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I cried enough tears to drown Rose Valley, yet he walked away.
“What’s stopping us? You,” I said, looking at him incredulously. I couldn’t believe he dared to ask me that. “At least you had stopped us before. But now, I am.”
Rowan flinched—just barely—but I caught it. It almost surprised me since I didn’t think anything could wound him.
“Willow—”
“What do you want?” I asked, working hard to keep the waver out of my voice. Keeping myself so guarded was exhausting. “What do you really want?”
Rowan seemed to have his own walls up, and he was getting harder to read as we continued. But he sighed, taking his attention away from the various items around us.
“I spotted you in the crowd earlier and wanted to know how you were doing.”
He sounded more genuine, but it didn’t make me want to answer anymore.
Mustering up what courage I had left, I held my chin up. I needed to be strong. To show that he was nothing to me and that the pain he caused me was nothing but memories in the wind.
“I’m fine,” I said flatly. “But I can’t understand why you’re in my shop after knowing how you feel about witches.”
He had been ignorant about it the moment he figured out that I was one. The moment he realized it, he had already decided how he felt about me.
Rowan’s eyes softened ever-so-slightly, and his shoulders dropped. “I was blindsided by my dad’s prejudice against witches, but I don’t hold those values myself. I know better now.”
Anger sparked beneath my skin at that—an emotion I didn’t feel often. But it was all-consuming then.
He had hurt and rejected me for exactly that—his ignorance and hatred—yet he had the gall to say those weren’t his beliefs. I couldn’t help but feel scorned by that fact, since that was the sole reason he turned me away.
Apparently, he didn’t actually feel that way about witches, at least not anymore. It made me want to scream at him.
So much could’ve been avoided if he had realized that sooner.
“You’re hiding behind your father’s faults. But what about your own?”
Rowan looked at me for a long moment, and then he nodded absently. “You’re right. I can blame as much as I want on him, but at the end of the day, I let him convince me without thinking for myself. I was old enough by then to have figured it out. Maybe I just didn’t want to at the time.”
It didn’t exactly make me feel any better.
While that fury still pulsed in my palms and was itching to be released, I took a steadying breath and pulled myself back in. I needed to keep my cool.
When I didn’t say anything else, Rowan continued further into the shop until he noticed the reading table. He paused and pointed at it.
“I’ve never had anything like this done before. Would you…Would you be able to tell me my future?”
My instinct was to say no and tell him to leave, especially since my emotions were raging on the inside. But he didn’t look prepared to disparage witchcraft or demean me for it.
Besides, I needed to seem unbothered. To act like his rejection didn’t do anything to hurt me. Better yet, it was better for me if it looked like I had active clients in my store.
Admittedly, aside from a few coven sisters, I didn’t have much foot traffic since I opened. I had hoped to reach a broader market of clientele and to show them witchcraft didn’t need to be feared.
Sighing, I headed over to the table. “Fine. Sit.”
A small smile cracked across Rowan’s face, but it vanished just as fast as it appeared. He took a seat on the stool opposite mine as I settled in. Sliding the crystal ball out of the way, I held my hand against the table.
I gave him a disinterested glance. “I need your palm.”
Rowan’s eyes stayed on mine as he nodded and placed his hand in mine, palm-side up.
The brush of his skin against mine sent a shocking sensation rushing through my hand and into my body. A discreet shiver ran down my spine.
