The incident itself was clearly embedded in her mind. She took the lens cap off and jokingly pointed the camera in his direction. But instead of smiling, his face turned stony. He put his hand up to block the lens, knocking the camera out of her hand. Caroline watched as her most valuable possession hit the step below with another crack.

  They both froze.

  “Shit,” Niklas muttered.

  Slowly, Caroline reached down to pick up the camera. Her hands shook as she pushed the power button. Nothing happened. His breath was rough in her ear as she turned the camera over, reinserted the batteries, and tried the power button again. Still nothing. She could feel Niklas looming next to her. The tension between them had turned into something more complicated.

  “Shit,” she said with a shaky laugh, trying to hold back her tears. She cradled the broken camera in her hands, not wanting to look over at Niklas again, whose eyes seemed to still be fixed on her camera—and her as well.

  “I’m so sorry, Caroline,” he said softly. The tenderness in his voice when he said her name released something inside, and the first tear rolled down her cheek. Quickly, she wiped it away.

  “I wasn’t thinking. I…” He seemed to be struggling with his words. “I don’t like having my picture taken, and I just reacted.”

  “That’s okay,” she said automatically, still looking down. It really didn’t feel okay at all.

  Niklas shook his head. “No, it’s not. I’ll get it fixed for you.”

  He lifted the camera out of her hands to inspect it. Then he gave it back to her, holding his large, scarred hands around hers. And for that moment, with his fingers on her skin, she did feel a little better. Then he pulled away.

  “Wait here,” he said. He stood up and headed back into his apartment.

  It was only after Niklas disappeared through his door that Caroline let her eyes overflow. Her camera was the center of her life, the reason she was here. Without a way to take photos, the career door the magazine series opened for her would slam shut. They wouldn’t give her a second chance if she backed out now. Without a camera, she was a broke traveler, a little too old to be without a plan. Adventure, career, happiness—her camera was at the center of all of this. And she couldn’t afford another one, certainly not another like the one she was cradling in her hand.

  She heard Niklas’s footsteps coming back through his apartment and out into the hallway. Caroline wiped the tears that had fallen down her cheek, not ready to expose just how much this hurt.

  Niklas sat down next to her again, even closer than before. His leg leaned lightly against hers, and he put a warm hand on her back. His body was so near to hers, and she could hear his quiet, uneven breaths. In his other hand, he held a small black bag, which he set in her lap. A camera bag. Another tear fell, and Niklas reached over to wipe it away. Her breath was shaky.

  “I know it’s not the same thing as having your own, but please take mine for now, while I get yours fixed.”

  Caroline shook her head. “It’s all right. I can take mine into a shop. You can keep yours.”

  What she didn’t say was that she wasn’t going to let her camera out of her sight, especially not with the man who just knocked it onto the stone steps. Besides, cameras weren’t interchangeable. Hers wasn’t anything like the one someone with a passing interest in photography would buy. Just the lens itself was worth two months of her salary back in Michigan.

  Niklas shook his head, and she could feel his hand tense on her back.

  “Look,” he said, putting his other hand on her arm, “I don’t know much about cameras, but the guy I bought it from told me this was a good one. I bought a few lenses, too, when I thought I’d try some photography a year or so ago, but now I’m not sure what any of them do.”

  The heat of both his hands moved through her, muddling her thoughts and melting some of her frustration. She closed her eyes, unleashing a flood of images that had nothing to do with cameras. Images of him pulling her against him the way he had in the park, but with an entirely different purpose this time. She pushed them away. Caroline opened her eyes again and looked down at his camera bag, trying to gat
her her thoughts.

  She unzipped it and took a deep breath. Then she pulled his camera out with a small gasp. This wasn’t an amateur camera; in fact, it was nicer than her own. She had read extensively about this particular model, but she could never justify the price tag. Not for baby photos in the mall studio, at least.

  “I—I can’t take this,” she finally said. “I don’t have the money to replace it if it breaks.” This was an understatement. If hers cost two months of her Michigan salary, this one cost six, neither of which she had right now.

  Niklas ran his hand through his hair, and Caroline could feel his eyes on her again as she gently turned his camera over in her hands. She could feel his warm breath meeting the bare skin of her neck. He drew in a deeper breath as if to speak, then reconsidered.

  Finally, he said, “It’s a year old, and I’ve only used it once. Right now it’s worth nothing to me because I can’t work it. Try it out and then show me how to use it. You’ll be doing me a favor.”

  Whether or not he really considered this a favor was a bit suspect, but Caroline couldn’t ignore the fact that this was a chance to try out her dream camera, the one that had never been within reach in Michigan. And it also meant she was no longer out of a career. She set his camera carefully back into the bag and zipped it closed.

  “So tell me again what you’re doing with a camera like this,” she said.

  “Trying to find myself a productive hobby?” he attempted a half smile. His voice was soft and tender, and he seemed to be watching her closely.

  Though Caroline still had an uneasy feeling about what kind of problems she could be creating by agreeing to this exchange, she couldn’t deny she wanted to take it. And then there was another, uncomfortable pulse of excitement at the idea that this would be a connection between them. As bad of an idea as this was, she wanted a reason to see him again.

  “Okay,” said Caroline before she could change her mind again. She turned over her own camera to pop out the memory card and then handed it over to him. “I’ll try it out. Thank you.”