Free Pursued by the Rogue (The Fairy Tales of New York Book 1) by Kelly Hunter

shied away from an even bigger reveal. “It wasn’t that kind of relationship.”
    “What kind of relationship was it?”
    “Fleeting,” she said.
    She’d been alone. So very alone. No one to confide in, not even her friends.
    “I know a little about miscarriage,” he said gruffly. “Enough to know that it can leave a woman feeling broken.”
    Intuitive, this man, but Dawn’s damage hadn’t only been emotional. “I didn’t seek medical treatment afterwards, when I should have. Complications arose and were dealt with. My odds of having children diminished.” She felt his hand slide lower to skim across her abdomen, warm and gentle, almost reverent, and hot tears began to gather.
    “I felt shattered by my body’s betrayal, shamed by my own stupidity, and unbelievably relieved. I didn’t have to change my goals to accommodate a child. Neither did anyone else. It was punishment and reprieve. Sacrifice and deliverance and I never breathed a word of it. Not to anyone.”
    “Dawn, whatever you’re thinking, whatever guilt you carry for wanting one outcome over the other, it wasn’t your fault.” He was back up on his elbow again, his concern for her thick and smothering.
    “Then why does it haunt me?” She slid from the bed and turned away to pick up her clothes, unsteady on her legs and shaking hard but determined to be away from him. Surely her body could get her to the bathroom without tripping over itself. “May I use your shower?” She didn’t wait for his reply. The bathroom was through a door off the bedroom and she locked the door behind her. She leaned against the door, naked and exposed before finally sliding to the cold tile and burying her head in her hands.
    What was she doing here? To herself and to Finn?
    She’d thought being with him all those years ago was stupid but this … this tearing herself apart over him all over again was a thousand times worse. What was she doing here?
    Nothing good. Finbar Sullivan was a good man.
    He didn’t deserve this.
    *
    Dawn washed her pain away in the shower, taking forever, scrubbing hard with her nails until her skin was red raw and ugly on the outside. Only then did she turn the water off and reach for a towel. Finn’s towel, and she couldn’t, simply couldn’t wear his scent again, so she stood there and shivered and flicked water from her body with her hands until she was a little less wet and then put her clothes on. Her bag with makeup in it was in the other room so she wiped the last of the makeup from around her eyes and went bare. Nothing at all to hide her ugliness from this man.
    It was past time he saw it.
    She’d known Finn was special all those years ago. Her body had known and had wanted all that he had to give, right up until the moment her body had rejected it. It had been for the best. They’d been so young, so not ready for a child. And then Dawn had found out about her father’s disease and her chances of having it, and her offspring’s chance of having it, and then she really knew it had been for the best.
    There would be no children for Dawn if she had Huntington’s. This was her line in the sand. No children for Dawn. No husband to sit in a chair beside her hospital bed, grieving for the woman she’d once been. This had to end here. With the choices she made and the life she allowed herself.
    Thinking that she could control her feelings for Finbar Sullivan had been a mistake. She couldn’t. Not now. Not then. Better all round if she pushed him away now and saved him a world of heartache.
    He’d given her an opening and she’d taken it, setting him up for a revelation she knew would hurt him. Strip him of his trust in her and drive him away for good. All she had to do was go out there and go through with it.
    Cruel Dawn, cool and untouchable. Men had called her that and she’d let them. Married to her work. Too ambitious to put anyone else’s needs before her own. A cold bitch. All true. All her.
    It was the cost of