Chapter 7 #3
"Oh, that’s right. Me too." I’d promised Summer I’d join them for breakfast. I jump up, and the movement brings me close to him.
The heat of his body slams into my chest and my throat dries.
I stare up at him, as he glares down his nose.
Something like anger steals across his features, before he schools all expression from his face.
A strange sensation grips my chest. I draw in a breath and the oxygen rushes to my head.
Shit, when had I forgotten to breathe? He steps back, and the cold air rushes in. I shiver.
He pivots, walking toward the pool house.
I take in the tattoo of the snake that crawls diagonally across his back.
Whoa! That’s one mean-ass tattoo. It’s as spectacular as it is unexpected against the much paler skin of his back.
The forked tongue of the snake is thick in girth, and within it are etched tribal signs that I can’t decipher.
The edge of it flows over his shoulder, which is what I must have seen earlier.
The scales on the snake are patterned in color and the triangular head has slitted eyes which seem to follow me as I jump to my feet, then tug the blanket around me, hold my book close and follow.
"Hold on," I protest, "your legs are too long."
He slows his pace and I catch up.
"So, you are a friend of Sinclair’s?"
He nods.
"You’re one of the Seven, aren’t you?" I peer up into his face, "I saw you at Arpad and Karina’s wedding."
His jaw hardens. Now what did I say for him to seem angry?
"Surely, you remember?" I mutter. "Didn’t you notice me?"
"I don’t notice every girl who crosses my path."
I blink, then pause my steps, "Now, that’s not fair. I could have sworn that you saw me there. Besides, I am not a girl."
He pulls forward, and I run to catch up. "Did you hear what I said?" I demand. "I am not a—"
"Girl." He stops so quickly that I bump into him.
The scent of chlorine, and under that, the fresh-cut grass scent of him teases my nostrils.
I draw in a breath, filling my lungs with his earthy essence.
Moisture pools in my center and my nerve-endings seem to fire all at once.
Why the hell does he have to smell so utterly delectable?
He pivots to face me and the heat of his body seems to turn up a notch. Does this man have a furnace under his skin, or what?
He looks me up and down. "What are you then?" he asks.
"What—" I blink.
"You said you are not a girl, so what are you?"
I tip up my chin. "A woman." I square my shoulders. "I am a woman."
"And I..." He squares his shoulders, "I am sworn to celibacy..."
Edward
"Excuse me?" She gapes. "What…what did you say?"
Shit, what the hell had I been thinking?
Why had I blurted that out? Because I am attracted to her…
There, the simple truth. I’ve never been so affected by a woman as I have been since I first saw her at City Hall when she’d appeared next to the bride…
and my world had reduced, shrunk down to her eyes, her mouth…
That aura of her which shines so brightly, so purely. So innocent. How old is she anyway?
How could I have known then, that she would be trouble?
That every single thing I’d sworn off, every vow I had taken.
.. All of it would culminate in this test. This.
..trial that God has selected for me. And I cannot give in.
No way. Not by all that I hold dear to me.
There is space for only one attraction, one relationship, one complete obsession. To the One Above.
So, I had taken the easy way out. The cowardly way, you say? Maybe, but it is better to be upfront about what I am. I need to be clear that there can never be anything between us…
Hell, why am I even thinking along those lines?
Not that she seems unduly affected by me, but that spark of awareness between us…
I hadn’t imagined that. Or the way her pupils had dilated, or how she had leaned in to me, how she’d sniffed me.
She says she’s not a girl anymore… but I beg to differ.
She’s all female, all coltish limbs and a translucent skin that reflects whatever she is feeling.
"I have taken a vow." I step back from her. "I have promised to live a celibate life. I have completely given my life to Christ and the people I have been called to serve."
I turn away from her, head for the clothes that I’d placed on the pool-chair.
The hair on the nape of my neck prickles.
I glance over my shoulder to find her staring at me. Her gaze runs down my back, then back to my face, as I snatch up my shirt and shrug into it.
"I… I don’t understand."
"Me neither." I grab my towel, then head for the guesthouse that I occupy whenever I stay over at the Sterlings’, which isn’t often.
But when I’d wanted to leave yesterday, the rest of the Seven wouldn’t hear of it.
With Arpad getting married, it means all of us are now hitched…
Well, except me… And Baron. I stiffen. Why the hell am I thinking of him?
The friend who’d turned his back on us and left.
Not that he hasn’t been in touch. He’s communicated through snail mail, writing on occasion, like when Damian was hesitant about getting married to Julia.
Or when there is a specific investment that Sinner or Saint aren’t sure about, though how he knows this is beyond me.
The two of them run 7A Investments, one of the leading financial services firms in the country.
Between them, they’ve managed to invest our money such that we’ll be living off the wealth created for this entire lifetime.
Not that I am going to touch a penny of it.
My investments go toward FOK Media, aka Full of Kindness Media, the non-profit that the Seven set up to finance upcoming talent in return for a portion of their earnings. I’d also put money toward my own trust that supports the most vulnerable and those in need.
As for myself, I stay in a small two-bedroom home, owned by the parish I am devoted to serving.
The place where I need to return before things get further out of hand.
It had been wrong to approach her in the first place.
I’d seen her watching me, had recognized her— Of course, I had.
I couldn’t have missed her—and then I had approached her.
I should have walked away, but I couldn’t resist. I had to see her once more.
And now I have to atone for the sinful thoughts I entertained.
I clench my fists at my sides.
"Wait." Her footsteps approach me, and I increase my pace.
I cannot be alone with her, not for one more second.
"What are you trying to tell me, Edward?"
I reach the guesthouse, twist open the door and step in. I turn to find her hesitating at the entrance and beckon her in.
She hesitates and I tilt my head. "Come on, I have something to show you."
"You do?" Her forehead furrows.
"You need to see this."
She blows out a breath and follows me. I head inside, to the bedroom, take my collar from where I’d placed it on the bedstead. I slip it on, then turn to find her poised at the doorway.
Her face pales; her jaw drops.
"You’re a…a—"
"Priest." I nod.
"B…but," she opens and shuts her mouth, "you weren’t wearing a collar at the wedding yesterday."
"I’m a diocesan priest. I wear the collar when I have anything pastoral to do. I don't usually wear it when out with friends."
"I see." She shrugs off her blanket, folds it over her arm.
Her gaze skitters away. "I knew it was too good to be true.
Of course, it is." She retreats into the living room, drops the blanket and her book on the couch and begins to pace. "I mean, just once, things couldn’t be easy for me, right? Everything has to be complicated. Just this once, couldn’t things have worked out the way they do for everyone else?
Of course, not." She throws up her hands. "This is not fair, not fair at all."
"Are you…" I follow her as she stomps back-forth-back, across the length of the floor of the living room. "Are you talking to yourself?"
"Shh.” She turns to me and frowns. "I’m trying to figure this out."
"By talking aloud?"
"Hey, don’t mock it until you try it. Did you know talking to yourself helps you organize your thoughts?" She shoves her purple-tipped hair back from her face.
Who dyes their hair purple? Ava does, that's who.
"According to psychologists, talking out loud to yourself helps you clarify your thoughts," she mumbles. "It helps to figure out what's important, and firm up any decisions you're contemplating."
"Ah," I allow my lips to tip up, "and what decision are you contemplating right now?"
She flushes. "I am not sure you want to know."
"Don’t I?"
To find out what happens next get Billionaire’s Sins HERE
Get Sinclair and Summer’s story in The Billionaire’s Fake Wife HERE
Want to be the first to find out about my NEWEST release? Join my newsletter HERE
Read an excerpt from mafia king
Karma
"Morn came and went—and came, and brought no day…"
Tears prick the back of my eyes. Goddamn Byron. Crept up on me when I am at my weakest. Not that I am a poetry addict, by any measure, but words are my jam.
The one consolation I have, that when everything else in the world is wrong, I can turn to them, and they’ll be there, friendly steady, waiting with open arms. And this particular poem had laced my blood, crawled into my gut when I’d first read it.
Darkness had folded into me like an insidious snake that raises its head when I least expect it.
Like now. I'd managed to give my bodyguard the slip and veered off my usual running route to reach Waterlow Park.
I look out on the still sleeping city of London, from the grassy slope of the expanse. Somewhere out there the Mafia was hunting me, apparently.
I purse my lips, close my eyes. Silence. The rustle of the wind between the leaves, the faint tinkle of the water from the nearby spring.