Falling for Finn (2 page)

She held the beer loosely in her hands, trying to get up the courage to meet his gaze. Trying to fight the fear that had made a home for itself inside her soul.

“It’s serious, isn’t it?”

Anna swallowed, looked up.

All the anger in his eyes was gone. Dark brows drew together in a frown. The sun coming through the windows struck gold highlights from his shaggy, surfer-blond hair.

Dark eyes, straight dark brows, blond hair…unusual. Striking. She’d never really noticed before. But then she’d seen the parade of women in and out of his bed. She knew that Finn Shaw, the man she thought of more as a brother than anything else, wasn’t exactly lacking in the looks department.

Don’t go there, girl.

But she had to go there, didn’t she? Now she was here, knowing the request she was going to make of him?

“Yeah,” she said, taking a breath. “It’s serious.” He didn’t move, but a sense of stillness seemed to steal over him. Most of the time Finn was a ball of restless, kinetic energy, but when he listened, he
listened.

“Tell me.”

Bossy son of a bitch. Anna gripped the bottle she was holding, trying to think of how to broach the subject. Normally she thought everything through carefully, the legacy of a career in law, but when she’d thought about this moment, her mind had always gone blank. She didn’t like the feeling. Groping around for some words, she eventually said, “You know Michael and I were having problems, right?”

Finn moved, a sudden, fluid motion, leaning forward in his seat, a dark kind of anger in his eyes. “What did he do?”

Oh, great, Mr. Alpha Male was on the case now, was he? Finn had a protective streak in him a mile wide. Plus he seemed to think that no one was good enough for her when it came to her boyfriends. He’d never liked any of them, Michael least of all.

“Nothing,” she snapped, angry with him all of a sudden. Him going Incredible Hulk on her was the last thing she needed. “Stop jumping to conclusions.”

The intense look on his face didn’t waver. “You said you were having problems.”

“It wasn’t to do with him, okay? The problems were mine.”

He didn’t look the slightest bit appeased by this. “So what was the issue?”

“We…he asked me to marry him.”

A look passed over Finn’s face. Something she couldn’t interpret. “When?”

“Six months ago.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

Anna swallowed. Screw beer. She needed whisky. Right now. “I’m getting to that. Have you got anything stronger?” She gestured to the beer.

Finn ignored the question. “Get to the point, Green Eyes.”

Crap. She found her hands were clasped tightly over her knees, pressing against the denim of her jeans. “I wasn’t sure. I didn’t know what to say. I was confused.”

“About what?”

“About his proposal.”

“But I thought you wanted to get married?”

Yeah, so did she. But when Michael had asked her, something inside had held back. “I did.” She swallowed. “But I needed some time to think. I went out with Lily—”

“What about me? You didn’t think to talk about it with me?” He sounded pissed off.

“Sometimes you need a girlfriend—”

“Don’t give me that shit. That’s never bothered you before.”

Oh, bloody hell, he really was angry. “You weren’t there. I called but you were in a meeting.”
 

He let out a breath, sat back in his seat again. “So you went out with Lily.”

“We went to a bar. Had a talk.” Her hands clasped her knees tighter. “Lily left after an hour and I…I stayed to think about it. Just to have some time alone.”

His long, lean figure went still again, obviously picking up on her tension. “And?”

Anna swallowed. “And the next thing I knew, I woke up in an alley.”

Finn was staring at her. His eyes had gone almost black.

“I’d been drugged, Finn,” she made herself go on. “I’d been assaulted.”

Chapter Two

Finn felt as if someone had kicked him in the balls. With steel-toed boots. “Assaulted?” He realized he was gripping the arms of his chair like he wanted to break them. “What the hell are you talking about?”

Anna’s face had gone pale, green eyes like fresh spring leaves, vivid against her white skin. “I mean someone put something in my drink. One minute I was sitting there alone, the next I was in an alley.”

He almost couldn’t bring himself to ask the next question, but he did because he had to know. “Were you raped?”

The expression on her face closed down. “Jesus, is that all that matters to you? Whether I was raped or not?”

“Shit, no, of course not.” He pushed himself out of the chair, going over to her, kneeling down on the floor in front of her, putting his hands over hers where they clasped her knees in a white-knuckled grip. Her fingers felt cold. Everything inside him wanted to gather her close, hold her. He’d always been tactile, and the urge to touch to bring comfort came naturally to him. But Anna shied away as if he were diseased.

“Don’t!” she gasped out, pulling her hands violently from his.

Shocked, he stared at her. “Anna?”

“Please, don’t touch me.” She sounded shaken, as if struggling to keep it together. “I…I don’t like it.”

Finn fought a sudden, vicious rage. She’d never pushed him away before. Never avoided his hugs. God, he wanted to hurt the bastard who’d done this to her. Hurt him so badly.

Abruptly he pushed himself to his feet, taking a few steps back to give her some space. “The whole story, Anna, tell me.”

She smoothed her hair with shaking hands, her chest rising and falling fast and hard beneath her T-shirt. “That’s all I know, okay? That’s all I can tell you.”

“So, you were attacked?”

“Yes. There were bruises on my legs. My arms. And my clothes were torn.”

“And you remember none of it?”

Something in his voice must have caught a nerve because her chin came up, a spark of green flame in her gaze. “No. I don’t remember anything.”

He could see the distress in her eyes, hear it in her voice. “Anna, I didn’t mean—”

She held up a
stop
hand and he fell silent. “That’s the worst thing, you know? Not knowing. Having to go to the doctor to get them to examine you because you have no idea whether you’d been r-raped or not. Going to the police with no description of the attacker because you didn’t see him. Because you couldn’t remember.”

His hands closed into fists at his sides. He’d never wanted to smash anything as badly as he did now. Someone had hurt her. Someone had drugged her, assaulted her, left her in an alleyway, bruised and bleeding. Someone hadn’t protected her.

He
hadn’t protected her.

Abruptly he turned away, needing to move. To do something with the feeling inside him.

Ever since she’d been five years old, the shy, silent little girl from next door, he’d felt the need to keep her safe. Especially hearing the violent arguments coming from inside her house as her parents had yet another disagreement.

Anna, so quiet and watchful. Small and delicate. No one to look out for her. No one who cared.

“It’s not your fault, Finn.”

Christ. She knew him too well.

“You think I don’t know that?” Going over to the kitchen, he pulled open the fridge again, staring blindly into it, not knowing what he was looking for.

“Well, stop it with the thwarted-knight look, okay?” Her voice, closer this time.

He turned to see her standing on the other side of the breakfast bar.

“I’m fine.” She pushed her hair back from her face again. “Really.”

“So fine you cut your hair?”

Color stained her cheekbones. “I wanted to make a stand. The therapist suggested I do something to regain some control. That was part of it.”

“And not telling me was part of it too?”

Her color deepened. “I’m sorry. I didn’t tell anyone. It was too…hard.”

The hurt inside him wouldn’t go away. “Why? I’m your friend, Anna. We’ve been looking out for each other for twenty years. You were there for me when I couldn’t find a job and Mum and Dad were 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. Trying not to give in to the urge to go around the breakfast bar and demand she tell him just what the fuck was going on.

She didn’t need that after what she’d been through.

Anger sat in his stomach like a large, hot stone. Anna attacked. Bruised. Hurt. The thought of it made him want to punch something.

“I can’t be with him,” she said abruptly. “Ever since the attack, I hate being touched. I hate anyone coming near me. Especially men. After the first couple of months I thought it would fade. I went to therapy, group stuff, hypnotism, a whole lot of things I thought would help. But nothing worked.”

He went very still, watching her.

Her voice, quiet now and soft. “I thought I’d be okay around Michael. God, I love him, right? I trust him. But…every time he came near me I felt like screaming. And when he touched me…”