Falling for Finn Read Free Page A

being pricks about it.” He stopped. “What was too hard about telling me this?”
    She looked away. “You see, this is why I didn’t want to tell you. You go off the deep end, Finn. All the bloody time. I don’t want to deal with that. I don’t want to deal with your anger as well.” She turned back to him. “This is about me, not you.”
    Fuck.
    He slammed the fridge. “Do you want something to eat?”
    The sudden change of subject seemed to catch her off guard. She blinked. “No. I’m not hungry.”
    A silence fell.
    “Lily’s been worried about you,” he said after a moment.
    Lily had been a friend of Anna’s from university, one he’d come to know on and off over the years. He’d had a thing for her once. In fact they’d had a thing together until she’d called it off. Thinking Anna would be hurt or some such bullshit.
    Anna wouldn’t have cared. Even if she had known about it. She was always trying to get him together with someone. As if she thought settling down was what he needed.
    “I know.” She walked forward, leaned on the breakfast bar. “I haven’t told her yet.”
    “Will you?”
    “Eventually.”
    He watched her. Quiet and self-contained. Her kelly-green T-shirt picking up the color of her eyes, the cut of her brown hair accentuating her pointed jawline. Intellectual, determined Anna, nearly a partner in one of Auckland’s biggest company law firms.
    Shy Anna. Who used to drag him along to a lot of her work functions because she hated going by herself. Because she’d wanted someone “intelligent” to talk to instead of “stupid lawyers”. He’d used to love that. Especially the times when her colleagues turned into starstruck little teenagers after she’d introduced him.
    “This is Finn Shaw. From Wild Life ,” she’d say, making it sound as if the extreme sports show he fronted on TV was the most amazing thing since Shakespeare. Sometimes people hadn’t watched it and it meant nothing to them. But when they had, Anna would shoot him a secret smile, knowing exactly how much he got off on their awe…
    Until she’d met Michael, of course. The archangel Michael—his term for the prissy, too-good-to-be-true asshole she’d hooked up with. The one she’d been apparently going to marry…
    “What about Michael?”
    She leaned against the breakfast bar. “Actually, I broke up with him.”
    Finn rocked back on his heels, put his hands in pockets. Normally this news would have made him extremely pleased indeed. But now… If he was forced to it, forced to get past his own protectiveness, he’d admit that Michael wasn’t a bad guy. The man had cared for Anna. Respected her.
    “Shit, Anna. I thought you loved the guy?”
    Long, slender fingers rested on the pitted wood of the breakfast bar, an old piece of macrocarpa Anna had found for him on an auction website when he’d first moved into the warehouse.
    “I did…I mean, I do love him.”
    The inevitable tightness was there, deep inside him. When would it ever go away? He ignored the feeling, just like he always did. “So…I don’t get it.” His hands curled into fists inside his pockets. “You did tell him about the attack, right?”
    One finger traced a knot on the wood. Her nails were bitten. Anna never had bitten nails.
    “Yes. I did.”
    His hands curled tighter. So she had told the archangel Michael, but she hadn’t been able to tell him. Goddamn it. Goddamn it to hell. “What did he say?” It came out like a demand rather than an interested question, but he didn’t give a shit.
    Anna’s gaze flicked to him. “He was supportive. Very supportive.”
    Of course he would have been. Bastard. “And?”
    Her finger made another circle around the knot. “But…” She stopped.
    “But what?”
    She said nothing, staring at the knot.
    “Anna?”
    Abruptly she turned her back on him, leaning against the wood. “Jesus, Finn. Give me a moment.”
    He took a breath, staring at the stiff line of her shoulders.