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"I cannot accept these," I said in a hushed, controlled voice. "Stop trying to give me your family’s antiques."

"Youaremy family," he countered in a smug voice. "Your argument is pointless, they're already yours and I won't hear anything else about it. Now, pay attention."

My head snapped up at the command in his voice and I scowled at him. But I didn't argue, I had since learned when to pick my battles and was smart enough to know when not to push when I knew I was going to lose anyway.

Dropping the subject, probably because he knew he'd won, Quinton held out the tarot deck toward me.

"Shuffle them, please."

I took the deck from his hands and carefully shuffled them. I handed them back to him when I was done.

He laid the cards face down on the floor in front of him and fanned them out, from left to right. Quickly, he picked out three cards, seemingly at random, one right after the other. He placed them face up in a line on the floor between us, again, from left to right.

"Can you tell me what the placement of each card means?" he asked curiously.

This was a basic setup. I nodded my head but refused to look down at the actual cards themselves. I was terrified to see what cards he'd pulled out of that deck and what they might mean for me. I was actually starting to sweat.

"The first card you laid down represents the past."

He arched an arrogant eyebrow, causing me to fidget nervously. I desperately wanted to get this right and not embarrass myself in front of him.

"The recent past," I said more confidently than I actually felt.

He nodded his head in approval. "Go on."

I slumped in relief.

"The second card, the one in the middle, represents the here and now."

"Very good. And the third and final card?"

"What's to come." That was the one that scared me the most.

"You can look at them, baby. They aren't going to bite," he soothed with a soft, sweet voice.

That was easy for him to say when the cards were meant for me and not him.

"I kept things easy, simple even, for your first time. Next time, you'll practice on me. When you have it down, we'll move onto a more complex spread."

Something I had so been looking forward to now filled me with dread. If I messed up I would look like a fool in front of Quinton.

I sucked in a much needed breath before allowing myself to look down at the cards. The moment of truth was upon me and there was no going back now.

The first one he'd laid down was the King of Wands. It depicted a king seated on a throne with a staff in his hand that had blossoms shooting off of it. His cape and throne were covered in lions and salamanders. I remembered from the books I'd read that the lion and salamander were symbols for fire and strength.

I didn't think it boded well that the card was upside down, facing me instead of Quinton. The meaning changed when the card was flipped upside down like that.

Quinton lightly tapped his finger against the King of Wands card, his face unreadable.

"This," he began quietly, "because it's upside down, represents Rain coming into your life. Arrogant, to the point of being aggressive even. He's ruthless, selfish, and single minded when it comes to the things he wants. You don't want to stand between him and his goals. Yeah, this card is all about Rain coming back into your life. This is not a bad thing."

Nothing about Rain being in my life would I ever consider a bad thing. Even if he was arrogant and everything else Quinton claimed him to be.

"Now, this," Quinton moved on, tapping his finger against the card in the middle, the Strength card, "does not surprise me in the slightest."

The Strength card depicted a woman in a white robe kneeling over a lion with her hands on his head. Supposedly, she's tamed the wild beast, or so I had read about. The infinity symbol floated over her head, representing wisdom.

Honestly, I wondered just how smart she really could be kneeling over a damn lion like that. There were some animals that, no matter how tame they appeared, would forever remain wild and ferocious.