Too controlled.
“I’m not avoiding you. I’ve been busy.”
“Finn, you haven’t even spoken to me in two days.”
“I was tired.”
“And this morning? And all afternoon?”
He finally turns around, and his expression freezes my blood instantly.
It’s the Finn I met weeks ago.
The one who built walls to keep everyone out.
The one whose armor I thought I’d managed to break through.
“I’ve had a lot of patients, Mary. That’s why I’m here.”
“That’s not what I mean, and you know it.”
He crosses his arms over his chest in a defensive posture I know far too well now.
“Then what exactly do you mean?”
I take a step toward him.
“I want to know why you’re distant with me. Why you’re avoiding me. Why it feels like something changed between us.”
“There is no us, Mary.”
The words hit me like a physical blow.
“What?”
My voice comes out strangled because my throat suddenly feels too tight to breathe.
He holds my gaze, and his eyes are cold.
Empty.
“There is no us,” he repeats. “There never was. This was just a practical arrangement, remember? A fake relationship to fool your grandmother and help me settle into the village.”
Pain tightens violently in my chest.
“We were clear about that from the beginning,” he continues in a detached voice.
“And the kiss?” I finally manage, my voice trembling. “Was that just… practical too?”
Something flickers in his eyes.
A crack in the armor.
But it seals shut immediately.
“That was a mistake. I shouldn’t have done that. I apologize for the lapse in judgment.”
A lapse in judgment.
