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look.
    “You have choices,” she pointed to the card of a blindfolded woman standing on a stormy beach surrounded by swords. “There are many options open, but you're blinded to most. All of the options will require trust. But there’s risk with all of them, and possibilities of getting hurt."
    Her lips trembling while her heart pounded, Bianca stared in horror, first at the cards and then at Anja’s sympathetic face.
    “But that sucks.” She jumped to her feet and sending the couch swinging. “I wanted to hear about sex. I wanted ideas that’d help me go back over there and seduce that hot guy. I didn’t want the latest doom and gloom update.”
    She’d spent over two-thirds of her life dodging doom and dwelling in gloom. It was sex time, dammit.
    “Choices,” Anja said again with a determined look that made Bianca sit back down and stifle her pout. “Remember that sex is a choice. Seducing or avoiding the man across the hall, those are choices, too. All of them require you risk something. Are you willing to do that? Are you willing to take a chance? Because the reward if you do could be phenomenal. Or the price heavy.”
    Phenomenal. She’d bet anything sex with a guy who stretched a towel like that was beyond phenomenal. But was she willing to pay whatever price Anja might be seeing?
    Bianca squinted at the cards, trying to get a hint of what that price might be. How big? How painful?
    She took a deep breath and tried not to freak out. Focus on something else, she thought, scanning the cards. A couple featured naked people, which was encouraging. Naked was definitely the right direction.
    But...
    “What’s this one?” Bianca sat back down and tapped The Tower card herself. She was surprised the lightning didn’t leap off the cardboard and zap her finger.
    “Destruction.”
    Holy shit .
    She should have asked about the naked people.
    “If I seduce him, my life is destroyed?” Talk about a cold shower. She’d rather stop at the naughty toy store on her way home and get a new battery-operated boyfriend than risk that, thankyouverymuch .
    “No. The Tower is coming, regardless of what you do about your love life. If you seduce the handsome man next door, you will be visited by huge changes in your life. If you avoid him altogether, those changes are still arriving. The change is already in motion. The only question now is the result.”
    Needing to move, ready to run, Bianca leaped from the swinging couch, sending it flying back then forward with such force that it almost knocked her over on its return. Ignoring it, she paced from one end of Anja’s small living room to the other.
    “I don’t want change,” she muttered.
    She hated change. She still had nightmares of all the changes her father had brought into her life. Changes that’d sent her running away from home for the first time at the tender age of fourteen, and three more times in the next two years before she’d actually escaped. Changes had made her turn her back on her family, her life, her entire world to escape them.
    “How do I stop it?” she asked quietly, not caring that her words came out a plea.
    Anja would know. Anja could do anything. Could fix anything, make anything happen.
    But her friend just shook her head.
    Bianca slid into a panic attack.
    She hadn’t had one in five years, but the feeling was as familiar as falling asleep. The room swirled in a hazy fog. Black spots danced across her vision. Her lungs clenched and terror gripped her belly with greasy fingers.
    “Anja, you have to help me.” Bianca, croaked, shoving the words through the vicious grip fear had on her throat.
    The dark haired gypsy looked at the cards again, her face troubled. As if she were fighting her own inner battle. Then, with a quick grimace, she nodded and rose.
    Coming over to Bianca, she took her hands.
    Her touch was instantly calming. As if she’d pulled a plug, releasing all of Bianca’s fear, panic and worry. It was like melting into a