Page 52 of Manacled Hearts

The nerve! Did he pick her up in front of the building or something after he dropped me off? Did he already know her? Couldn’t he have picked a woman who doesn’t live here?!

And this is a completely different woman than the one he was with at the bar. Fleeting comments I caught from his friends cross my mind, like the one that Finnigan doesn’t settle, always a different woman. The man is a playboy. According to Maddox he’s making his way through all of Queenscove and its tourists.

But he could do that anywhere but here.

That pang of irrational jealousy pulls at me again, and I curse it back down. I have no claim on this man, he doesn’t owe me anything, and he certainly wants nothing to do with me. If we don’t count the following. And wanting to keep me safe. And the heated dance in the bar.

Something brushes against the edges of that wretched muscle pumping blood in my chest, but I refuse to acknowledge what blooms at the touch.

“Good morning, Evelyn,” he says calmly, yet his gaze flickers away from me.

Is that discomfort? No, it can’t be.

“Here, Finnigan? Really?” The words spill before I can stop them, but the man infuriates me. “You couldn’t go do this at your place?” I wanted to say her, not this.

Lifting an eyebrow, he cocks his head and amusement replaces the slight confusion. “This is my place. This entire building, actually, and I live in the penthouse.”

Excuse me, what?! I finally know how it feels for your soul to leave your body—this is it. Mortification isn’t quite a strong enough word to describe the horrifying embarrassment, shock, and emptiness plaguing me. He owns the building I currently live in. He lives here. This whole time.

I don’t understand how this has never come up before. All this security makes much more sense.

“Right.” That’s all I manage to say.

It doesn’t erase the amused expression pulling at all the painfully handsome lines of his face. The chances I will bump into him now that I go out of the house more, just like this, with another model-looking date on his arm, late at night or too early in the morning, will grow exponentially.

That’s the cherry on top, because his presence alone is enough to drive my anxiety off the wall. He lives here… in the same building as me, and I’m somehow supposed to find the strength and peace of mind to sleep soundly at night with the knowledge he’s just above me. Doing things.

The thought makes me mildly nauseous.

No. I can’t do it. I won’t.

“Maya, come on. We’re going.”

She looks between us, her little brows scrunching as she tries to understand what’s happening, but fails. She’s still staring as she moves to grab my open hand.

I don’t even say goodbye as I walk out in the mildly humid, warm air of Queenscove and breathe in the slight salty scent.

“The park is that way.” Maya pulls on me, trying to sway me in the opposite direction.

“Change of plans, honey. We’re going to go see Loreley.”

“What for?”

“I think it’s time we move out of Katya’s and into our own place.”

CHAPTER 11

FINNIGAN

You don’t know what your world did to mine.

Evelyn’s soft voice wraps around the threads of my mind for the hundredth time.

After a few days of wondering what had been done to her, I went to barge into Katya’s and demand she tell me what she knows. I managed to turn around just in time. A little horrible voice in my head had to repeat to me over and over that Evelyn Shaw was trouble, and getting close, knowing more about her, will destroy me.

All over again.

I barely stopped myself when, after over a week of being haunted by those words, I wanted to call Carter and ask him to find out every single aspect of her life. It was a horrible invasion of privacy and trust, but I couldn’t bear those words anymore. Everything in me was demanding to know what she meant. That horrible voice I know to be mine, raged at me to back away from her. Far, far away, where the feelings taking root inside of me could rot and die before the tendrils could reach too deep. I stopped myself, nonetheless.

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