leaden, he took a step back, fists plunging to his sides.
Remorse and mortification darkened the grey hue of her eyes and he swallowed hard, knowing. It was Finn who was the issue here. She was ashamed of wanting him, crestfallen at her reaction to him, horrified she’d kissed him back at all.
Well, then… Considering the destruction he’d caused in his life, it was highly indicative and somewhat poignant that he’d never hated himself more.
SHE WAS HEARING voices, seeing things. She must be. That laugh was dead and buried but still it crawled through her veins like venom.
Gorging on air, she calmed the violent crash of her heart before she completely lost her mind and tried to snuggle into Finn again. Come on, Serena. Snuggle? Being weak and needy was not a condition she’d ever aspired to.
Honestly, this night couldn’t get any worse. Charging up here to confront him hadn’t been the brightest idea, but she’d had an entirely different kind of tongue-lashing in mind.
Forget lethal weapon—the man was a nuclear bomb. And his kiss… Holy moly. There she’d been, quite content to pretend their last lip-lock had been an apparition. Why bother to remember when it couldn’t possibly have been that shockingly good?
Except it was that shockingly good. And bad all at the same time.
Her reactions to him were ridiculously extreme. It was as if he flipped a two-way switch inside her—hate or lust. Which just made no sense. She’d kissed men she’d actually liked before and been slammed in a freezer, yet one touch from Lothario here and she burst into flames!
Sheer panic had her scrambling for perspective. Truthfully, she shouldn’t feel so disgusted with herself, so humiliated for succumbing to him. Not when the entire female race swooned at those extraordinary cerulean eyes. Expired at that sinful, sensual mouth. And that was before he backed it up with a truckload of charismatic charm.
Serena was just one of many.
Ugh. The idea that she was turning into a woman like one of her dad’s playthings made her feel physically sick.
And of course the dirty deed had to transpire with her wearing slippers, of all things—just her rotten luck. And Finn knew what they were. Of course he did. He’d probably tugged billions of the things off perfectly feminine feet.
How. Utterly. Mortifying.
At the risk of garnering attention, she whispered furiously, ‘Don’t you ever touch me again. Your hands are not welcome on me.’ She was being unfair, she knew she was, but she despised herself for that momentary lapse.
‘Noted,’ he bit out, his jaw tight enough to crack, and she fancied his broad frame seethed with self-loathing.
Clearly she was losing it.
Serena edged around his broad frame, determined not to notice how he filled out his sinfully suave tuxedo to perfection. ‘I have to go. I’ll see you in the morning.’
She didn’t slow her pace until she was free of the oppressive glitz and glamour, her feet step-step-stepping down the stone slabs of the wide front entrance.
‘I’ll walk you down to the harbour.’
Finn fell into place beside her, hands stuffed into his trouser pockets, and as if he sensed she was spooked he ground out, ‘No arguments.’
It was the second time he’d brandished that arrogant, masculine tone like a swordsman in protective stance and it did something strange to her insides. Made her go all warm and gooey. Which naturally made her every self-defence instinct kick into gear. She wanted to tell him to get lost—preferably on Mars. But something stopped her.
It was that frigid, ominous laughter. Playing in her mind. An endless loop of pain and vulnerability. Vehement enough for her to say, ‘Okay…’ because in truth she felt infinitely safer with him beside her.
Down the cobbled streets they went, the only sound the clickety-clack of his highly polished shoes and the sensual whispers of couples strolling by hand in hand.
As always, the sight made her heart ache. Ache for something she’d never have. Relationship material she was not.
Suddenly cold, she wrapped her arms across her chest, and by the time the tang of seawater filled her lungs and the harbour was a glittering stretch before them she was waging an internal war against asking him to stay.
‘Thanks for walking with me. I’ll be fine from here.’
‘Are you sure you’ll be okay? Is there anything I can do? Anything you want, Serena?’
Cruel—she was being cruel. The last few months had turned her into a horrible, horrible person but she couldn’t curb the truth.
‘The only thing I want right now is Tom. He was more than my brother—he was my friend.’ And she didn’t want to be alone.
But you are alone, Serena, and you always will be. What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger.
‘I know,’ he said, his voice deep and low, tainted with sombre darkness. ‘Believe me, I know.’
It was a voice she’d never heard before. One that made her stop. Pause. Wonder at the torment engulfing his beautiful blue eyes.
‘I would do anything to turn back the clock. Anything to change the words I said. If only I’d just told him no when he asked to come out with me. Countless times I’ve wished for just that.’
As if he’d hit her with a curveball, she swayed on her feet.
The way he’d phrased it, so simply, had brought it all down to choices. Tom’s choice in asking to follow his hero. Finn’s choice in allowing him to.
Strange to think how the twists of fate intertwined with free will.
Every day they lived a voyage of discovery, moved through life based on choices like forks in the road. They peered down all the options, considered, weighed the risks, finally made a choice—some good, some bad. Some affecting no one but themselves. The worst affecting those they loved. But all of them defining. Forging who they were.
She’d made hundreds of choices in her lifetime and had one major regret. A choice that had affected her dad’s life, Tom’s life too, until the day he’d died. One made when she’d been naïve about her place in the world, no more than a girl, but a disastrous choice even so.
‘I would do anything to turn back the clock.’
Serena would too.
Instead she lived with the guilt, struggled with it, controlled it. Recognised it when she saw it in others. This time she saw it in Finn—such depth of emotion—her first glimpse in…forever.
First? No. She’d been struck with shards of his shattering façade since last night.
Glimpse?
