Her absence in my life was so painful that it was a presence.

Hope is a critical thing. Whithout it, we are nothing. Hope shapes will. The will shapes the world.

I didn’t say, You are such a stuffy asshole. And he didn’t say, If you ever burn one of my quarter-of-a-million dollar rugs again I’ll take it out of your hide, and I didn’t say, Oh, honey, wouldn’t you like to? And he didn’t say Grow up, Ms. Lane, I don’t take little girls to my bed, and I didn’t say I wouldn’t go there if it was the only safe place from the Lord Master in all of Dublin.

The other day upon the stair, I saw a man who wasn't there. He wasn't there again today; how I wish he'd go away!" ~Gabrielle O'Callaghan towards Adam Black

As I moved deeper into the room, his gaze dropped to my feet, and worked its way back to my face. I was wearing faded jeans, boots, and a snug pink Juicy T-shirt I got on sale at TJ Maxx last summer that said I’m a Juicy girl. “I bet you are,” he murmured.

And now she was just Gabby, currently staying in a dreamy, magnificent castle in Scotland with a Fae prince who did all kinds of non-nasty, non-inhuman things like tearing up lists of names, and returning tadpoles to lakes, and saving people's lives. Not to mention kissing with all the otherwordly splendor of a horny angel.

If he were any other man, I might have suspected him of substance abuse, of being coked up or something. But Barrons was too much a purist for that; his drugs were money, power, and control