Page 37 of Sweetwater and the Witch

“Are you sure?”

She gave him a steely smile. “My fire talent has cost me at least four serious relationships over the years. Two men panicked when I told them about it. A third was a researcher who got excited and wanted to run experiments on me in his lab. The fourth and most recent one didn’t have any trouble at all with my fire talent. In fact, he didn’t seem to care about it. In hindsight, that should have been a clue, I suppose.”

Ethan’s eyes sharpened. “Tell me about that one.”

She frowned. “You want to know about Dawson? Why?”

“I get the feeling he’s the one who caused you to be so cautious.”

“You may be right,” she admitted. “He’s the one who made me finally accept the fact that I can’t trust my own judgment.”

“Talk to me.”

She eyed him warily. “Generally speaking, it’s a bad idea to talk about past relationships on a date.”

“This isn’t a real date, remember? The rules are different tonight.”

She wasn’t so sure about that logic, but she decided to go with it. “Before I moved to Illusion Town I lived in Cadence. I registered with a matchmaking agency there. That’s how Dawson and I met. He was a strong talent himself. For a while I thought he just might be Mr.Perfect. Things seemed to be going well between us. Getting serious. I decided to tell him about my fire talent.”

“How did he handle the news?” Ethan asked.

“As if it was no big deal. I was so relieved I leaped to the conclusion that he really was the right one for me. It took me a while to realize he saw me as a business asset. He wanted to use my other talent, the one I had put down on the questionnaire.”

Ethan got a knowing look. “Your profiling ability.”

“Dawson owns a large company. He thought I would make a great addition to his staff, and as his wife, I’d be someone he could be certain would be loyal to him.”

“A strong profiling talent would definitely be an asset in the business world,” Ethan said.

“He intended to use me to assess his competitors and his management team to identify their strengths and weaknesses. Like any high-level CEO, he craves business intel.”

Ethan nodded in understanding. “Sounds like he’s a strategy talent. Probably a very good chess player.”

“Yep. Brilliant, in fact.”

“Did he suggest marriage?”

“Oh, yes. But when I finally realized I was being played, I terminated the relationship. There was a heated argument. He viewed a Covenant Marriage as, essentially, a business transaction. He couldn’t understand why I was not interested in being a permanent member of his management team.”

“When did you figure out that he wanted to marry you for your profiling talent?” Ethan asked.

“After we attended a major social event where I was introduced to his associates. In the car on the way home, he asked me for my take on two of them. He wanted to know if they were strong talents. If I could detect any weaknesses. I was flattered at first. Then I began to realize what was going on. As far as he was concerned, the evening had been a test of my ability. I got mad.”

“Yeah?” Ethan looked intrigued. “What happened in the car?”

“I told him I didn’t like being used. He explained to me in great detail that I was allowing my emotions to override logic. He claimed we made a greatteam. He lectured me at length on the subject of my failure to see the big picture. I listened for a while because I was trapped in the car. But when we stopped at an intersection, I opened the door and got out.”

“That was it? You just got out of the car?”

“Well, I found a cab and went home. Never heard from him again. I think he was not only annoyed, he was embarrassed.”

“Huh.”

“Why? What were you expecting?”

Ethan shrugged. “Fire. An explosion. Something hot.”

“Seriously? You think I should have used my fire talent to make a scene in the back of a limo?”

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