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thousand years. I’m more concerned about the other consequence of unprotected sex. Could I have gotten you pregnant?”
    Instead of the dread he’d anticipated, he felt a spark of hope. Gods knew there was something different about Ciara. Could she be the one who would break this curse? He was pretty sure he wouldn’t recognize love if it bit him in the ass, but he’d never felt like this before.
    “There’s no chance of that,” Ciara let out a harsh laugh. “I’m sterile. Michael and I tried for years to get pregnant and I didn’t so much as miss a period.”
    “Are you sure? Maybe he was just shooting blanks.”
    “We spent two years going through fertility treatments. He was tested. I was tested. I took every medicine, underwent procedure after procedure until even the doctors gave up trying to find out why I couldn’t get pregnant. Then he went and knocked up some twenty-five-year-old six months after our divorce. Yeah, I’m pretty damn sure I’m sterile.” She stalked off to the bathroom and shut the door.
    Declan sat there, bonelessly. The despair all the more devastating for the brief surge of hope he’d had.
    “Haven’t you punished me enough, Morrigan? Do you have to bring an innocent into your revenge as well?”
    Anger replaced despair and he surged to his feet. The apartment was too small to pace adequately. He felt like a tiger stuck in a cage.
    Why would Morrigan mark Ciara if she wasn’t the one to break the curse? Could she be that cruel?
    Needing fresh air, he slipped on his boxers and went through the sliding doors onto the miniscule balcony. Night had fallen while he and Ciara had been otherwise occupied. Declan leaned against the metal railing and looked out at the lights of the city. Her apartment overlooked the river which glistened under the weak moonbeams.
    A slight swirl of air brought the scent of flowers to his nose and he knew Ciara had joined him on the balcony.
    “I’m sorry if I hurt you,” he said, turning to face her. She’d pulled on a short, silken robe.
    “It’s an old pain and not your fault. I’d thought I’d come to terms with never having a child of my own, but Michael told me today that he’d gotten his girlfriend pregnant and then you asked if I was sure I was sterile. It was a one-two punch I wasn’t prepared for.”
    “Is that what the bastard was doing when I showed up? Telling you about his pregnant girlfriend? No wonder you looked so devastated.”
    “Yeah. Can you believe it? He wanted to show me the ultrasound. Asshole. You came at a perfect time.” She stepped back and gave him a speculative glance. “Considering I now know you’re not a businessman, what exactly are you doing in Connecticut and how did you find me?”
    “Actually, I wasn’t lying about being an investment consultant. I’ve done a lot of jobs, moved around the world inventing new identities for myself, but right now, I actually am a businessman.”
    “Did you really have a meeting in Connecticut?”
    “Sure. With you. As to how I found you, you’d be amazed what you can find on the web. I put your name into Google and your picture popped up.”
    “Seriously?”
    “Yup. You had done some fundraiser or something with the hospital and there was a picture of you with a bunch of other ladies in pink T-shirts with the hospital logo. I figured I’d start there and ask around until I found you. Lucky for me, you were on your lunch break and projecting so much emotion it was like a homing device.”
    “Come again?”
    “I can sense your emotions. Ever since the morning after our interlude, I’ve been able to feel you.”
    “That’s … weird.”
    “Weird good or weird bad?”
    She seemed to think for a minute. “Weird good. I don’t like the idea that our one night of sex reveals me to you that much, but on the other hand, it’s nice to know I don’t have to spell out everything.”
    “I wouldn’t go that far. I can’t exactly read you like the morning newspaper.