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A cool rush of sea air washed over her in a great wave and she crossed her arms over her chest, then curled her fingers around her upper arms and rubbed at the sudden prickle of gooseflesh.
‘Peace? I don’t know what that feels like. I never have.’
Finn stilled, watching her, predator-like. Then anger crept across his face, dark and deadly, and her pulse surged erratically at her wrist.
‘Have you been hurt? In the past?’ he asked, almost savagely.
It was as if his genetic make-up had been irrevocably altered and she could feel the ferocious fury of an animal growling through him. Not to harm—no, no. To protect.
She shouldn’t like that. She really shouldn’t.
‘Serena?’
‘I... Well...’ She bit her top lip to stem the spill of her secrets.
Ridiculous idea. It had to be the way he visibly swelled beneath his suave attire as if to shield her. It made her heart soften and she couldn’t afford that. Just the thought rebooted her self-preservation instincts and she dodged.
‘To be honest, Finn, I’m not one for dwelling on the past.’ She didn’t want to remember being naïve and weak and broken. Didn’t want Finn to suspect she was any of those things. She refused to be vulnerable to him. To any man ever again.
More importantly, she was over it. She’d made a life for herself. A good life. True, being initiated into the dark realms the world had to offer at fourteen years old was not conducive to relationships and all the messy complexities that came with them.
It was hard to trust, to let go. And, while she’d vowed her past wouldn’t define her, or cripple her life with fear, any attempts she’d made at intimacy had been a dishearteningly dismal experience. She’d chosen a wonderfully sweet safe guy but she’d felt distanced somehow. Detached. Compounded by her blatant lack of femininity, no doubt. But she had her work, which she loved, and her team kept her from touching the very depths of loneliness. And if the tormented shadows still haunted her once in a while she fought them with all her might.
Feeling that infusion of bravado, she lifted her chin. ‘Anyway, do I look like the kind of woman someone could easily mess with?’ She hoped not. She’d spent years building her defences after all.
Finn slowly shook his head and his fierce scowl was tempered into a decadent curve of his lips as he murmured what sounded like, ‘That’s my girl.’
Their eyes caught...held...and Serena would have sworn she actually felt the odd dynamic of their relationship take a profound twist.
Before she knew it more words flooded over her tongue—a chaotic, unravelling rush she couldn’t seem to stop.
‘When I look at you I want to blame you, hate you.’ And hadn’t it been easier to blame Finn instead of just accepting it as a tragic accident from which no justice could be reaped? ‘But on the back of those thoughts comes the guilt, the self-censure, because he asked me to go out with him that night and I wouldn’t.’
She’d been horribly selfish, hating the social scene, knowing she didn’t fit in, so she’d told him to go, to have fun.
‘If I’d gone out with him he wouldn’t have asked you.’ Misery poured from her heart. ‘I was such a coward.’ Oh, God, could it have been her fault?
Finn surged forward, raised his arm and brushed a lock of hair from her brow so tenderly her heart throbbed.
‘You can’t take responsibility for someone else’s actions, baby. He was old enough to make his own decisions.’
‘Well, then I should’ve persuaded him to take professional swimming lessons—’ Her voice cracked. ‘Something. Anything.’
‘Again, you can’t make people do what they don’t want to. You think he’d honestly want you to blame yourself like this?’
‘No,’ she whispered. Tom would go crazy if he saw her right now.
Crazy? She gave a little huff. If Tom knew she was being cruel to Finn he would go berserk. Finn had been his hero. He’d talked about him constantly. And hadn’t that driven her insane too? Ensuring he was never far from her mind. Taunting her. Creating more anger. Powering more hate. But that wasn’t Finn’s fault. It was hers. Because she’d never understood her unruly all-consuming reactions to such a wild player. He was anything but safe.
‘How did it happen?’ she asked, suddenly weary. ‘Were you there? All I want to know is that he didn’t suffer.’
A muscle ticked in his jaw and he took a large step back, filching her heat. ‘I was...asleep. It was the middle of the night.’
A black blend of torment and bone-wrenching guilt stole the colour from his beautiful face and from nowhere she wanted to throw her arms around him. He was hurting so badly. Like a wounded animal. It was like being tossed back in time, staring at her own reflection. She couldn’t bear it.
