Sin for Me

by Lisa Marie Perry

  “As her best friend now, you’d be well within your duty to do so,” Delilah said carefully. “But then, as Joshua’s friend, you’d be betraying him. Hmm, guess you’ve got quite the dilemma.”

  “You coldhearted—”

  “Missed you, too, sweetie.” Wiping her hands on the napkin, Delilah tossed it onto the table and blew Chelsea a kiss. “Dante’s got himself a blueberry farm in Washington State. It’s paradise, the life he carved out for himself, away from music. It won’t be easy to persuade him to trade paradise for hell. Whatever you do to convince him, be sure you can walk away not feeling like a hypocrite for the way you’re looking at me this moment.” She got up and made haste for the door. “I’ll follow up with Emma about the papers. No need to escort me. I can find my way.”

  “Right,” Chelsea grumbled, irritated that she wanted to be free to be pissed off with Joshua and Delilah. But her conscience wasn’t clear.

  “One last thing. Call housekeeping about the rug. Emma was so happy when she won it at auction. I’d really hate for it to be ruined because her husband couldn’t control himself.”

  “You,” Chelsea spat. Could the woman hear herself? Did she know she was spiraling through, leaving destruction behind? “He couldn’t control you.”

  Delilah nodded, and her smile held no shame. “No one can.”

  Chapter 4

  Music died the night Dante Bishop found his daddy on the floor of the study in the family home seven years ago. The syringe next to his body had contained lithium. The amount that injected into his body was enough to lay him down three times over.

  Jude Bishop had berated his daughter, calling Delilah a damned fool for trying to kill herself on her eighteenth birthday with the revolver he’d given her as a gift. Dante had been the one to find Delilah then, but the difference was he’d heard the shot, had taken the stairs three at a time, and been able to save his sister. He’d been where he belonged—at home, with family, where he was needed. When his father had filled a syringe with lithium and took himself down, Dante had been with someone who’d made him believe she’d needed him, too.

  Chelsea Coin had lied to him, used him as a direct route into Devil’s Music. She’d used his sister as a stepping-stone to an executive office.

  Fuck Devil’s Music and all the hell that came with it. Fuck Chelsea, too.

  Yeah…he’d done a lot of that—fucking Chelsea—back when they were together and it was so damn good and easy for them. He’d thought he would never lose his appetite for her body. He’d spent years in withdrawal, throwing himself awake in the dead of night because he wanted her so goddamn bad and no matter how hard he fucked his fist or pounded into another woman he couldn’t settle the ache for Chelsea.

  Damn Delilah for coming here and bringing it all back.

  The screen door flapped against the frame, the strong wind adding force that caused Rosalind Carver to flinch as she entered the mudroom with a stack of folded laundry in her arms and smiled up at him. “I think the rain beating on the roof put her down for the count. Stylish music princess Delilah Bishop asleep on our couch. Instagram doesn’t believe me, and I posted the pictures a half hour ago.”

  It wasn’t their couch. It was his, but then territory wasn’t something they’d ironed out when she’d asked him to marry her and he’d been dumb as shit to say nothing.

  She’d interpreted his silence as agreement and within an hour had spread word to her family and half the folks in her phone before he’d caught her. It’d been their first fight as an “engaged” couple. Tonight might be their last.

  Dante, who’d been locking up the barn after the wine tasting that had wrapped up earlier than scheduled, thanks to the rainstorm, had toed off his boots and was raking his fingers through his rain-drenched hair. Now he crossed the mudroom to Rosalind, searching her stubborn I-won’t-apologize expression. “You took pictures of my sister asleep?”

  “It’s not like I sold them to the tabloids. I posted them on my personal social media accounts.”

  “Which accounts?”

  Her brown eyes narrowed. “Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Tumblr, Pinterest—”

  “What the fuck is wrong with you? Rosalind, she’s my sister and she came here for privacy. She’s sleeping, for Christ’s sake!”

  “She won’t be for long if you keep yelling. So stop.” She set the laundry in a basket. “Another thing. I don’t like your tone.”

  “I don’t like you violating Delilah’s privacy.”

  She waved a hand, dismissing his gripe. “She’s used to it. All the paparazzi and bloggers and celebrity fashion gurus follow her around. She’s more famous for what she wears than for her career. Now that she’s my sister-in-law, she should start acting like it, don’t you agree?” Rosalind smoothed her hair. “With the right wardrobe, I could blend in on any red carpet, just like she does.”

  “You just met her today.”

  “That’s your fault for being estranged from the only family you’ve got left.” She waited a moment. “I heard you two talking about your old company, in Atlanta. Are they going to produce your songs?”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “I said I’d been listening to you and Delilah—”

  “You eavesdropped.”

  “I overheard. The point is, she said something about you going back to Atlanta to work on songs for the record label. Are you going to use the ones you’ve been writing about me?”

  What did she know about his songwriting? He hadn’t shared his work with anyone since he got on his Harley and left Georgia. He’d ridden around for a couple of years before buying land in Washington and trying his hand at growing blueberries. Why the fuck not, he’d figured. It was removed from the world he’d known—a world that had turned his father and sister inside out to the point that Delilah had attempted suicide and then Jude had succeeded.

  Once he’d quit riding and had settled down, he’d expected Chelsea Coin to track him to Canyon, Washington. But she hadn’t. Part of him was relieved that she wanted to spare herself the damage of pursuing him when he didn’t want her anymore. The other part—the weakness and weariness of him—wrote lyrics to tuneless, unfinished songs inspired by the tunnels of hate and lust that wrecked him.

  “I never wrote a song about you,” he told Rosalind honestly.

  “They’re not finished—I know that. But they’re still songs about me.”

  “They’re not about you. They’re about a woman who got me to love her, then fucked over my family. They’re about a woman I never want to see again, but Jesus Christ, if I did run into her, I’d probably last all of ten minutes before ending up inside her again.” He shook his head, despising the shock that clouded her eyes. “I know I’m a real bastard for telling you this, because I should’ve said it before you got it in your head that we’d get married. I know what you want, Rosalind, and it ain’t a farm out in Washington. You want what Delilah’s got.”

  Damn shame was, even Delilah didn’t want her life. But women who saw only what the media allowed, they didn’t consider what reality might actually look like.

  “I teach community college philosophy and drive a Prius. She’s a VIP wherever she goes and flew to Washington in a private jet. The clothes she’s wearing right now must be worth half a million dollars—at least. The scales should be more balanced between the two most important women in your life,” Rosalind maintained. “I’m her sister-in-law. Families share. What’s mine is hers. What’s hers is mine.”

  “No,” he said firmly. “Hell, no. We’re not married, Rosalind, and we never will be.”

  “But you let me tell everyone—”

  “You started calling folks the second you sprang that question on me. I didn’t want to hurt you.”

  “You’re hurting me now.”

  “I get that. Sorry. But Delilah’s world isn’t mine anymore. This farm—this is me.” He said it to convince her and himself. He prayed to God one of them believed it. “Get your phone out. De
lete the pictures you took of my sister and take down all the social media postings.”

  “Once you put something online, it’s forever,” she said darkly, as if to pressure him.

  “Take them down,” he said again, and a quiet battle raged between them as the wind rattled the windows and the rain bounced on the roof. “Once you make an enemy out of a Bishop, it’s forever.”

  Rosalind’s mouth worked. Then she fished her phone from her pocket and unlocked it.

  He watched without comment as she deleted the photos she’d snapped of his sister—a few featuring Rosalind herself leaning close to a sleeping Delilah and grinning into the camera. He ordered her to empty the deleted photos from the device, then watched as she proceeded to log into each of her social media accounts and delete her postings. But what she’d said about the Internet being forever—that was true, and there wasn’t a whole hell of a lot he could do about the dozens on top of dozens of shares and retweets that had crowd-surfed his little sister through motherfucking cyberspace.

  “I deleted everything I could,” Rosalind said, pocketing the phone. “Can you be done with this angry persona now? It’s…not like you.”

  “It is me, though. You were too preoccupied keeping up with Delilah’s clothes and my family’s money to see the real me. Now that you do see me, you don’t like what you’re looking at, do you?”

  She began a trek toward the front of the house. “You’re scaring me.”

  “Know something, Rosalind? You’re not cut out for the world I come from. You’re a weak liar, and that makes you prey. So get your things and take off.”

  “You’re asking me to leave? It’s raining.”

  “Guess you’ll get wet.”

  “The wind—”

  “Ain’t high enough to lift your Prius off the ground.” But Dante reached into his billfold and withdrew some bills, which she had no qualms about snatching from his hand. “Get yourself a room in town and think carefully about who your next mark will be.”

  “Asshole.”

  He knew women like her. At first they hid their motivations, but eventually the draperies always fell to reveal who they really were.

  Yeah, he knew women like Rosalind Carver. He’d written songs about a woman like her.

  Except at the same time Chelsea Coin was dizzyingly different. Her smile could command his heartbeat. Her touch could freeze his mind and light his body on fire. Her pussy was immortalized in the hip-hop/R&B song “In You,” which remained unfinished and unsung, confined to the pages of an old notebook.

  Funny how his church’s priest had never said that evil could be beautiful, could sound like the most unforgettable melody, could feel so damn good wrapped around you.

  Evil was Chelsea, a woman who’d turned his love against him, betrayed everyone in her way, and preyed on a friend’s mental instability.

  Dante felt wearier than he had on his last day in Atlanta. Washington and the crops he raised here had lifted his spirits and restored hope that he wouldn’t be the man his father had been. Delilah depended on him, even from her life of luxury in California. Rarely did she come here, and when she did she didn’t say much. She drank a beer on the porch and watched the wind flatten the lawn. When she passed through, it was only because she was compelled by a need to see her brother, and he allowed her visits even though she reminded him of a life he didn’t want anymore.

  But today was different. Delilah had come here, all dressed up in her fancy clothes and shiny jewelry, with an agenda: to reel him back to Atlanta. He’d interrupted her, making excuses about shutting up the barn, and now she was asleep, for which he was thankful. Maybe her reason for coming here had been put to bed, too.

  It was closer to dinner than lunch when the rain lightened to a tiptoe on the roof, but Dante went ahead, cut hearty slices of wheat bread, and fixed a pair of thick sandwiches. Just when he’d thought his sister was picking up a decent amount of weight a couple of years ago, she’d shown up on the cover of Rolling Stone thinner than he’d ever seen her.

  Still was.

  “Dante?” he heard her call out sleepily.

  “In the kitchen. C’mon and take this sandwich. Beer, too.”

  Delilah shuffled into the kitchen and swiped the half-eaten sandwich from his hand. “I’m not hungry. A half will do.”

  “You need to eat. That’s why you’re narcoleptic.”

  “I am not.” She bit and chewed, eyeing him. “Hey, bro, where’s your fiancée? I was talking to her when I fell asleep. Not to say she bored me. I’m just tired.”

  “Rosalind’s gone.”

  “Gone where? Doesn’t she live in Seattle?” She set down the sandwich. “What did I miss?”

  “While you were asleep she apparently took pictures of you and posted them online.”

  “The fuck?”

  “Yeah, I had her delete them, but shit, people had already gone ahead and passed them around.”

  Delilah shook her head, then shrugged. “I’ve been photographed in worse situations than crashing on my brother’s sofa. They say there’s no rest for the wicked, but I’m proof that even the wicked rest sometimes.”

  “Good you can let that roll off your back, but I wasn’t so forgiving about it. I told her to leave.”

  “And tomorrow you’ll go out, buy her flowers, and show up at her door all full of apologies. Or, better yet, you’ll find her a ring. I noticed she wasn’t wearing one.”

  “Not quite. Rosalind and me—that’s done.”

  “Oh. So Dante Bishop’s running loose again. Farmers, lock up your daughters.” She drank down the beer and started looking longingly at his mug. “Gonna finish that?”

  “I am, and you already know this ain’t the place to get drunk.”

  “What if I want a bottle of that blueberry wine you’re peddling? And seriously, how can you say this isn’t the place to get drunk? You hold wine tastings in a barn.”

  “Wine tastings. Not wine get-off-your-ass-wasted events.”

  She gave him a withering look. “Why do I come here? Every time I do, you go into protective big-brother mode. It’s goddamn annoying.”

  “Well, Delilah, get used to it. I’m going to be goddamn annoying for the rest of your life.”

  “Or yours. I could outlive you,” she said ominously, then laughed. Suddenly it was cut short. “It’s been a while since I’ve wanted to outlive someone.”

  “I’m glad to hear it. Glad you’re still hanging around to annoy the fuck out of me.”

  Dante was glad, too, that his entire family wasn’t buried in the Bishop crypt in Atlanta. He couldn’t imagine life without Delilah, who was still finding her way, and yes, still fucking up left and right. “You doing okay, Delilah? Therapy and all?”

  “Mm-hmm. My therapists out west, they’re sticklers. Different than what I’m used to. I’m finally starting to deal with Daddy’s death and what happened with the label.” She nudged the sandwich away and he noticed she’d eaten only three bites. Turkey and cheddar had always been a favorite they had in common.

  “Is Shatter treating you right?”

  “The work is hard—I’m not going to lie. Every day I compete for my job. But I have something there that I never had at Devil’s Music. Respect.”

  “Good.”

  “It is good.” She nodded, pausing before her next words. “I think I accidentally did something right in my life, Dante.”

  “I’m proud of you, but listen, if all’s okay with Shatter, why are you asking me to go to Atlanta and work with the people who knifed you in the back?”

  “They’re letting Devil’s Music die. If they don’t unleash a new hot-as-hell artist—and damn fast—then it won’t end well for the company.”

  “It’s not your company, not your problem.” He finished his beer and brought their mugs to the sink.

  “Twenty-eight percent of it is.”

  “What?”

  “I purchased my share of ownership back. So I can’t let it die. When Chelsea
Coin calls you asking for your songwriting prowess, you’ll need to agree and cooperate. Please do this for me. When I met with her, she was all kinds of twisted-up guilty. She might do anything to make amends for what she did to me…and to you.”

  Chelsea might be sorry she gutted him? Might be was far from good enough. “No.”

  “Dante, I’m afraid I’m going to have to insist.”

  “Why? What the fuck does it matter to you anymore?”

  “Because I can’t let it go.” Time didn’t heal all wounds. Neither could a life on a blueberry farm or a fresh start in a company that rewarded you with respect you’d never known before. “Daddy left it to you and me. You left because you were afraid of becoming him, but I stayed and I fought and I didn’t hate you for leaving it all on me.”

  “I had to leave.”

  “I know. You blamed Chelsea and you would’ve blamed me, too, if you hadn’t been so caught up in trying to protect me. I understand now, Dante, why you did what you did. We don’t have to ever talk about it.”

  He’d ridden out of Atlanta on his Harley and left Devil’s Music to Delilah. Noble intentions didn’t make him any less of a bastard, and it wasn’t something he was ashamed to discuss with his sister, who’d been there and seen what music had done to Cutthroat Bishop. “Ain’t no pride in sweeping what I did under the rug.”

  “There’s no point in talking about it now. It’s done and I know you meant to look out for me. Are you sorry, though, Dante?”

  He inclined his head, then looked her square in the eye. Two years younger than his thirty-three, she carried an air of harsh, cold, vicious wisdom. She surpassed him in miles and decades and they’d never meet on the same level. She was his sister, and it was his duty to protect her no matter where either of them ended up, but she’d chosen a destiny that went against his grain. “No, Delilah. I’m not sorry.”

  “That’s your choice.” Delilah stepped away from the counter. “Mine is to take back my legacy. So I’m calling in what you owe me. Rectify this, even if you’re not sorry about what you did. Work with Chelsea, and get her to sell you her stake in the company. Tell her that’s the price of your forgiveness.”