Page 10 of The Seer

And for the span of a heartbeat, she let herself believe he might still choose her. It was easy to convince herself that he might already have. Taryn could embrace delusion as well as anyone. Yet harsh reality had a way of intruding, especially in her world.

She sighed and shook her head at her foolishness. “You’re privy to all my thoughts now, aren’t you?”

“Aye. I am.”

“Will I never have another one that’s purely my own?” she croaked.

“Ya will, once we find the switch and turn this off.”

For a cocksure man, he didn’t sound convincing.

She threw up her hands. “Awesome. This is going to be great fun.”

“Isn’t it, though?” His frustration was as great as hers.

And she tried not to feel bad for him as she fought against thinking anything at all. It wouldn’t do to let him know how much he still affected her all these years later.

The side of his mouth quirked up. “Sure, and you affect me, too. Ya always have, Taryn-Taryn,” he said huskily. “But we can never be, yeah? The ancestors have stated you’ll be my downfall if I’m to love ya.”

A chill penetrated her soul. His voice was gentle, but the rejection landed like a blade on bone.

“I’m sure they have nothing to worry about.” Her tone was glib and at direct odds with how she was feeling. Searching for another topic, she glanced toward the table. “The amulet I found. Why don’t you want to research it with me? Is this about me or the object?”

“Both.”

She sucked in a breath, too surprised to form a response.

“Being around you is torture when I can’t touch ya,” he replied. His sincerity seemed real, and she nodded, backing around the coffee table to allow him space.

“It’s sorry I am to have hurt your feelings, all the same.”

“I’m an adult, Fintan. I’ll cope.” Her tone was as brittle as her heart.

“Are ya rejectin’ the apology, then?”

“No. Not at all. I’m merely telling you that I stopped letting careless men hurt me decades ago.” She recalled the day she’d been left standing at the train station, waiting for a gorgeous, talented singer to return after they’d spent a life-altering two-and-a-half weeks together. The rain was relentless as she’d lingered for hours, a soaking-wet, pathetic castoff, for a man who didn’t have the courtesy to inform her he wasn’t coming. “You were one in a succession of assholes, Fintan. The only thing that makes you special is that you were the first.”

Although he didn’t show it, she felt his internal wince.

Good.

She paused, waiting for him to argue. To say she was wrong and that she still mattered.

He didn’t.

“Next time, be defiant enough to inform a woman you’re not interested enough to pursue her.” She reached for the box containing the artifact. But when she shifted to show him, his face had paled.

“Fintan?”

“Aye. I’m grand.” He swallowed, never removing his horrified stare from the box. “Sure, and where did you say you found the necklace?”

“At a yard sale. Why?”

“It’s the downfall I was tellin’ ya about.”

She shoved it under the sofa cushion. “Get out! Get out now!”

His gaze snapped to hers, and in the next instant, he was laughing.

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