Mac." He said my name and laughed. "What a name for something like you. Mac.

Lose the pessimism, Ms. Lane. It's a self-fulfilling prophecy.

It's so easy to lie. What’s even worse is how we cling to those lies. We beg for the illusion so we don’t have to face the truth, don’t have to feel alone.

For the record, Irish," he informed her tightly, just in case she got the wrong idea, "I kneel to no one.

Don't celebrate yet, Ms. Lane. Don't believe anything is dead until you've burned it, poked around in its ashes, and then waited a day or two to see if anything rises from them.

I can smell you, Ms. Lane," he said, even more softly. "The only blood on you is from your veins, not your womb." My head whipped to the left and I stared at him. Ok, that was one of the more disturbing things he'd ever said to me.

If he’d been any other man and i'd been any other girl, I’d have called the narrowing of his heavy-lidded dark eyes lust. But he was Barrons and I was Mac, and a blossoming of lust was about as likely as orchids blooming in Antarctica