Total pages in book: 101
Estimated words: 93482 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 467(@200wpm)___ 374(@250wpm)___ 312(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 93482 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 467(@200wpm)___ 374(@250wpm)___ 312(@300wpm)
“How do you know my name?” she asked again, this time a bit more forcefully, more demandingly. It was like being yelled at by a kitten.
“I know a lot of things, my little angel,” I said.
Her nervous fidgeting had turned into pacing around the room. The gap in the sides of the shirt, formed by the longer tail and front hem, showed off her toned thighs, and I wondered how they would feel with my fingers digging into them while her ankles were on my shoulders.
I wasn’t sure, but I planned to find out… eventually.
As she moved, I got glimpses of those white cotton panties again, and my cock stirred with interest. I ignored it, just as I had ignored her question. Her affecting me was not part of the plan, so I simply could not allow it to happen.
I needed to focus. Once she was gone, I had work to do.
“Tell me,” she demanded again, and I watched her stomp her foot in anger as if that would solve anything.
“Give me a moment, and I will escort you out. I am sure your mother is looking for you. No doubt needing you to find more ornaments to buy.”
“Tell me,” she repeated, and I said nothing.
I picked up my Roman collar. I detested this thing when I first wore it. It chafed and felt unnatural. Sometimes, it still felt suffocating, but once I realized its rules could be ignored and the power it gave me was worth the discomfort, I grew to tolerate it.
I slipped the white collar into place before returning to my little damsel in distress.
She stared at me, her eyes open wide, and even her mouth hung open, showing me just how lush her lips were.
“You’re a…?”
“You expected God himself to come down and save you?” I raised an eyebrow at her. “You were assaulted in the alleyway behind the church. This church has the small rectory with the entrance in that alley.”
I had been given the option of other accommodations; there were a few clergy houses nearby, and hardly anyone lived here. Most did not like the dark subterranean levels, but I loved it. These rooms were decorated, showing off the true luxury and wealth the Catholic Church possessed.
Everything was made with the highest-quality materials, including rich woods, lush velvets, and silks. The furniture was heavy, made to last generations by master artisans. It wasn’t the bright, airy, modern decadence that spoke of minimalism and taste but of old-world decadence.
I may have taken a vow of poverty—that I ignored as freely as every other vow I was forced to take—but I was still a Manwarring, and that demanded a certain lifestyle.
“I… but… you… in the other room.” Rose was opening and closing her mouth, a single word occasionally making it through.
“Angel, if you want me to answer your questions, I’ll need you to put a full sentence together. If not, let’s return you to where you belong. Somewhere without dirty alleys and Irish thugs, no doubt.”
“But you’re a priest.”
CHAPTER 7
THOMAS
Iwasn’t the least bit surprised when I got the call from Mary Quinn’s assistant inviting me to her home for tea. The assistant informed me that Mrs. Astrid would like to discuss how the Astrid family could further contribute to the winter programs held at the church.
It made perfect sense that was the excuse she would use.
Between Mary Quinn’s currently slightly bruised reputation and my new assignment at the church of the New York elite, the call should have come moments after I stepped off the plane. But Mary Quinn, ever the strategist, wanted to make it seem like she didn’t need me. Or, better yet, that she would pretend that she had only just heard through the grapevine—and not her spies—who the new priest was, and she felt the need to reach out and offer a helping hand.
I couldn’t wait to take that hand and use it to drag her through hell and back again.
There was no doubt in my mind that Mary Quinn wanted a look at me, to bask in what she thought was a personal triumph. Her ruin would be all the sweeter for it.
Or maybe she really wanted to help. Not for altruistic purposes, of course, but I had heard from other priests and the maids employed at my father’s house that Mary Quinn’s reputation had taken almost as much of a beating as her ego.
Things started falling apart publicly for her a few years back. One daughter leaving her fiancé at the altar to marry another man was one thing. For that embarrassment, she could be forgiven—mostly because it provided entertainment and gossip.
But to then publicly announce the engagement of her son to a society woman, just to have him dump her and immediately marry a girl who came from nothing?
Worse than that, he snubbed that socialite for his paralegal. Which, in the minds of other society women, might as well have been Harrison Astrid publicly marrying his secretary and thereby implying that it was acceptable for their husbands to leave them for the tarts that blew their husbands for “stress relief” at work.