Praise for Tiffany Reisz

‘The Siren is one of those books which has the amazing ability to create the scene in full colour in your mind’s eye—this is no small skill on the author’s part.’ http://carasutra.co.uk/

‘A beautiful, lyrical story … The Siren is about love lost and found, the choices that make us who we are … I can only hope Ms Reisz pens a sequel!’ —Bestselling author Jo Davis

‘The Original Sinners series certainly lives up to its name: it’s mind-bendingly original and crammed with more sin than you can shake a hot poker at. I haven’t read a book this dangerous and subversive since Chuck Palahniuk’s Fight Club.’ —Andrew Shaffer, author of Great Philosophers Who Failed at Love

‘Tiffany Reisz is a smart, artful and masterful new voice in erotic fiction. An erotica star on the rise!’

—Award-winning author Lacey Alexander

‘Daring, sophisticated and literary … exactly what good erotica should be.’

—Kitty Thomas, author of Tender Mercies

‘Dazzling, devastating and sinfully erotic, Reisz writes unforgettable characters you’ll either want to know or want to be. The Siren is an alluring book-within-a-book, a story that will leave you breathless and bruised, aching for another chapter with Nora Sutherlin and her men.’ —Miranda Baker, author of Bottoms Up and Soloplay

‘The best erotica either leaves slut-marks on your back or a bruise on your heart. The Siren does both and I wish I’d written it.’ —Scarlett Parrish, author of By the Book

‘You will most definitely feel strongly for these characters … This was an amazing story and I’m so happy that it’s not over. I can’t wait to jump back into Nora’s world.’

http://ladysbookstuff.blogspot.co.uk

TIFFANY REISZ’s books inhabit a sexy, shadowy world where erotica, romance and gothic literature meet and do immoral and possibly illegal things to each other. The first book in her international bestselling series The Original Sinners was named the RT 2012 Reviewers’ Choice Award for Best Erotic Romance. She is a very bad Catholic. Visit her website, www.tiffanyreisz.com for news, gossip and wholly inappropriate bedtime stories.

Also by Tiffany Reisz:

The Original Sinners: The Red Years

THE SIREN

THE ANGEL

THE PRINCE

THE MISTRESS

The Original Sinners: The White Years

THE SAINT

THE KING

eBook Novellas

THE MISTRESS FILES

SEVEN-DAY LOAN

IMMERSED IN PLEASURE

SUBMIT TO DESIRE

LITTLE RED RIDING CROP

eBook Cosmo Red Hot Reads

MISBEHAVING

The Virgin

Tiffany Reisz

www.spice-books.co.uk

Dedicated to Dr. Mark Lucas, who told me I could write.

So I did.

Contents

Cover

Praise

About the Author

Booklist

Title Page

Dedication

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

11

12

13

14

15

16

17

18

19

20

21

22

23

24

25

26

27

28

29

30

31

32

33

34

35

36

37

Extract

Copyright

1

2015 Scotland

“IT WAS A dark and stormy night,” Nora said as she came to stand next to Søren at the window. She gazed out on the summer storm tearing up the Scottish sky.

“Please tell me that isn’t the first line to your next book.”

“Oh, but it’s such a good first line. Classic even.” She tucked her hand into his and watched the light show with him. Wind and rain lashed the trees and the moors. A flash of lightning set the night afire for a split second and the hills revealed their colors before fading into black again. “How about this—‘It was a dark and stormy night in the castle, and a woman named Nora was determined to seduce her priest.’”

Søren smiled slightly.

“An improvement. A minor improvement.”

“Everyone’s a critic.” Nora squeezed his hand, and he lifted it to his lips for a kiss. He’d arrived this morning but she’d been so busy with her work here that they hadn’t had more than five minutes together. At last the day was done, her work was over until tomorrow, and they could hold hands and simply be.

“Do I want to know what you’re thinking?” Nora asked him.

“Merely watching the storm,” he said, but she could tell he had something on his mind, on his heart. They both did.

Tomorrow was the big day... Everything between her and Søren would change tomorrow. It was happening finally and there was no going back.

“Are you nervous about tomorrow?” she asked.

“Should I be?”

“I am,” she admitted. “Big day for us.”

“I’m at peace,” he said. “Although I will admit the peace is hard-won.”

“We’ve waited a long time to do this.”

“It’s time now,” he said. “We’ve waited long enough.”

A clap of thunder interrupted their conversation and together they peered into the storm outside the oriel window.

“What are you thinking?” Nora asked.

“Thinking about Job, chapter thirty-eight,” he said. “It’s every priest’s dream to have God come and speak to him face-to-face. Even if it is to tell him how little he knows about the world. Storms always remind me of those verses. God says, ‘Have you ever given orders to the morning, or shown the dawn its place?’”

Nora looked up at the sky. “‘Can you raise your voice to the clouds / and cover yourself with a flood of water? / Do you send lightning bolts on their way? / Do they report to you / Here we are.’”

“It’s comforting to know God is so powerful. Comforting to know we aren’t,” Søren said.

Perhaps only a priest could find comfort in his powerlessness. Perhaps only Søren.

“Are you coming to bed?” she asked Søren.

“Not yet. I won’t be ready to sleep for hours.”

In Scotland, it was nine-thirty. In New Orleans, where they’d been living for the past two years, it was half past three in the afternoon.

“Who said anything about sleeping?” she asked.

Søren arched his eyebrow.

“Well, in that case...” Søren turned from the window and cupped her face with his hands. He kissed her on the lips, softly at first, a slight kiss meant to arouse and torment. Ever so slowly he deepened the kiss. As much as she wanted to, Nora didn’t rush the moment. She’d been away from him for five weeks—four weeks spent with Nico at his vineyard and another week here in Scotland making the final preparations for tomorrow. Leaving Søren for any extended period of time was much like this kiss—a torture and a tease. Being away from him hurt, always. But the reunion at the end of the separation made every second apart worth the price.

He took her hands in his and brought them up and around his neck. His arms encircled her back and he drew her to him, deepening the kiss. The heat of his body warmed her to the core. She kissed his lips, his chin, his ear and his neck. He’d abandoned his collar for traveling and tonight wore only black trousers, black jacket and a white button-down shirt open at the neck. She pressed her lips into the hollow of his throat, a hollow made for her kisses.

And the moment when the kiss was perfect, everything she wanted and needed from him, she heard from behind her a small cough.

“Ms. Sutherlin?”

“God fucking dammit.” Nora growled the words, and dropped her head to the center of Søren’s chest.

“Eleanor, you’re scaring the waitstaff,” Søren said.

She turned and faced the interrupter, a young woman holding a bouquet of flowers. Her name might be Bonnie, or maybe she was just “bonnie” in the Scottish sense of pretty. Nora didn’t know and didn’t care.

“Miss, you’ve signed the nondisclosure agreement, haven’t you?” Nora asked. Kingsley was treating tomorrow like a celebrity wedding with ironclad nondisclosure agreements for everyone even remotely involved. Even she’d had to sign one.

“Yes, ma’am?” The girl made everything she said into a question.

“Good. This man is a Catholic priest. We’ve been sleeping together since I was twenty. I’m sure you can imagine it’s not easy being the mistress of a Catholic priest. We don’t get to spend nearly the amount of time together we’d like to. In fact, I haven’t seen him in five weeks. Admittedly that’s because I was sleeping with someone else most of the time, but that’s neither here nor there. As you can see, my priest here is possibly the most handsome man in the world, although I am admittedly biased. He’s also kinky, well-hung and you’ve just interrupted the kiss I’ve been waiting for all day. So please tell me this interruption is more important than that kiss was.”

“Your dress is here. We hung it in your room. You told me to tell you when it arrived and to interrupt you no matter what you were doing even if you were, as you said, ‘blowing the pope.’ Also, these arrived for you earlier today. They were accidentally put away with the wedding flowers,” the girl said, passing the bouquet to Nora.

“Oh.” Nora tapped her foot on the stone floor. “How nice.”

“Eleanor...” Søren made her name into a threat.

“And sorry about the, you know, well-hung priest rant there,” Nora said. “Pre-wedding jitters.”

“It’s fine, ma’am,” the girl who was either bonnie or Bonnie said. “If he was kissing me, I’d be bloody pissed off to be interrupted, too. Catholic priest?”

“No comment,” Søren said.

“We had a priest like you when I was a girl,” she said. “We called him Father What-A-Waste. Glad you’re not going to waste.”

The girl bobbed a slightly sarcastic curtsy and sauntered off.

“Is it weird I kind of want to fuck her now?” Nora asked. “Castles makes me so horny.”

“Little One?”

“Yes, sir?” She turned back to face him.

“Who are your flowers from?”

“No idea,” she said. She looked through the small but exquisite posy of white roses, pink hydrangeas and green Cymbidium orchids until she found the small ivory card. She opened it up and read aloud,

“Dear Mistress,

I’m sorry I have to miss your wedding tomorrow but I never attend weddings where I’m not allowed to kiss the bride. Think of me during the ceremony—and on the wedding night. Love, Your Nico”

“Very kind of him,” Søren said, smiling.

“He’s a smart-ass like his father,” Nora said. She tucked the card back into the envelope. “Now, where were we?”

“Here, I think,” Søren said as he brought his arms around her waist and pulled her to him. He dropped gentle but hungry kisses along her neck.

“Oh yes, that’s where we were.”

“It’s been too long since I’ve had the pleasure of beating you and putting you in your place.” He whispered the words in her ear, and she shivered. “Do you even remember your place?”

“Underneath you, my sir,” she said. “Or wherever you tell me it is.”

“Very good answer.”

He tapped her under the chin and she smiled. She did so love to please him. Collaring Nico two years ago and making him her property had been the best thing she could have done for her relationship with Søren. At the time she and Nico became lovers, she’d been running on pure instinct and grief and need. She’d gone to Nico searching for something she was missing and found it with him. Once she had a submissive of her own, her own personal property collared and owned, she fully grasped Søren’s love for her. Owning Nico had filled up a void in her that not even Søren’s love—boundless as it was—could fill. She hadn’t cleaned up her act, hadn’t reformed. She hadn’t turned over a new leaf. Nora Sutherlin did not turn over leaves—new or otherwise. But for the past two years she’d had only two lovers—Søren and Nico—and wanted and needed no one else in her bed or her heart. It might be the closest she would ever get to monogamy.

Kingsley was already taking bets on how long it would last.

Søren took her by the hand and led her down the long ancient hallway. Portraits of noble Scotsmen, dead for centuries, followed their progress as they walked the faded crimson carpet and took a set of stone stairs to the next floor. Lightning created mad shadows in the castle. A suit of armor seemed to move with one flash of light. A portrait of a young noblewoman with pre-Raphaelite hair winked at Nora. The long-dead princess must have guessed what Nora and Søren had planned. Her smile was one of approval. Envy even. Nora didn’t blame the lady. Who wouldn’t want a night in Søren’s bed?

The wink reminded Nora of someone she knew long ago. And the castle reminded her of somewhere she’d once run away to and hidden herself. The abbey. Her mother’s abbey. The gray stone walls, the wandering hallways and the portraits like icons. The sound of her feet on the stone floors brought to mind that year she’d lived in her mother’s convent. Not quite a full year but close enough. Close enough that she thought of it always as “that year.”

She pushed thoughts of the past away. The present was a far more pleasant moment. Through an arched wooden door they entered their bedroom. The fire in the fireplace was dead, but no matter. Linen sheets and silk pillows invited them to the bed. They needed only each other for warmth now.

Søren left her standing by the bed as he lit the bedside oil lamp for light and the candles on the fireplace mantel for ambience. Nora slipped out of her shoes and let her feet sink into the soft woven rug that covered the stone floor. She put her flowers in the ice bucket, which made for a perfect makeshift vase. Displaying them on the table by the bed might be a little too much even for Søren so she set them on the fireplace mantel instead.

“We’ve never made love in a castle before, have we?” Nora asked as she turned from arranging her flowers to gaze around the room. She walked from the great stone fireplace to the hanging blue-and-red tapestries on the wall adorned with unicorns, dragons and knights.

“Belgium,” Søren said as he strode to the bed, carrying a box in one hand and something long, thin and wrapped in fabric in the other. He snapped his fingers and she jogged to his side.

Nora smiled at the memory of a long-ago journey through Europe they’d taken together. An anniversary gift from Kingsley.

“We’ll always have Belgium. And what was her name?”

“Odette.” Søren opened the box that held her collar.

“Oh yes. That was it. She was fun, wasn’t she?” While in Belgium, she and Søren had toured a little brewery and had met a beautiful Swiss translator named Odette. During the tasting, Odette had flirted shamelessly with them both—she and Søren had dueled over who knew more languages. Søren won, but just barely. After the tour, Odette had come back with them to their hotel room in a renovated castle. Nora had been young then, only twenty-four, and had never been that intimate with a woman. Søren hadn’t touched Odette, but he’d certainly enjoyed watching the two of them together that night.

“You’re smiling, Little One.” Søren brought her collar around her neck and locked it on. While his fingers were at her throat he toyed with the necklace she wore always these days. It had three charms on it—two rings engraved with the words Everything and Forever and a small silver locket Nico had given her as a token of his adoration. They made a gentle clinking sound like tiny wind chimes when she moved.

“Good memories,” she said. “So many good memories I’ve forgotten some of them.”

“Speaking of memories, I have a gift for you. A gift in memory of something.”

“You don’t have to give me anything,” she said, keeping her eyes low, respectful, submissive.

“I know,” he said with that touch of arrogance she’d always loved and loathed in equal measure. “But it was time I gave you this.”

He held up the bundle still covered in its fabric wrapping.

“What is it?”

“You’ll find out. But you have to earn your gift first.”

“It’s not a gift if I have to earn it,” she reminded him.

“Then we’ll call it a ‘prize.’”

“How do I earn my prize?”

“Trial by fire.”

“You are in a mood tonight, aren’t you?” she asked. “Sir?”

“Do you accept the challenge?” he asked, his eyebrow cocked, his smile tight but amused. She was thirty-eight years old, and she had loved Søren since she was fifteen...and yet...after all this time he could still scare the shit out of her.

God, she loved him.

“Yes, sir,” she said. “I want my prize.”

Søren cupped her face again, kissed her lips again.

“I already have my prize.” He kissed her on the forehead.

She stood unmoving and made no protest as Søren stripped her naked. He unbuttoned her blouse and slid it off her arms. Under her shirt she wore a black corset, which he took an unnecessary amount of time unlacing. The more eager she was to have him inside her, the longer he took getting there. Her own fault for falling in love with a sadist, not that she regretted it. He unzipped her leather skirt and pushed it over her hips and down her legs. His fingers on her bare skin as he unhooked her stockings set her to shivering, even more when he tickled the bottoms of her feet as he pulled them off.

If she hadn’t loved Søren before, she would fall in love with him again for looking at her thirty-eight-year-old body with the same desire that had once gazed on her naked seventeen-year-old form. She’d never suffered from a lack of self-esteem and had, more than once—rightly—been accused of being egotistical. A woman who took money from men for the privilege of letting them worship her had to have more than her fair share of confidence. But finding herself so much closer to forty than thirty had taken a little getting used to. Time had only increased Søren’s beauty. The gray in his hair could barely be distinguished from the blond. The years had sharpened his features, scraped off the rough edges, and sculpted him into a man worthy of all the respect and love she had to give him. She had an older man to adore and a younger man who adored her.

Life was good.

“Someone’s quiet,” Søren said as he lifted her off her feet and laid her onto the bed on her back. The linen sheets tickled her, made her aware of every nerve in her body. “Are you nervous?”

“I was thinking about tomorrow.”

“‘Do not worry about tomorrow for tomorrow will worry about itself,’” Søren said.

“Yes, Father Stearns. I’ve read Matthew, too.”

Søren set a basin on the nightstand by the bed and soaked a small white towel in the water.

“Good. Now stop worrying and hold still while I set you on fire.”

Nora held still.

Fire-play wasn’t so much about pain as it was fear. Fear and its mirror twin—trust. She closed her eyes while Søren painted her stomach with an ice-cold gel that smelled of rubbing alcohol. He took each of her wrists and buckled them one by one to the headboard with leather cuffs.

Søren lifted the candle off the bedside table and moved it slowly up and down her body six inches or less from her skin. When he inflicted his sadism on her, he did so intently, with respect for the act and respect for her willingness to serve him. Playing with fire was dangerous and it was rare when Søren asked her to submit to this sort of edge-play. She knew him. When anxious, troubled or under stress, he centered himself with sadism. He could pretend he wasn’t worried about tomorrow, but she knew better. It was on his mind as much as hers.

Outside the castle, the storm battered the windows and the walls. But the eye of the storm was their bed. All was quiet if not calm. Søren brought the flame to the edge of the S and at once it flared into life.

Eleanor breathed in and didn’t exhale. She could see the fire, smell the bitter smoke, but strangely could not feel it. The fluid formed a barrier between the fire and her body. As if the fire was a tongue lapping at her skin. But it did scare her and it was real fear. Real fire meant real fear. Real fear meant Søren was burning in his own fire. His breaths were shallow with barely controlled desire. His eyes were all pupil now, black as night, and in the inky depths she could see the fire reflected. Not once did he look away from the flame and neither did she.

Søren stripped himself of his clothes even as he watched the fire burn itself out on her.

He wrote on her with the gel again, set it alight again and watched her burn again.

When the fire was nearly but not entirely out, Søren straddled her hips and stretched out on top of her, using his own body to snuff out the last of the fire. He was aroused, brutally hard, and she felt his erection pressing against her thighs. She opened her legs wide for him and pushed her hips into his. He entered her fully, sliding through her wetness all the way to the core of her. Nora pulled against the bonds on her wrists, moaned and exhaled as he pulled out and thrust into her again.

This was bliss. How she had missed him these weeks she’d been in Europe. She loved Nico, loved the days and especially the nights she spent with him at his vineyard. The rest of her time was Søren’s. Nico’s one true love was his vineyard, and the vineyard was a demanding and possessive mistress. And Nora’s one true love was Søren, who was a demanding and possessive master. She and Nico understood each other perfectly. She was a Dominant herself, and when she had Nico on his knees in front of her, his lips on her ankles, her welts on his back, that was Nora. But Nora was only one half of her.

“My Little One,” Søren said into her ear as he moved inside her, filling her. “My Eleanor.”

And Eleanor was the other half.

He kissed her breasts, sucking deep on the hard tips, and massaged her clitoris until the room filled with the sounds of her cries of pleasure, her cries for release. He didn’t let her come yet. He ordered her not to come. An impossible command. He was inside her, thick and heavy, pushing hard and deep. She spread her legs wider, dug her heels into the bed and breathed into her stomach as she staved off her building climax.

“Tell me you love me and I might let you come,” Søren said, punctuating the command with a rough thrust that made her flinch with both pain and pleasure.

“I love you, my sir, with all my heart.”

“Tell me you want me.”

“I want no one in the world as much as I want you. I love your body, your cock. I want you to come inside me. Please...”

“Tell me a secret you’ve never told me, and I’ll consider letting you come.”

“I fucked a nun at my mother’s convent,” Nora said, and Søren stopped moving. He pushed himself up and stared down at her.

“What?” she said, batting her eyelashes up at him in feigned innocence. “You asked.”

“Lesson learned.” He lowered himself onto her again and kissed her once more. The kiss was wild now, as wild as the night. He bit her lips, pushed his tongue into her mouth as he rammed into her with ruthless unforgiving thrusts. It was exactly what she needed. Her back arched and the muscles in her back coiled tight as a spring. She felt the ecstasy drawing together, pooling in her stomach. Then she rose and rose, higher and higher until she reached that throbbing peak and her body went still and stayed that way for one long perfect moment.

With a final cry, she came with a shudder that racked her entire body. She crashed back to earth with a thousand flutters of her inner muscles that left her shaking underneath Søren. He ignored her climax as he sought his own, thrusting into her faster and harder until he released at last, filling her with his heat.

Still coupled together Nora wrapped her legs around his back and relaxed her breathing. She loved this moment when she could feel the wild racing of his heart against hers. Bliss suffused her, peace and contentment. And then Søren spoke.

“You fucked a nun at your mother’s convent.”

“This is what you get for making me earn an orgasm by telling you a secret. It was the first thing that popped into my head.”

Søren pulled out of her and looked down at her again. Then he laughed, a bright big laugh, big as the castle. Even as he unlocked her wrists from the bed and chafed her hands that had grown cool while in bondage, he still laughed.

“I will never reach the end of you,” Søren said. “Every time I think I’ve seen it all, you lead me to a hidden door and open it.”

“In my defense,” Nora said, “she was beautiful, and I hadn’t had sex in a very long time.”

“When was this?” he asked as he slid off the bed and pulled his trousers back on. He didn’t bother with his shirt and that was fine by her.

“That year,” she said, and didn’t have to say anything else. Søren knew what “that year” was, what it meant. They didn’t talk about that year, never talked about that year. In fact, they did their best to pretend that year never happened.

“I see.”

“I’m sorry,” she said. “I didn’t mean to bring it up. I have no blood in my brain when you’re inside me.”

“I’m not angry.” Søren poured water into a porcelain basin and brought it to the bedside table. He dipped a white cloth into the water. With it he wiped the residue of candle wax off her body.

“I would have told you if you’d asked,” she said as Søren rinsed the cloth in the basin. She opened her legs for him and now he cleaned the semen off her vulva and inner thighs. “You never asked,” she reminded him.

“That was a hard year for all of us,” he said.

“I never asked you what you did while I was gone.”

“Suffered,” he said, meeting her eyes.

“Now I remember why I didn’t ask.”

“It sounds as if you didn’t suffer the entire time you were gone.”

“You know me. If I’m not having sex, I go a little crazy.”

“What’s your excuse the rest of the time then?” he asked and she play-punched him in the arm. He captured her by the wrists and kissed her again, entirely against her will. Well, mostly against. Partly. She pretended it was against her will anyway.

After he released her arms, she clambered out of the bed and found her suitcase. The castle was full of guests now, and all day she’d been working, answering questions, making decisions, putting all the finishing touches into place. If someone came knocking on her door—a distinct possibility—she should probably have some clothes on before she answered it. She slipped into a pair of black-and-white silk pajama pants and a matching lacy camisole top. She kept her collar on for no reason other than she’d missed it. From Nico she’d learned the fine art of starting a fire in a fireplace, and she went to work stacking her kindling.

“So do I get my prize?” she asked.

Before she could answer, the door flew open, the rusty hinges screaming in protest. Kingsley rushed in and slammed the door behind him.

“What the hell?” she said, standing up.

“You have to hide me,” Kingsley said, out of breath from running. “She’s after me.”

“Who? Céleste?” Nora asked. Kingsley and his daughter had been playing hide-and-seek all day in the castle.

“Juliette,” Kingsley said. He looked at Søren and said, “Take off your pants if you want me to live.”

“You’ve tried that line before,” Søren reminded him. “It didn’t work the last time you tried it, either.”

“I’m a dead man then,” Kingsley said, barring the door behind him.

“Why do you need Søren to take his pants off?” Nora asked. “I mean, other than the usual reason.”

Kingsley pointed down at himself.

“That’s why,” he said.

Nora looked at him. He wore a black shirt and had his hair pulled back in a ponytail. His feet were bare; he looked like a pirate or a rogue or both and none of this was unusual. Except for one thing. Every man in the wedding party had already been given their formal wear.

So instead of his usual clothes, Kingsley wore a kilt.

“Juliette has a kilt fetish?” Nora asked, now understanding Kingsley’s panic.

“A newly discovered kilt fetish,” Kingsley said. “She’s had me three times yesterday and three times today already—”

“You’re her Dominant,” Søren reminded him. “Satisfying her needs is your job.”

Kingsley ignored him. “She’s hunting me down for a fourth. I’m a man, not a machine. I feel violated, used...”

“You’re being melodramatic. You know you love it,” Søren said.

“Why does she keep calling me Connor in bed?” Kingsley asked.

“This explains why she’s always trying to make me watch Highlander with her,” Nora said as she stood up in front of the fireplace.

Nora looked at Søren and awaited his verdict.

“Please don’t make me go,” Kingsley said in a pleading tone. “I swear it’ll break off if she gets her hands on me again.”

Søren delivered his judgment.

“Throw him out.”

“You heard the man,” Nora said as she strode to the door, her feet tingling on the cold stone floor. “The priest has spoken.”

“I’ll be dead by morning,” Kingsley said, pressing his back to the door.

“We’ll miss you very much.” Nora reached past him for the door bar. “I have my collar on. I have to follow orders.”

“I’ll beg for my life. How’s that?” Kingsley looked straight at Søren.

“Beg then,” Søren said as he dug through his suitcase and pulled out a T-shirt. He was a cruel man and putting on clothes was the most sadistic of all the many cruelties he inflicted on his lovers. “I’d like to hear this.”

“He’s in a mood,” Nora said to Kingsley. “I had to beg for my orgasm.”

“I can beg. I’ll beg.”

Nora crossed her arms and waited. She hoped Kingsley would find a way to earn his way into staying. She’d missed him too these past few weeks she’d been gone.

“S’il vous plaît, mon ami, mon amour, mon coeur, mon maître, mon monstre, I will do anything if you let me stay. Anything at all.”

“Anything?” Søren repeated. “Define anything.”

Kingsley looked at Nora then he crooked his finger at Søren.

Søren sighed and walked over to Kingsley, who cupped his face and whispered something. Nora strained to hear what Kingsley said to Søren, but his voice was too low and his French too rapid. But whatever he said must have been good. Søren’s eyes widened.

Søren met her eyes. “He can stay.”

“Merci, mon amant.” Kingsley took Søren’s face in his hands and kissed him first on each cheek and then on the mouth. Nora rolled her eyes. “You have saved me. Bless you.”

Kingsley released Søren, walked to the fireplace and warmed his feet and hands. It was spring in Scotland and the castle was drafty. She almost felt sorry for all the men running around in kilts. Their pain. Her gain.

“It’s good you’re here anyway,” Nora said as she returned to her suitcase. “I have something from Nico for you.”

She pulled a bottle of wine out of her suitcase and a small envelope.

“‘Rosanella Petite Syrah, 2004,’” Kingsley read the label aloud. “I have such a good son.”

“He says it’s the best vintage so far. He sent six bottles with me.”

“We’ll save it for the reception tomorrow then.” Kingsley opened the envelope and pulled out a sheet of paper. Nora peeked over Kingsley’s shoulder. Reading French wasn’t her strong suit but even she knew enough to recognize the words With love from your son, Nico. Kingsley grinned at the note before folding it again and slipping it into his sporran. “He’s inviting us all to the vineyard’s one-hundred-year anniversary fête this fall. He says it wouldn’t be a real celebration without me, Juliette and Céleste there.”

“You better go then,” Nora said. “You wouldn’t want to ruin his party.” Her relationship with Nico hadn’t been easy for Kingsley to accept at first. He’d never been angry with her, not really, but he’d struggled as they all had, herself included. But after some time, some talking, Kingsley had given them his blessing. While Kingsley had loved his son from the moment he knew of his existence, Nico rebelled at the idea of accepting any man but the man who’d raised him as his father. But Nora had served as a bridge between father and son, and step by step, story by story she’d led Nico by the hand to Kingsley’s side. Kingsley had Juliette as his submissive, Søren as his Dominant. He didn’t need Nora in his bed anymore for either purpose. What Kingsley needed far more was his son’s love, and that Nora had given him.

“Thank you for this,” Kingsley said, folding up the invitation and tucking it back in the envelope. She knew he wasn’t thanking her simply for delivering the mail.

“My pleasure,” Nora said, and kissed him on the cheek.

“So what will we do tonight?” Kingsley asked as he left the heat of the fireplace and walked to the window. Outside the storm continued its assault on the castle. “Tell ghost stories? It’s a good night for it.”

“Perhaps Eleanor would be willing to tell us about the time she, and I quote, ‘fucked a nun’ at her mother’s convent,” Søren said, sitting on the bed and stacking a large red pillow behind his back.

“You fucked a nun at your mother’s convent?” Kingsley asked, turning back to stare at her askance. “When did that happen?”

“That year,” Nora said, and Kingsley winced. He knew what she meant, as well.

“And you never told me?” Kingsley asked.

“How is me sleeping with a nun any of your business?”

“Because it’s you sleeping with a nun,” Kingsley said with dramatic emphasis. “That is the very definition of my business. I need to know what she looked like, her name, if she had small breasts or large. Do you have pictures of her and you together? And can you tell me exactly what you did with her in detail while I take notes?”

“I could,” Nora said. “I’m not going to.”

“I could order you to,” Søren said, and Nora groaned.

“You’re as bad as he is,” she said, pointing a finger at Kingsley. “You’re perverts, the both of you. J’accuse.”

Kingsley nodded. “J’accepte.”

“That was a really hard year for all of us,” Nora said. “And it was twelve years ago. Can you give me one good reason why we should dredge all of that up tonight?”

“I can,” Kingsley said. “Because you fucked a nun. C’est la raison.”

Nora put a hand to her forehead. “Dear Lord, save me from these men tonight.”

“I would like to know,” Søren said, and the room went still and solemn with the tenor of his words. “Neither of you ever told me what happened that year you both were gone.”

“Maybe because you don’t want to know,” Nora said as she walked to the bed and crawled into it on the side opposite Søren. She pulled a pillow to her stomach and sat cross-legged. “You weren’t our favorite person that year, after all.”

“I wasn’t my favorite person that year, either,” Søren said, bending his leg to rest his arm on his knee. Kingsley came to the bed and stretched out at the foot, lying on his side to face them. “You both had disappeared on me and when you came back, everything had changed.”

“I met Juliette,” Kingsley said. “That’s what I did that year.”

“You’ve never told me how,” Søren said. “And you—” he looked at Nora “—never told me why you came back.”

“Do you really want to know?” she asked, meeting his eyes. “We’re happy now, all of us.” She glanced at Kingsley and back at Søren.

“Ignorance is a poor excuse for bliss,” Søren said, looking pointedly at her. “Tell me what happened.”

Nora turned her head and looked into Kingsley’s dark brown eyes. They stared at each other for a long quiet moment. She’d never told Kingsley what had happened when she’d left Søren. And Kingsley had never told her. In her more honest moments she’d admit she was curious what Kingsley did in that time and why he’d left when she had.

“That sounded like an order,” Nora said to Kingsley.

“It was,” Kingsley said, as accustomed to following Søren’s orders now as she.

“Who starts?” she asked him.

“You left first,” Kingsley said to Nora. The playfulness had left his demeanor. She saw the dark light of secrets in his eyes.

“You left after me, though. Why?”

“You don’t know?” Kingsley said.

“No. I was afraid to ask,” Nora confessed. “I thought...I thought all kinds of things that year. I think I went a little crazy for a while. But I guess you would too if you were trapped in a convent surrounded by nuns with nothing but your thoughts to keep you company.”

“And a nun in your bed,” Kingsley reminded her.

“And yes, there was a nun in my bed,” Nora said with a sigh.

“This is my favorite story already,” Kingsley said. “Go on.”

Nora took a breath, got comfortable with the sheets and pillow.

“Well...” she began. “It was a dark and stormy night...”

“Eleanor,” Søren said.

“It was,” she said. “I’m not making that up. That night we fought, it was dark and stormy, remember?”

Søren nodded. “I remember. Go on.”

Nora closed her eyes, let herself drift back to that night, that terrible night and that year, that dark and stormy year.

She was twenty-six years old.

Søren had just returned home from Rome.

And she was in the worst pain of her life.

“It was a dark and stormy night,” Nora began again, opening her eyes to look at Søren. He returned her gaze with placid, waiting curiosity. “And I was leaving you. Forever.”

2

2003 New York City

THIS IS NOT a drill.

This is not a drill.

Elle repeated those words in her mind as she wove between the dawn-weary commuters at Penn Station.

This is not a drill.

She wanted to walk faster, but she couldn’t. Pausing by a trash can, she held the wire rim of it with both hands and breathed through her nose. A cramp twisted in her stomach and nausea hit her like a bus. The sickness passed quickly. Five hours since she last threw up. Her nausea ebbed. Her panic crested.

This is not a drill.

Standing up straight she strode forward again, tucking a loose strand of black hair under the Mets cap she’d bought at a gift shop. She didn’t watch baseball often, although Griffin had taken her to a few games this season. He would never have forgiven her if she’d bought a Yankees hat. Then again, she would probably never see him again so what did it matter?

But still, it mattered.

Every few steps, temptation whispered to her, telling her to turn around, look around... She wasn’t paranoid. But what was it Joseph Heller had said? It’s not paranoia if they’re really out to get you? By now Kingsley had surely sent the troops out looking for her, and this was the first place they’d look. It might have been a mistake coming here. This had been the plan though, the only plan she had.

This is not a drill.

Twice a year, every year, Kingsley had run her through the drill.

“There are five possible scenarios that would force you to run,” Kingsley had warned her each time they’d run through the drill. “I want you to be ready.”

The first time she’d been twenty years old. She and Søren had been lovers for only a few months. That was reason number one for the drill, scenario number one.

“He’s a priest, chérie, and you’re his lover now. You get caught in bed with him, and your world will explode. If that happens, the best thing you can do for him is run,” Kingsley had said, his tone solemn and sober. He meant it.

“I’m not running away from Søren,” she’d said. “Not now. Not ever. Especially not when he needs me the most.”

“Your willingness to martyr yourself will only make things worse. Journalists are sharks, and the last thing we need is a feeding frenzy. This isn’t an option, Elle. This is an order. From him and from me. Scenario number one—if you and le prêtre get caught, you run.”

An order was an order. Søren had told her to do whatever Kingsley told her to do. Everything within her had rebelled at the idea of running away if and when she and Søren were caught, but she belonged to him—she’d sworn to obey him. Because of that vow, her decisions were not hers to make. Søren had decreed it—if the outside world found out about them, she would leave town. Immediately.

But that’s not why she was here now hiding her hair under a baseball cap and walking as fast as the pain and the nausea would allow.

Scenario number two scared her more than the possibility of scenario number one.

“I know dangerous people, Elle, and they might kill me someday. They might take me captive. It’s happened before,” Kingsley had said, and she recalled the scars on his body, his chest and his wrists. “You two are the most important people in the world to me and that means they’ll come after you two if they want to hurt me. If something happens to me, if anything happens to me, you go. You and Søren both. Together. Apart. I don’t care. You go.”

He’d meant it, and by now she knew how true those words were. He already had four bullet wounds on his body from four other attempts on his life. He had an in with every Mafia family in New York. He had reams of blackmail material on every politician in the tristate area. He could get the Prime Minister of Canada on the phone with one call, US senators, and billionaire CEOs. He knew too much and that made him a target. Elle had been Kingsley’s lover since she was twenty years old—Kingsley’s and Søren’s. She knew much of what Kingsley knew and that made her a target, too.

But scenario two was not why she left, either.

Scenario three seemed unlikely, but Kingsley insisted on preparing her for it. If Søren died for any reason—motorcycle accident, sudden illness or foul play, she would need to get out of town. Fast. The rectory wasn’t private property. It belonged to the church and the moment he was gone, his home would be flooded with the grieving and the curious. Even worse, a new priest would arrive to take over the church. Søren’s personal effects would be gone through, his private life uncovered. It might happen before Kingsley could get someone to clean the house out. Even now, a large trunk sat at the foot of his bed. If anyone unlocked it, opened it and pulled the stacks of linens aside, they would find floggers, whips, canes and—most damning of all—photographs. They were of her, of course. A famous burlesque photographer who frequented Kingsley’s clubs had been dying to photograph her since he first saw her. The black hair, the curves, those eyes, he’d said. According to him, she was Bettie Page reborn. She’d posed for a nude photo spread for him and given Søren the pictures for his thirty-seventh birthday. They were beautiful pictures—black-and-white, tasteful, not pornographic. But undeniably erotic. They were signed “As Always Beloved, Your Eleanor,” and they sat in that steamer trunk anyone with a crowbar could open. A priest hiding naked pictures of a woman wouldn’t be much of a scandal. But a priest hiding naked pictures of his lover, who also attended his church and had since she was born, would ruin his legacy and possibly her life.

Søren was the healthiest man she knew, however. And he was careful on his Ducati. And who would murder a priest? He had no enemies as far as she knew. She pitied anyone who would go up against Søren. She’d merely nodded at Kingsley when he told her she would need to run if something happened to Søren. It would never happen. And she was right. Nothing bad had happened to Søren.

So that’s not why she’d left.

Scenario number four had also seemed preposterous when Kingsley had been training her for this moment.

“You could get pregnant,” Kingsley had said. “Try not to do that. But if it happens, leave town before you start to show.”

“I’m not going to get pregnant,” she’d said, rolling her eyes. Nothing was going to get in the way of her life with Søren. Not a scandal, not the press, not the church and definitely not a kid.

And then it had happened. But it wasn’t Søren’s and it wasn’t why she left. Not entirely.

Finally Elle found a bank of rental lockers and pulled out her keys. Locker number 1312 was three up and four over. She unlocked it and pulled out a black leather duffel bag.

Twelve times she and Kingsley had run through the drill. Twice a year for six years. She was required to go the station, get the duffel bag and make it to one of Kingsley’s safe houses in less than twelve hours. Now at twenty-six years old, Elle, for the first time in six years, realized how right Kingsley had been. She wished she’d paid more attention to his warnings.

“Scenario number five...” Kingsley had paused before speaking again. That pause had scared her.

“Scenario number five,” Kingsley began again. “If Søren crosses a line, loses control, goes too far and—”

“No,” she’d answered him the first time they’d run through this drill. “That won’t happen.”

“It might happen. It can happen. And you need to be ready for it.”

“I know him, King. He loves me. He won’t lose control with me.”

With more compassion than she expected Kingsley to have left in his scarred heart, he’d cupped her face and forced her to meet his eyes.

“He hurt me so much after our first time together, I vomited on the ground after he was done with me. I passed blood for three days. My body wasn’t bruised. My body was a bruise.”

“You liked it.”

Kingsley smiled at her, a smile that scared her. “You won’t.”

“He was seventeen then. He’s an adult now—”

“He’s more dangerous today than he was back then. He’s better trained, but don’t mistake well trained for tame. He is anything but tame.”

“He’s not like that anymore.”

“I told you the first night you and I spoke that your shepherd was a wolf. He is a wolf on a leash and that leash might break someday. When that happens, you take care of yourself. I’ll take care of him.”

“It won’t happen.” She’d whispered the lie, and it had been a lie because it had already happened. She hadn’t told Kingsley about that morning in the shower when the wolf had come off the leash. She’d wanted to, tried to...but the words never quite made out of her mouth. Shame was a foreign concept to her until that morning.

But surely Søren would never do it again.

Elle didn’t take the time to unzip the duffel bag and check its contents. She already knew what was in it.

A passport.

Five thousand dollars cash.

Credit cards that Kingsley could track to find her if she couldn’t get to any of his safe houses.

Three changes of clothes and toiletries.

A can of mace on a key chain.

A Swiss Army knife.

A wig to change her appearance.

Keys to the safe houses—one in Canada, one in Maine, one in Seattle.

A mobile phone and charger.

Beneath the duffel bag sat a black permanent marker. The marker was there for one reason only.

“I might be out of the country when it happens,” Kingsley had said, the “it” being whatever scenario had occurred that meant Elle would need to flee.

“Write a number inside the locker so I know why you went. And know this...if it’s number five, don’t go to any of the safe houses.”

“Why not?” she’d asked.

“Because whether I want to or not, I’ll help him find you if he asks. And if I’m helping him find you, I’ll find you.”

She’d shivered then, because he was telling the truth. Søren had Kingsley’s loyalty and his love. Even if Kingsley believed she was fleeing for the right reasons, he wouldn’t be able to stop himself from helping Søren find her.

“What do I do?” she’d ask. “If I can’t go to a safe house, where do I go?”

“I can’t tell you that. You’re as smart as he is. Use your brain. Find somewhere he can’t follow. And whatever you do, don’t tell me.”

This was not a drill.

This was real.

Elle uncapped the marker. Inside the door of the locker she scrawled her message.

5.

3

ELLE STARED AT the number she’d drawn on the metal door and knew what it meant—she had to go somewhere Kingsley couldn’t find her.

Could she live with that? Never seeing Kingsley again? She would have to, wouldn’t she? If she wanted to leave Søren she had to leave Kingsley, too. From inside her purse Elle pulled out a six-inch length of intricately carved bone. A beautiful thing, or it had been once. She held it in her hand for a second longer than necessary. Kingsley would know what it was the moment he saw it. He would know what it was, and he would know what had happened.

And he would know it was her way of saying goodbye.

It hurt to let go of it, but there was no reason to keep it, right? She had the other two pieces in her purse. This third piece was for Kingsley. She laid it inside the locker, slammed it shut and walked away.

Use your brain, Kingsley had said. Go where Søren wouldn’t expect her to go. Go where Søren couldn’t follow.

She had three ideas. One she dismissed out of hand. As furious as she was at Søren right now, she would not bring his family into this by showing up on his mother’s doorstep in Copenhagen. The other two options were both bad, but one was worse than the other.

With the credit card from the bag, she bought a bus ticket to Philadelphia. Then she walked to another counter and with cash bought a bus ticket to New Hampshire. She threw the one she’d bought with the credit card into a garbage bin. The one she bought with cash she shoved into her pocket. She doubted the ruse would throw Kingsley off her track, but she had to try.

Kingsley had taught her how to flee from the press, from the church, even from Søren. But she wasn’t sure how to get away from Kingsley. He could track like a bloodhound. He had eyes and ears everywhere. She needed someone who would be on her side, not Kingsley’s. She needed someone who cared more about her than him. Or, more importantly, she needed someone who owed her a favor.

And only one man owed her a favor.

She got on the bus and found a seat near the back. Bus—when was the last time she’d sat on a bus? Maybe high school? Her senior year. Most days she walked to school, but if she was running late she took the bus. One morning she’d overslept because of Kingsley. The day before had been her eighteenth birthday, and he’d taken her to her first S and M club. She hadn’t played, only watched while couples and trios had engaged in acts she’d only read about and dreamed about. Kingsley had asked her if she liked what she saw, if anything intrigued her, if there was anything she wanted to do.

“All of it,” she’d answered.

She’d stayed out so late with him, she’d slept through her alarm the next morning and had taken the bus to school.

That wasn’t right, was it? That wasn’t normal. High school seniors shouldn’t be oversleeping because they were at kink clubs with notorious underground figures the night before, right? How had it seemed so normal at the time? Why had it seemed so right? Where was her mother in all this? Pretending Elle didn’t exist, more or less. They’d become strangers to each other, roommates at most. What if her mother had found out about her daughter’s secret life when she was still in high school? Why had her mom not stopped her and said, “What are you doing with these people, Ellie?” If her mother, if anyone had asked that question she would have answered, “Because these people are my people.” She was one of them.

But now she wasn’t one of them anymore.

So who was she?

She pondered that question for the next two hours, only stopping when another stomach cramp hit her. She doubled over and rested her head on the back of the seat in front of her. Only June nineteenth but it was already as hot as August. The bus was air-conditioned—barely—and the stifling air added to her misery.

“Carsick?” an older man asked her. He was black with gray hair and sat on the seat opposite hers. He had a face like the grandfather you wished you’d had growing up. She nodded her head and squeezed her eyes shut tight.

“Hang in there. You want some crackers?”

The mention of food sent her stomach rumbling. Without answering him she raced to the bathroom at the back of the bus and vomited hard into the toilet. She prayed no one had heard her getting sick. People would remember a young white woman in a Mets cap on a Concord bus puking her guts out. But she couldn’t worry about that yet. When she was done being sick, she rinsed her mouth out and splashed cold water on her face. Then she pulled her pants down and checked her bleeding. It was heavy and thick. She tried to feel sad, feel remorse or regret. Instead, she felt only relief. She held on to that relief as she made her way back to her seat.

She closed her eyes and leaned her head back. The man in the seat next to her patted her clammy hand and she opened her eyes. He placed three saltines in her palm. For the rest of the trip she nibbled on her crackers. In her weakened state and on her empty stomach, they tasted like manna from heaven.

“Thank you,” she said. He reached out and patted her shoulder. A kind, grandfatherly touch. She ached so much for human warmth right now she wanted to sit next to him and lean against him. When another cramp slammed into her back, she grabbed his hand and squeezed it.

“It’s all right,” the man said in a low voice. “We’re almost there. I get carsick too sometimes. Especially if I try to read. You’re gonna make it.”

She smiled so he knew she heard him, but didn’t tell him the truth. She wasn’t carsick. Elle Schreiber did not get carsick. Any car, any kind, she could drive it. She’d been driving since she was twelve years old. She could hot-wire a car in under fifteen seconds. She could shift like a race car driver. She felt more at home in a car than she did anywhere else on earth—except for Søren’s bed. Carsick was the last thing she was.

When the pain passed, she lifted her head and rested back against the seat. For a few minutes all she did was breathe. Long breaths. Slow breaths. Breaths that filled her lungs and emptied her mind. At first she didn’t realize what she was doing. Then she remembered.

“Little One, take deep breaths when you’re on the cross. Deep full breaths. Fill your lungs and empty your mind. When I beat you, it’s for us, for our pleasure—yours and mine. Don’t be afraid. Never be afraid of me.”

“Never ever, sir,” she’d whispered back to him.

But now she was afraid.

“You running away from home, young lady?” the man in the seat next to her asked. She could hear the joking tone in his voice.

“I don’t run,” Elle said. “It’s not running away from home if you’re not running, right?”

“That’s a good point. Visiting friends or family here?”

“A friend,” she said. “I think he’s a friend. I hope he is.”

“Why wouldn’t he be?”

“I broke his heart once,” she said, smiling again.

“You look like a heartbreaker.” The man nodded sagely and Elle laughed.

“I don’t mean to be. I never mean to hurt anybody,” she said. “But I do.”

They’d been joking the way strangers packed into a crowded elevator or jostled about on an airplane joked. But what she’d said was too true and too somber, and he gave her a look of curiosity and compassion.

“A little girl like you couldn’t hurt a fly,” he said kindly.

Elle looked up and took a breath. If he only knew.

“I could hurt a fly,” she whispered.

After six hours and two bus changes, she finally arrived in New Hampshire. She wasn’t done with her journey yet. At the station she followed a young woman to a parking lot and offered her a hundred dollars to drive her forty miles. The woman seemed skeptical at first, but Elle held up the money. That did the trick.

Elle sat in the backseat of the beat-up Ford Thunderbird. The front seat was taken up by a child’s car seat, and Elle was happy to sit in the back and not look at it. She thought about asking the woman where the kid was, but she didn’t want to talk, especially about children. She apologized for her lack of conversation. Still recovering from car sickness, Elle said. The woman turned on the radio to cover the silence, and Elle kept her eyes closed all the way there.

A little after one in the afternoon, she arrived at her destination. Elle almost wept with relief at the sight of the long curving driveway she remembered so well, the columns, the stairs, the rows of windows in this old Colonial mansion.

The woman seemed stunned that this house, this mansion, was her destination.

“Old friend,” Elle said by way of explanation. “I hope.”

She paid the woman her one hundred dollars from the cash in her duffel bag. Five thousand dollars wouldn’t last very long, but a deal was a deal.

The relief Elle felt faded as she walked up the long, curving cobblestone driveway to the house. Her back spasmed with every few steps and the heavy duffel bag dug into her shoulder. The blazing sun followed her every step. She took off the Mets cap and ran her hands through her sweat-drenched hair. As she walked, she wondered...would he take her in? Would he help her? She’d broken his heart, yes, but she’d also helped him when he needed her most.

Elle rang the doorbell and waited.

As rich as he was, no one would have begrudged him a housekeeper or a butler. But it was the master of the house who opened the door. His blue eyes widened as he looked at her and took in her paleness, her exhaustion and her fear.

“Oh my God...Eleanor. What did he do to you?” he asked.

Elle almost laughed. If she’d had the energy, she would have.

“Don’t ask, Daniel,” she said as she walked past him into the house. “Just don’t ask.”

4

DANIEL GAVE HER tea and put her in the downstairs guest room. The entire time she was in his presence she stared at the gold band on his left hand.

“Where are Anya and the baby?” Elle asked. She hadn’t seen either when Daniel brought her into the house.

“Upstairs in the nursery. Marius has the flu. We’re taking shifts. She’s on the day shift. I take the night shift so she can sleep.” He smiled and she saw the contentment on his handsome face.

“God, you’re so married.”

“I am. Again,” he said and smiled.

“Enjoying it? Being married again? Being a dad?” Elle asked as she pulled the blanket to her stomach.

“You show up on my doorstep with no warning and nothing but a bag and the clothes on your back and you want to talk about me right now?” Daniel pulled a chair up to the bed. It was barely two o’clock in the afternoon, but Daniel had seen right away that all she needed right now was rest. “Eleanor, please—”

“Elle,” she said.

“What?”

“I told him the day I met him that I went by Elle. Not Eleanor. My whole life my mom called me Elle or Ellie. That’s who I am. But he called me Eleanor anyway. He calls me Eleanor. I prefer Elle.”

Daniel looked at her, rubbed his hands together.

“Elle,” he said. “Please tell me what’s happening. Can you do that for me?”

“You don’t want to know.” She tried to smile. She hoped he appreciated the effort that took her.

Daniel met her eyes, and she held the gaze. Back when he was a regular player in Kingsley’s world, his blue-eyed Dominant glare was the stuff of legend. His late wife, Maggie, had even named it—The Ouch, she called it with equal parts fear and affection. When he gave her that look she knew she’d be saying “ouch” the next day, maybe the next week. But it wasn’t the infamous Ouch he gave her now. Instead, he looked at her steadily with curiosity and compassion. And pity.

She hated pity.

“I’m fine,” she said. “I needed to get away for a few days.”

“You didn’t come here because you needed to get away for a few days. You go to the Hamptons to get away for a few days.”

“You go to the Hamptons to get away for a few days because you’re rich. Normal people do not go to the Hamptons.”

“Elle.” Daniel met her eyes. “You’re the most famous submissive in the entire city of New York. You’re owned by a Catholic priest, and you’re sleeping with the King of the Underground. You are not normal people.”

“I am now,” she said. “Trying to be anyway.”

“How did you get here?”

“Kingsley’s driver dropped me off.”

“Kingsley drives a beat-up Ford Thunderbird now?”

If she had had the strength to give Daniel The Ouch, she would have.

“I have security cameras,” he said. “I saw someone drop you off. It wasn’t King.”

“No, it wasn’t.”

“Does King know where you are?”

She shook her head.

“Tell me what happened.”

“You don’t want to know,” she repeated. “Just don’t tell anyone I’m here, okay?”

“I think I do want to know. Remember, I’ve known Søren for years. Not only do I know him, I like him. We’re friends. If I can know him and still like him, I think I can handle anything you tell me.”

“Maybe you can handle hearing it. I don’t know if I can handle saying it.”

Daniel moved from his chair to the bed. She tensed immediately and he seemed to sense it.

“I’m not going to touch you if you don’t want me to,” he said, raising his hands in surrender.

“You’re married, you have a kid and I’m—” she paused to find a suitable lie and decided on a half-truth instead “—not feeling well.”

He reached his hand out but didn’t touch her with it, only waited. Slowly Elle leaned forward the three necessary inches and rested her face against the palm of his hand.

“You don’t have a fever,” he said.

“No.”

“I don’t see any bruises on your arms or your neck.”

“Søren didn’t beat me up or rape me,” she said, annoyed that he would even think something like that had happened.

Daniel nodded.

“But he did hurt you.”

“You didn’t put a question mark at the end of that sentence.”

“I told you, I’ve known him for years. It wasn’t a question.”

“Yes,” she admitted finally, closing her eyes. “He hurt me.”

“Kingsley?”

She shook her head. “This isn’t his fault,” she said, rolling over onto her side. “This is my fault.”

“I refuse to believe that,” Daniel said. “But you have to give me something here. If Anya left me, ran away, I would be so sick with worry I wouldn’t be able to breathe. Søren pisses me off too sometimes, and I consider him a friend, but I have never doubted his love for you. Unless you have a very good reason to scare him like this, you need to go home.”

“I can’t go home.”

“Tell me why you left him or I’m calling Kingsley right now.”

Elle weighed her options. She could tell him the whole truth, which would hurt more than the pain she was currently in. She could lie and come up with a suitable story he would believe to explain why she left. Or she could tell him a half-truth, just enough truth to get him to stop asking questions.

She went with option three.

“Do you remember that thing you told me?” she asked.

“I told you a lot of things.”

“I told you I was happy, content. You said that I should enjoy my contentment because someday something would happen and it would be gone.”

He nodded. “I remember.”

“It happened.”

“What happened?”

“Søren ordered me to marry him,” she said.

Daniel looked at her and looked at her and looked at her, and finally he spoke.

“Get some sleep. We’ll talk more tomorrow. Do you need anything?”

“You have any other sheets?” she asked, her face warming.

“Are you cold?”

“No,” she said, pushing the blankets. A red stain had formed underneath her. “I’m bleeding.”

It took ten minutes of begging and pleading to convince Daniel not to call an ambulance. This was just part of the process, she told him. Nothing to worry about. She was fine. A little blood never killed any woman...

Even after calming him down Daniel still seemed dubious and worried. He stayed in the bathroom with her while she took a quick hot bath. He kept his back to her to give her privacy although he’d seen her naked before. Once upon a time she’d been his lover. They’d fucked in this very bathroom. Down the hall was the library where he’d bent her over his desk and taken her from behind. In the living room by the fireplace, he’d fisted her and given her one of the better orgasms of her life. In the bed he now shared with his wife, he’d fucked her more times than she could remember. But now that felt like a lifetime ago. Had it only been two years ago she’d last been with him? So much had happened in those two years. He’d fallen in love with someone who wasn’t her, got remarried, had a son. And her? What had she done since then?

Elle got out when the water turned pink, and she drained the tub before Daniel could see it.

He ordered her to eat to some soup and then ordered her into bed. There was nothing at all erotic about any of these orders.

“You really are a dad now, aren’t you?” she asked.

“Don’t get any ideas. I don’t do the Daddy-Dom thing,” he said, pulling the covers up to her chest.

“Could have fooled me,” she said.

“Don’t flirt. Anya’s the jealous type.” He winked at her so she would know he was kidding. Not that he needed to tell her. She’d known Anya before he did. Knowing Anya, she would worry Elle would catch the flu from Marius, not that she would sleep with her husband. For the first time in Elle’s adult life, sex was the last thing on her mind.

He kissed her on the forehead once and on the lips twice.

She smiled up at him.

“Get some rest, Elle,” he said.

“It’s not even night yet.”

“I don’t care. You’re exhausted. Sleep.”

“Is that an order?”

He smiled down at her. “If I gave you that kind of order, would you obey me?”

“No.”

“Then no, it wasn’t an order.”

He caressed her cheek with the back of his hand. A fatherly touch. She didn’t remember him ever touching her like that. Becoming a parent had changed him, changed him for the better. But she knew that didn’t happen with every man. Her own father was proof. Her father, Søren’s father, her mother...

Her mother.

“Good night, Elle,” Daniel whispered, and she saw his reluctance to leave her alone.

“Good night, Daniel.” He started to leave. She stopped him with a question. “Daniel—what am I going to do?”

Daniel turned around in the doorway and looked back at her.

“If you took orders from me, which you don’t, but if you did...I’d order you to go back to Søren and marry him.”

Elle rolled onto her side and gazed at Daniel through the dark.

“Now I remember why I left you,” she said.

“Because I wanted to take care of you?”

“Because you don’t know me at all.”

The smile faded from Daniel’s face.

“Rest,” he said, and shut the door behind him.

It wasn’t an order, but Elle followed it anyway. She slept an hour or two and when she woke up, there was a terrifying moment when she couldn’t remember how she’d got here. But the moment passed, and she remembered.

What was she going to do? No Søren. No Kingsley. No town house. Jesus, she didn’t have a real job. She had a little less than five thousand dollars to her name, a college degree in English literature and almost no work experience other than a few years at a bookstore. What was she going to put on a résumé? That she gave good blow jobs and could take a beating better than any masochist in New York?

She sat up in bed and buried her face in her hands. Panic threatened to overwhelm her. Slowly she breathed, slowly she calmed herself. She would not cry. She could not cry. If she started crying over Søren, she’d never stop. And if she cried, that would mean it was real, that she had left him and that she was never going back.

When she was calm again she whispered into the quiet of her room, “What am I gonna do?”

No one answered, not even her.

Wincing as her sore muscles protested the movement, Elle got out of bed. She walked down the hall to the bathroom where she’d stored her duffel bag. On the way back to bed she noticed a light on in Daniel’s library. Wasn’t he supposed to be on the night shift taking care of Marius?

She crept to the half-open door and heard him speaking to someone. She saw no one else in the room and then noticed he had a small mobile phone to his ear.

“She’s not well,” Daniel said. “Let her stay here a couple days until she feels better. Than you can come get her.”

Elle froze.

“Not tonight, King. She’s not in good shape. Mentally or physically. Let her rest. We’ll take care of her.”

Rage welled up in Elle. She took one step forward and then stopped. Kingsley had warned if she had to flee, she’d have to be smart about it. She’d been stupid before but she wasn’t going to be stupid again. She crept back to the bathroom, grabbed her duffel bag and got dressed. As quietly as she could, she left the house. She didn’t leave a note, didn’t lambast him with accusations and recriminations. She didn’t call him a traitor or an asshole or an arrogant piece of shit who thought he knew what was better for her than she did. She did something much worse and much better at the same time.

She stole his car.

Thankfully Daniel wasn’t some rich dipshit who drove a flashy Maserati or a Ferrari to show off his money. Daniel had a classic black Mercedes-Benz sedan. Nothing that would attract any unnecessary attention. She took the keys right off the rack in the kitchen. She coasted out of the driveway with the lights off and resisted the urge to squeal the tires as a final fuck you and fare thee well.

He wouldn’t call the police. That wasn’t Daniel’s style. And he wouldn’t have to. She’d dump the car somewhere the cops would find it, and it would be returned to him in one piece.

More or less.

After ten minutes on the road the adrenaline rush faded and the reality that she was alone again with nowhere to go set in. No...not nowhere to go. She had lots of places to go. Unfortunately there was nowhere she could go where Kingsley wouldn’t find her eventually. Especially now that she’d stolen a registered car. Wherever she dumped the car, that’s where Kingsley would start looking, and he would find her in a matter of hours.

Which left only one option. She would have to go somewhere Kingsley and Søren couldn’t follow her. Even if he knew where she was, it would be somewhere he couldn’t enter. She thought about getting herself arrested and sent to prison. Seemed a better option than her only other choice.

Then again, she’d faced prison once before and Kingsley and Søren had got her out of going then. He would do it again if she was foolish enough to get herself arrested. Kingsley took care of things. That’s how it worked. She needed a ride somewhere? Kingsley’s driver would take her wherever she wanted to go. If she needed a vacation, Kingsley would send her and Søren to Europe. If she got injured during kink, he’d send her to his doctor, who knew how to keep his mouth shut. If she got pregnant...well, he took care of that, too, didn’t he? Whether he wanted to or not.

Kingsley...she kept her mind on him. If she thought about Søren, really thought about him, she’d turn the car around and drive straight back to Connecticut. Instead, she focused her mind on Kingsley. Was he okay? She hadn’t seen him in a few days. He hadn’t offered to go with her to the doctor. He’d made the appointment for her, had the car take her. But he wasn’t there when she left, wasn’t home when she got back. If she’d asked him to come with her, he would have. She knew that. That he hadn’t volunteered was proof that he didn’t want to face it any more than she did. So she didn’t ask him. She went alone and didn’t make him more a part of it than he already was. Kingsley was more dark knight than white knight, but whatever his sins, he had one bright, pure and beautiful hope—that he would be a father someday. She wasn’t going to make him stand there and watch her put an end to that dream.

“King...I’m sorry,” she whispered as she reached a crossroads. If she drove south, she’d be in Manhattan in four hours.

Or...

Elle pulled the car over on the side of the road.

She had to do it, right? What other choice did she have except to go back? And that was no choice at all. Because if she went back she’d be admitting defeat. If she went back she would be walking straight into a different sort of prison.

Even now, her heart raced at the thought of Kingsley tracking her down and bringing her home. That wasn’t right. She should be able to leave if she wanted to leave. She should be able to go if she wanted to go without fearing someone was following her. That’s how it worked in the real world, right? Women got sick of the lives they were leading and they could do things like move out and move on and start over without an ex-assassin for the French government dragging her home by her hair.

Right?

Was it too late for her to be part of the normal world? If it wasn’t, did she really want to go there? She didn’t know the answer to either question. But she did know the longer she sat in the car, the sooner Kingsley would find her. It was nine o’clock now. The summer sun had finally set. By sunrise, Daniel would notice she—and his Benz—had disappeared. He’d call Kingsley, and Kingsley would start the search for her. She needed to be somewhere safe by morning, somewhere no one could follow.

That left only one option.

She was twenty-six years old.

She was the ex-lover of a Catholic priest.

She was recovering from an abortion.

Might as well go all in.

Goodbye, men. Goodbye, sex.

She headed west to her mother’s convent.

She didn’t look back.

5

KINGSLEY STOOD IN front of locker 1312 but didn’t open it. He couldn’t open it. Not yet. The last thing he wanted to do was open it and have every one of his fears confirmed.

At four that morning, Søren had called him looking for Elle. She wasn’t answering her phone. When Kingsley had gone to her room and found her bed made and empty, he’d known exactly what happened. Kingsley had seen this day coming since the night he’d met her. She’d finally done it. She’d left Søren.

But why? Søren wouldn’t tell him anything, only that they’d fought and Elle had driven off in Kingsley’s BMW, which she drove whenever she went to Søren’s. They’d argued. She’d driven away. Nothing new there. They’d fought before. All couples did. But this time was different and the empty bed proved it. She hadn’t come home last night.

So where the fuck was she?

He took out his keys and opened the locker.

Kingsley stared at the hastily scrawled number five on the inside of the locker. He closed his eyes and took a breath. In between the intake of air and the outtake he whispered a word to himself.

“Fuck.”

Then he saw it. Far more damning than the number inside the locker was the six-inch length of carved bone he pulled out of it.

Kingsley held it in the palm of his hand, stared at it and knew how it had got here, knew why she’d left it.

“This is why I left him,” it told him. If she’d been here he would have replied, “Good.”

Kingsley shoved it into his back pocket and slammed the locker door shut.

“You son of a bitch.” Kingsley swore under his breath. If Søren had been here, he would have said it to his face. Kingsley was thirty-eight years old and had known Søren since he was sixteen. Søren had beaten him, brutalized him and used him. He’d married Kingsley’s sister, which had precipitated her death. And never in all those years since they’d met had Kingsley felt this level of rage, of abject fury at the man he considered his truest friend and the only man he’d ever loved. Swear at him? If Søren had been here right now, Kingsley might have killed him.

And yet, he knew most of that rage was anger at himself. This was his fault, his doing. Kingsley never should have let her face Søren alone. He shouldn’t have let her face any of it alone. If he needed any further proof he wasn’t ready to be a father, it was this—he’d made her a doctor’s appointment and then abandoned her. He’d left the city for two days, lain low in Boston and done more drinking than he’d done in years. And Elle? She’d thanked him for making the appointment. That was all. “Thanks, King, I’ll take it from here.” And there’d been a pause, as if she’d been waiting for him to say, “I’ll go with you” or “Let me help you” or even “How are you?” He hadn’t said it, hadn’t said anything, and she hadn’t asked him to come with her, to be with her during it all. Kingsley knew she thought she was doing him a favor by going alone, but in the end all that it had done was make him feel like shit.

He leaned back against the row of lockers. In scenarios one through four she’d been instructed to write the name of her destination inside the locker—Canada, Maine, Seattle, somewhere else if that’s what she wanted. But in scenario five, she’d only write the number and disappear. And so she had. If he had any doubts about her determination to run away, they’d dissolved when he’d got the phone call from Daniel.

She’s here, King. And she’s not in good shape.

Kingsley was already on his way to the door when Daniel cautioned him to wait a day or two to let Elle calm down and rest. It was a smart idea even though Kingsley rebelled at the idea of leaving her alone another minute. But she wasn’t alone. Daniel had loved her once and still cared for her. Anya adored her for bringing her and Daniel together. The house was beautiful, idyllic. She would calm down out there, recover, and when Kingsley showed up in a day or two, she’d be less likely to put up a fight about coming home.

But an hour later, the second call had come.

She’s gone, King. And she stole my fucking car.

Kingsley had hung up and stared at the phone in his hand. Then he laughed. A sad tired laugh with no joy in it at all, but still, he laughed. Because of course. Of course she’d stolen Daniel’s car and driven away in the night. He should have seen that coming.

Once upon a time, he and Søren had made an idle wish to someday have a girl who was wilder than him and Søren put together.

Be careful what you wish for.

In the back of his mind he wished Sam were here. He could use a sane and rational voice of comfort right now. She was always good at helping in a crisis. But Sam had left him six years ago shortly after that first night he and Søren had topped Elle together. Sam had met someone, fallen in love, but even that might not have broken up their partnership. Except Elle had quickly become the most important woman in Kingsley’s life. She brought Søren back to Kingsley’s bed, something Sam could never do. The first time Sam had seen Elle walking around the house in one of Kingsley’s shirts, that was it.

Sam wasn’t angry, wasn’t hurt. She just knew it was time for them both to move on. Sam told him she loved him and then gave her two weeks’ notice and started packing for LA.

His sister was dead because of his love for Søren.

His Sam was gone to California because of his love for Elle.

His Elle was gone because of his love for his stupid foolish dream to have children, a dream he put before her.

They were all gone. Maybe they were on to something.

Kingsley thought about going back home, but he couldn’t face Søren right now. Søren was nearly catatonic with shock when they’d last spoken. “You’ll find her,” was all Søren had said to him before the first phone call from Daniel had come. They’d been sitting in the music room, Søren at the piano but not playing.

Kingsley had nodded. “I’ll find her.”

He wanted to ask Søren “Why did she leave?” but he also didn’t want to ask it. Søren might tell him, and the last thing Kingsley needed was to hear what fate Kingsley had abandoned Elle to. Søren out of control was a sight as rare as a volcano erupting and nearly as terrifying.

It would be easy to find her. She’d stolen Daniel’s car. All he had to do was call a few contacts in the police department with a description of the vehicle. In a few hours they’d know which direction she’d gone. From there they could extrapolate her likeliest destination. If she used one of the credit cards, they could pinpoint her whereabouts precisely. A quick jaunt on an airplane to wherever she’d gone and by tomorrow night she’d be back in Manhattan whether she wanted to be or not.

He could find her. Easily. Søren had asked him to find her, and he couldn’t tell Søren no. He wasn’t strong enough to tell him no, and he would fail her again as he’d failed himself. Over and over in his head he cursed himself. He’d gotten her pregnant and then abandoned her to deal with it on her own. Then she’d faced Søren on her own. And Kingsley had the shard of carved bone in his back pocket to prove that conversation had not gone well. He’d never met a stronger woman in his life, a woman as free and as fearless as she. If she said Søren had crossed a line with her, Kingsley believed her.

Kingsley owed her. She’d fled somewhere—he didn’t know where but he assumed she’d picked a place she felt safe. What right did he have taking her away from there if that’s where she wanted to be? But he would do it, and he would do it for Søren, and he would do it because she’d become such a part of his life he couldn’t imagine waking another morning to find her gone.

If Kingsley went back to the town house right now he’d call all his contacts and find her. Søren would be sitting there, waiting, depending on Kingsley to find her.

But.

But if he didn’t go back to his town house...

Kingsley pulled his mobile phone out of his jacket and dialed a number.

“Don’t speak,” Kingsley said before his assistant could say a word.

Silence was his answer. Good.

“Answer the next question I ask you only with a yes or a no. You understand?” Kingsley asked.

“Yes,” Calliope said. Her voice was calm, controlled. She betrayed nothing. He’d trained her well.

“Is he there?”

“No.”

“No?” Kingsley repeated. “Good. Now you can talk. Did he tell you where he went?”

“No,” Calliope said. “He told me to tell you he had an idea where she might be. Then he got on his motorcycle and drove away.”

Kingsley’s brow furrowed as he leaned back against the lockers.

“He’s not going to get her back,” Kingsley said.

“Are you going to find her then?”

Kingsley didn’t answer. He had a decision to make. Calliope made it for him.

“She wouldn’t leave him without a good reason, right?” she asked. “She wouldn’t leave him unless she had to. I know her. I know how much she loves him.”

“So do I,” Kingsley said.

“Did he hurt her? Like in the bad way?” Calliope asked, her voice awash in fear and confusion. Kingsley could sympathize.

Kingsley didn’t answer.

“King?”

He had a decision to make. He made it now.

“I need you to do something for me.”

“Anything,” she said.

“I need you to move into the town house. Someone needs to take care of the dogs. Can you do that for me?”

“I practically live here anyway. Dad’s not going to be thrilled, but I’m eighteen. Not much he can do about it. Sure. Anything you need.”

“You can have any room that isn’t mine or isn’t hers. There’s ten grand in cash in my bottom desk drawer. The combination is—”

“I know the combination.”

“How?”

“You hired me because I’m the sort of girl who knows combinations, remember?”

“Good point.” He almost laughed. He did know how to pick an assistant.

“Shut the house down. Close it. Cancel all the parties. Cancel everything, even the newspaper.”

“Are you going somewhere?” she asked.

“Yes. I have to leave the country. Don’t tell him I’m going. I’m not going to tell you where I’m going so you don’t have to lie when he asks you. The truth is, I don’t know where I’m going, and I don’t know when I’m coming back. But you can handle things while I’m gone. Yes?”

“I can, yes,” she said again. This time he heard a tight note of fear in her voice. But she was smart, savvy. She was also barely eighteen years old, but he wouldn’t have hired her if he didn’t trust her judgment.

“I’m going now. I’ll call when I can. It won’t be for a week or two. But everything’s fine. You believe that?”

Calliope answered, “No.”

He cared about her too much to make her believe the lie.

“Me neither,” he said. “Be a good girl. I’ll call when I can. Take care of the kids for me.”

“I’ll walk them every day,” she said. “And pet them all the time.”

“Merci.”

“Come home soon.”

Kingsley hung up and tucked his phone away again.

Once more he fished his keys out of his pocket. He turned back to the lockers. Underneath the one set up for Elle was another locker. He opened it, pulled out a leather duffel and checked it for a passport and money.

For you, Elle, he said to himself as he walked through the bus station and out onto Forty-Second Street. I’m doing this for you. Or was he?

He hailed a cab and ordered the driver to take him to the airport.

Well, it was about time he fulfilled a long-held dream of his. After all, his dream of being a father was dead. But he had other dreams, dreams about seeing parts of the world he hadn’t seen yet. If he didn’t go now, would he ever?

“Which airline?” the Caribbean-accented cab driver asked him.

“I don’t know.”

“You don’t know?” the driver repeated.

Kingsley leaned forward. “If you had all the money in the world and could use it to go anywhere you wanted, where would you go?”

“All the money, sir?” the driver asked. “I’d go everywhere.”

“Everywhere?”

“Everywhere,” the driver repeated. “And then I’d go home.”

“Where’s home?” Kingsley asked him. The accent was like music in his ears—French but not French, warm as white sand under the sun.

“Haiti, sir,” the driver said.

Haiti. Well, Kingsley had always wanted to go to Haiti. A tropical island, a long history with France. Maybe he would go there. Or maybe he’d do what his driver suggested. Maybe he’d go everywhere. He’d leave today and travel the world. Elle would have one less person to run from, one less man to fear.

And if Søren wanted to get his Little One back badly enough...

The bastard could do it himself.

6

Upstate New York

IN THE LAST minutes before midnight, Elle arrived at the Abbey of the Sisters of Saint Monica. It stood before her, a two-hundred-year-old stone edifice rising up three stories from the deep green earth. Spotlights shone on it, illuminating the high gray walls and the cobblestone path that led from the winding driveway to its hulking wooden front door. She knew more about this abbey than any laywoman should. Briefly she’d lived with her mother after graduating college in the hopes of repairing their fractured relationship. Her mother had let her move in for reasons unknown. Perhaps she’d harbored the same hopes. Reconciliation was a sacrament to Catholics, after all.

It was on the first day back under her mother’s roof that Elle found a white folder embossed with the initials SSM on the front. S and M Elle understood. But no, this was SSM—The Sisters of St. Monica. That place had been a foreign country to her. Soon she discovered her mother was in complete earnest about fulfilling her teenage dream to become a nun, a dream derailed when a one-night fling with a handsome older boy ended in a pregnancy, a shotgun wedding and a quickie divorce soon thereafter.

Now William “Billy” Schreiber was dead and buried and no one mourned him. Elle was an adult. And now Margaret Kohl was Sister Mary John of The Sisters of Saint Monica, a small order that consisted of five abbeys around the world, less than five hundred women in total. Their charism, according to the literature Elle had read, was to serve Christ like true brides—with love and devotion, and to pray for His church unceasingly until it found salvation, as Saint. Monica, mother of Saint Augustine, had prayed unceasingly for her son’s salvation.

The nighttime air was still warm with the day’s heat, but Elle had put on the black jacket she’d found in the duffel bag. She had no idea what to wear that would be appropriate for a convent, but she guessed the less skin she showed, the better. Under the jacket she wore a plain white T-shirt and dark jeans. At least in her black-and-white clothes she’d match the sisters in their black-and-white habits.

She left the car parked at a gas station a mile away and had walked the rest of the way here. The car would sit and sit and sit until the owner called the police and reported it. The police would run the tags and call Daniel, who would likely say he’d lent it to a friend who forgot where he’d parked it. The police would be dubious, but would say no problem, hang up and Daniel would retrieve his car.

For that moment when owner and car were reunited, Elle had left a little note in the glove compartment for him.

Dear Daniel,

I lied. I didn’t leave Søren because he asked me to marry him. I left because of what he did after I said no. If you’d been there, you would never have ratted me out to King. I hope you never have a daughter someday.

Love, Elle.

P.S. Fuck you.

P.P.S. Nice car. I dented the fender on purpose. And the driver’s side door. And the passenger side.

P.P.P.S. And the hood.

* * *

At midnight she crossed the threshold and entered the convent. Silence reigned inside the heavy stone structure. She could hear her own breathing, her own heart beating. She breathed like a wounded runner who’d had to crawl to the finish line. But she wasn’t done crawling yet. Not until she was behind the inner door. Only behind that door would she be safe. Only behind that door could she rest.

Like every monastery, the convent employed a doorkeeper. Søren had told her about the original doorkeeper for the Jesuit order, Brother Alphonsus Rodríguez, who joined the Jesuits after the death of his wife and his three children. According to Søren, Brother Alphonsus treated every person who knocked on the door of the Jesuit school where he was stationed as if it were God Himself at the door. He worked as nothing more than a porter, a glorified doorman for forty years. In 1888, the world’s most devoted doorman became a saint.

Elle didn’t feel like God as she walked to the porter’s window. She didn’t feel like the Devil, either. She felt tired and scared, and she wanted more than anything to wake up in her own bed at Kingsley’s to find the past week had been nothing but a dream, nothing but a nightmare. She’d wake up and find Søren next to her in bed, and she’d roll over and stretch out on his chest, press her ear to his heart and listen to it beating. He would stir and wake and stroke her hair and her bruised back until she fell asleep again. When she woke up for the day he would be long gone with only the stains on the sheets, the welts on her body and the scent of winter on his pillow to prove he’d been there.

That was the Søren she knew and loved. She had no idea who this new Søren was, the one she’d met two nights ago. But she was relieved to know she’d put several hundred miles between them. And yet, several hundred miles wouldn’t be enough. Nothing would be enough until she was behind that door in front of her, the door with a simple brass plaque that read, No Men Beyond This Point. No men allowed. Not even priests.

She rang the bell and said a prayer to Saint Monica, praying her earthly daughters would take her in and shelter her.

A wooden panel at a window that reminded her of an old-fashioned bank teller’s was pushed aside and a woman in large glasses peered out at her.

“Welcome, child. Can we help you?” she asked, her tone kind and curious.

“My mother is here. Sister Mary John,” Elle said, her voice wavering against her will. “I need to talk to her.”

“Is it an emergency, or can it wait until morning? Now is the Great Silence and nearly everyone is sleeping.”

That question utterly flummoxed her. Emergency? Nothing was burning down at the moment...except her entire life. Did that count as an emergency?

Yes. Yes it did.

“Someone’s trying to find me, and this is probably the first place he’ll look.”

The sister’s eyes widened farther behind her glasses.

“Is this person dangerous?”

“Very,” Elle said.

“I’ll find her for you.”

“Thank you,” Elle said with profound gratitude.

She closed the wooden panel at the window but she reappeared in seconds at the door.

“Come inside here,” the sister said, ushering her in. “It’s against protocol, but if someone’s coming after you, you should wait here.”

Elle could have kissed the woman for her compassion. The elderly nun trundled off down a long dimly lit hallway leaving Elle by the door. Even after the sister disappeared, Elle could hear the sound of her rosary beads and orthopedic shoes echoing off the stone floors and polished wood walls.

She leaned back against the door and closed her eyes. When she was a teenager, a closed door between her and Søren had been a challenge, a hurdle and a game. If she sat outside his office door and did her homework, it was only a matter of time before the door opened. He would step out, take a seat by her on the bench and go over her homework with her. She never would have survived precalculus without him. When the work was done and she put her things away, Søren would retreat back into his office, shutting the door behind him, and she would sit there staring at the door and loving him with all her heart and dreaming of the life they would have together when he let her behind all his locked doors.

But never in any of those girlhood dreams had she ever dreamed of this moment. She never dreamed she’d be grateful for the door behind her and the sign on it barring men from entering. She never dreamed she’d be relieved Søren couldn’t get to her. She’d spent the past ten years of her life trying to get to him. Would she spend the rest of her life trying to get away?

“Ellie?”

Elle looked up and saw a woman in white coming toward her. White habit, white veil and a ghostly white face.

“Mom?”

“Of course it’s your mother.”

“Sorry, I didn’t...” She didn’t recognize her own mother. Gone was her mother’s long black hair so like her own. Gone were the khaki skirt she lived in and the navy cardigans and her ubiquitous white Keds. Elle hadn’t come to her mother’s entrance ceremony. She would have if her mother had asked, but by then Elle had moved out and they’d stopped speaking. Elle had forgotten that part, that whole not speaking to each other thing. Hopefully her mother had forgotten it, too.

“What on earth are you doing here?” her mother demanded.

“That nun let me in here behind the door.”

“No, what are you doing here? At the abbey?”

“Oh...long story.”

“Long story?” her mother repeated. “Long story? I haven’t seen or heard from you in two years—”

“You called me a whore, Mom. Did you really think I wanted to keep having that conversation with you?”

Her mother’s spine stiffened visibly.

“That was wrong of me. I was worried about you, and I took what I’d learned about you...badly.”

“Is that an apology?”

“It is.”

“I’m sorry, too,” Elle said, meaning it. Right now she was sorry for everything.

“Forgive me?”

“Yes. No. Maybe.”

“Maybe?” her mother said.

“I’ll forgive you for everything you said to me. And if you remember accurately, calling me a ‘whore’ was just the beginning of that discussion.”

“I overreacted. I had my reasons for overreacting.”

“I know you did,” she said, although she’d had no sympathy for her mother at the time. Everything had been okay between them until one night Søren had driven her home on the back of his motorcycle. Her mother was supposed to be out late at a church function but had got ill and come home early. One glance out the window and she’d seen her daughter kissing a Catholic priest. Elle had been so angry after her mother had called her a “priest’s whore” she’d spilled everything. The sex. The kink. And if her mother dared speak a word of it, Elle would never speak to her again as long as she lived.

The next day Elle had moved out.

“Mom, I need your help with something.”

“How can I help you?” she asked, sounding both concerned and suspicious.

“I need to stay here for a while.”

She shook her head.

“That’s not possible. Only sisters are allowed in the abbey. You shouldn’t even be behind this door.”

“Maybe they can make an exception for me. I can work.”

“Work? How? We do all our own work here. We cook our own food, clean, farm, everything. We don’t hire outside help.”

“But I can help. You don’t have to hire me. I’ll work for free.”

“No, Ellie. I don’t know what you’re into or who you’re in trouble with again—”

“I’m not running from the cops. I’m twenty-six years old. I’m not running away from home, either. I need a place to stay for a while, a safe place.”

“So you didn’t steal any cars this time?”

“No,” she said. “Well, one. But that was more like borrowing. And he’ll get it back.”

“Elle, I don’t have time for your games. I have work to do. I have a life here and you’re not a part of it. You can’t be. You can come to Mass here at the chapel. We can visit once a week. But this is a sacred place, a sanctuary.”

“I need sanctuary.”

“Why? Because you got arrested again?”

“No, Mom. Because I left him.”

Silence.

Total silence.

A great silence even. A silence so loud it echoed off the floors like footsteps. Finally her mother exhaled and crossed herself. Tears shone in her eyes and she whispered, “Benedicta excels Mater Dei, Maria sanctissima.” Elle didn’t know much Latin, but she knew a prayer of thanks to the Virgin Mary when she heard it.

Before she knew it, her mother had wrapped her up in her arms and Elle’s neck was wet with tears. Not her tears but her mother’s. Elle closed her eyes and breathed in the faint, clean scent of talcum powder. Some things were still the same about her mother. The clothes, the hair, even her name...that was all different. But at least her mother smelled the same.

“You can stay, baby,” she whispered. “I’ll make them let you stay.”

“Thank you.” She wanted to cry too but the tears wouldn’t come. She wouldn’t let them. Tears were not welcome here. Elle couldn’t remember the last time her mother had hugged her, had held her like this. Years. It was almost worth it to leave Søren for this one hug alone.

“You really did leave him?” her mother asked again.

“I did,” Elle said.

“For good?” her mother asked.

Elle nodded against her mother’s shoulder.

“Forever.”

7

ELLE’S MOTHER ESCORTED her down hallway after hallway. From the outside, the abbey looked like a gray stone square—three stories high and likely as long as it was wide. The inside, however, was labyrinthine. Every few feet they turned a corner, then another. Winding hallways, unmarked doors. On the walls were crucifixes, icons, shrines, image after image of Saint Monica in various poses, in various mediums. In one mosaic Saint Monica held her son Saint Augustine in her arms. Elle glanced at it only a moment, glanced away quickly.

“Where are we going?” she asked her mother, who hadn’t released her hand this entire time.

“I’m going to the Chapel of Perpetual Adoration. Mother Prioress is there tonight. We’ll need to get her permission to let you stay.”

“Will she give it?”

“She doesn’t like outsiders in the abbey.”

“Is that a no?”

“No, but start praying anyway,” her mother said, and Elle did as she was told.

Elle had a good sense of direction, but by the time they arrived at the chapel, she knew she’d never find her way back to the front door without help. Good. The front door was the gateway to the outside world. It was the last place she wanted to go.

They walked under a polished wooden archway and into an open seating area that looked like nothing more than a living room. She saw bookshelves, baskets of knitting and chairs of all types.

“Here. Wait for me in the library,” her mother said. “I’ll be back soon.”

Elle took a seat in a cane-back chair that had probably been here since the convent was founded in 1856. It creaked under her weight but held her. A few minutes passed. Elle relaxed into the chair. For two days now she’d been coasting on the fumes of her fury. Now a deep exhaustion set into her body. She wanted to close her eyes and sleep. Sleep for a year, sleep for the rest of her life.

She looked to her right and saw a stack of magazines on a small table. Catholic Digest. Inside the Vatican. The Catholic Times. The front page of one of the magazines blared the headline Why God Demands Priestly Celibacy.

“What the fuck am I doing here?” Elle asked herself out loud. No one answered. No one had to. Elle knew what the fuck she was doing there.

Because she had nowhere else to go.

“This is your Eleanor?”

Elle stood up immediately. In the doorway loomed a woman who must have been almost six feet tall. She wore round glasses and a black habit with an elaborate rosary hanging down her side.

“Ellie, this is Mother Prioress. Mother Prioress, my only child.”

Mother Prioress looked Elle up and down.

“Why are you here?” Mother Prioress asked. She had a slight accent, vaguely Irish, but time in America had washed most of it out.

“I was just asking myself the same thing,” she said, deciding to try honesty.

“She left her lover,” her mother said.

“How is this our concern?” Mother Prioress asked.

“Because he beats her.”

“Mom, he—”

Her mother raised a hand to silence her. Elle closed her mouth.

“I’m very sorry to hear that. But isn’t that a matter for the police?” Mother Prioress asked.

“He’s in a position of power,” her mother answered for Elle. “And he has dangerous friends.”

Elle couldn’t argue with either of those assertions. Søren was in a position of power. And he did have dangerous friends. She knew that because they were her dangerous friends, too.

“Are you certain she’s telling the truth?” Mother Prioress asked Elle’s mother. Elle was about five seconds away from losing the last vestiges of her self-control. “Isn’t this the daughter who you said has had run-ins with the law?”

“That was over ten years ago, Mother Prioress. And I’m certain she’s telling the truth.”

“We don’t let outsiders stay within the walls,” Mother Prioress said. “That’s against our rules.”

“What of the rule of Saint Benedict?” her mother asked the prioress. “‘Let all guests who arrive be received like Christ, for He is going to say I came as a guest, and you received Me.’”

Mother Prioress nodded. “Yes, and when Christ arrived to visit His disciples after the resurrection, He did not hesitate to prove Himself. Do you have any proof your accusations against this man are true?”

Elle looked her mother in the eye. She knew what she needed to do but was loath to do it. Everything within her rebelled at the lie she needed to tell. Søren was no saint and neither was she. But to blame him for a crime he hadn’t committed felt like blasphemy. Søren had sinned against her, yes. Sinned so that she never wanted to lay eyes on him again. But leaving him and lying about him were two different things. And yet...

She turned around and lifted the back of her shirt. Without even having to look she knew what her mother and the Prioress saw. Five nights ago Kingsley had flogged her before fucking her, flogged her for an hour. Flogged her, then caned her. Flogged, caned her, whipped her, spanked her. And now her back boasted the fading welts and bruises from that long and beautiful night.

“Jesus, Mary and Joseph,” the Prioress said, and the Irish accent came out in full force. Elle pulled her shirt back down. She’d always loved her bruises and welts, cherished them. Kingsley had kissed them after giving them to her. She knew he’d been especially bruising simply to goad Søren, whose return from Rome was imminent that week. The welts were Kingsley’s way of saying, “Look how much fun we had without you.”

“Only sisters and retreatants are allowed on the grounds,” Mother Prioress said. “We have our own rules to follow.”

“I can be a retreatant,” Elle said. “I have some money. What does a week-long retreat here cost?”

“One hundred dollars.”

A hotel room would cost her fifty a night, at least. “I can pay it,” Elle said.

“I suppose,” Mother Prioress said. “But this is highly unusual.”

“I’ll work, too. I’ll be useful. Please. I can’t...I can’t go back out there yet.”

Something in Elle’s voice must have gotten through to Mother Prioress. The fear, the desperation. Or maybe it was the money. Who knew? Elle didn’t care as long as they let her stay.

“If she works, she can stay,” Mother Prioress said at last. “We’ll consider it a special sort of retreat. No longer than a year, however. We work here. We pray here. We serve each other here. We, none of us, are in hiding.”

Elle turned around and faced them. She was too ashamed of herself to meet their eyes. Not ashamed of the bruises on her back. Ashamed that she’d lied.

“Thank you,” Elle said. “I’ll work.”

“You will.” Mother Prioress took a step forward and looked down into her face. “You’ll work and you’ll behave. The sisters here have made great sacrifices to be part of this community. They are here to love and serve God, worship Him and pray for His people. This is good and holy work and they are not to be disturbed, bothered, interrupted or interfered with in any way.”

“I understand,” Elle said.

“You had a lover in the outside world. You will keep that information to yourself. We have all taken vows of chastity. Consider yourself under one, as well. You say you aren’t safe outside our walls. Then you will remain inside our walls as long as you are a resident here. You will bring no one else inside our walls.”

“No one.”

“Keep you head down. Stay out of trouble. Work hard. If you harm any of the women here, you will be expelled. Immediately.”

Elle nodded her understanding.

“I don’t...” she began, and paused. Something had lodged in her throat. She swallowed it down. “I don’t want to hurt anybody. Ever.”

“Yes.” Mother Prioress gave her the first smile she’d seen on the woman’s face yet. “Yes, I believe that.” She turned to Elle’s mother. “Take her to the infirmary. I’ll send someone to prepare a room for her.”

“Thank you, Mother Prioress,” Elle’s mother said. Tears of gratitude were shining in her eyes. “Thank you.”

Elle took her mother’s hand and together they started from the room.

“Eleanor?” the Prioress said.

“Elle.”

The Prioress gave her a tight smile. “Elle.”

“Yes?”

“You will do as you are told here. I certainly hope you’re capable of following orders.”

Elle smiled. “Trust me. If I know how to do anything, it’s follow orders.”

Her mother tugged her hand and led her from the room.

“I don’t need the infirmary, Mom,” Elle said.

“You have to call me Sister John or Sister in front of others. And yes, you need the infirmary.”

“It’s bruises and welts. They’ll be gone in a few more days.”

“You look like you were mugged.”

“Nobody gets flogged during a mugging, Mom. And if they did, I’d walk around bad neighborhoods more often.”

“This isn’t a joke.”

“It wasn’t even him who did it.” Him. Søren. Although her mother didn’t know that name. She knew him as Father Marcus Stearns. But Elle couldn’t call him Marcus Stearns in case one of the other sisters had heard of him. So “him” it was.

“Do I want to know who did that to you?”

“My friend Kingsley.”

“You have an interesting definition of friend.”

“Maybe a better definition,” Elle said. “It was consensual. You know I like this stuff.”

“And you know I hate that you like it. And I hate him for making you like it.”

“He didn’t make me like it, Mom. And he didn’t rape me. And he didn’t seduce me.”

“You were fifteen when you met him. He groomed you.”

“I was also fifteen when I first tried to get him in bed. I came pre-groomed.” She couldn’t believe they were having this fight again. “If you really thought he was a danger to children, you would have called the bishop. But you know as well as I do that he isn’t.”

“The church has enough scandals. I wasn’t about to create a new one.”

“Two consenting adults shouldn’t be a scandal.”

“Ellie, that man is—”

“Mom, you can hate him if you want to hate him. But at least hate him for the right reasons.”

“Hate him for the right reasons?” Her mother stood up and came over to her. “I thought I was. But you tell me then. What are the right reasons to hate the priest who seduced and beat my daughter?”

“Hate him because I hate him.”

“I can’t do that.”

“Why not?” Elle asked, meeting her mother’s eyes.

“Because you might stop hating him. And then I would have to stop, too.”

Elle looked away from her mother’s beseeching eyes.

“What did he do to you, baby?” her mother whispered. “What did he do to make you come to me after all this time?”

“I don’t want to talk about it,” Elle said as they neared a bright white room, no doubt the infirmary or whatever passed for it in this aging edifice.

“You should talk to someone. A professional who can help you.”

“I don’t need counseling. I’m as sane as you are.” If not saner. After all, she wasn’t the one walking around in a wedding dress telling the world Jesus was her husband.

“You could talk to someone here. Sister Margaret is a trained psychologist. And once a week, Father Antonio—”

Elle turned her head and stared at her mother. “You think I’m going to talk to a priest about this?”

“Well...” her mother began. “Perhaps Sister Margaret then.”

If she’d had the energy for it, Elle would have laughed. But she didn’t so she didn’t and in silence they walked into the infirmary.

Her mother left her sitting in a chair while she went to fetch another one of the sisters. Twenty minutes later, a nun who looked about her mother’s age—no more than fifty definitely—entered the infirmary and gave Elle a once-over. Her mother introduced the woman as Sister Aquinas. She wore a white apron over her black habit and her sleeves were pinned up to expose her forearms. Sister Aquinas pointed to a bed behind a white curtain and told Elle to wait there.

“I’ll go check on your room and make sure you have everything you need,” her mother said, taking Elle’s duffel bag from her. “I’ll be back. Don’t worry. You’re in good hands with Sister Aquinas.”

“Okay,” Elle said, too relieved to have a place to stay for the time being to worry about anything much at the moment. “I’ll see you soon.”

Her mother kissed her on the forehead.

“Thank you.” The two words came out of Elle’s mouth entirely of their own volition.

“You’re thanking me?” Her mother sounded utterly baffled.

“Well, you got them to let me stay here. I know we haven’t gotten along the past few years...ten years.”

“Twenty-six years,” her mother said, but she said it kindly.

She paused to laugh. “Okay, twenty-six years. But yeah, I appreciate it, Mom. Sister John, I mean. Sorry.”

Her mother cupped her face and looked her in the eyes.

“Every morning for the past three years I’ve woken up and prayed the same prayer. Do you want to know what that prayer is?”

“What?” Elle asked, even though she was certain she didn’t want to know.

“Dear God, please don’t let today be the day he finally kills her.”

Once more her mother kissed her on the forehead and then hurried away before Elle could say another word.

Something turned in Elle’s heart, turned like a knob on a telescope. For the first time, Elle looked through the eyepiece of her mother’s heart, and now, this moment, the light had come into focus and Elle saw what her mother saw—a daughter she didn’t understand in love with a powerful, dangerous man twice her size who couldn’t make love to her without hurting her first. And every day she feared he would go too far and kill her only child. Every time her mother looked at Elle, that’s what she saw. For one second, Elle saw it, too.

“Behind the curtain,” Sister Aquinas said. “I’ll be right there.”

Dazed by her vision, Elle did as told, walking behind the curtain and sitting numbly on the hospital cot.

Sister Aquinas came around with a towel in her hand. She tossed it on the side table and put her hands on either side of Elle’s neck.

“How are you feeling?” she asked.

“Oh...I’m fine,” Elle said.

“Are you sure about that? Your eyes are bloodshot. Are you on drugs?”

“Nothing illegal. I had some nausea.”

“Have you been vomiting?”

“A few times.”

“Are you pregnant?”

“Not since Monday night.”

Sister Aquinas blinked at her. But it was only one blink, one pause.

“Miscarriage?”

“No.”

“I see.” Sister Aquinas took a long breath. “Surgical or medical?”

“Medical.”

“Miferprex?” Sister Aquinas asked.

“Yes.”

“When?”

“First pills on Monday. Second pill on Wednesday.”

“Today’s Friday,” Sister Aquinas said. “So five days then.” She was speaking to herself. “Have you been to a doctor since Wednesday?”

“No.”

“How severe was the bleeding?”

“Heavy. Very heavy.”

“It’s lighter now?”

“Much.”

“Did you take anything else?” Sister Aquinas pulled out a scope and looked in Elle’s ears.

“Nothing else.”

“They should have given you Tylenol and Compazine.”

“I had a prescription for them,” Elle said. “But I was too sick to go get them filled.”

“You didn’t have anyone to help you? The father?”

“No.”

Sister Aquinas sighed heavily. “It’s times like this I remember why I became a nun.”

Elle laughed. “Because you hate men?”

“No. I never wanted to go through anything alone again.”

“Thank you for being nice about this,” Elle said.

“I’m a doctor. Just because I don’t agree with a certain medical procedure, it doesn’t mean I didn’t learn about it in medical school.”

“You’re a doctor? I thought you were a nun.”

“I’m both. I have some painkillers here. I can give you something for your nausea if you still need it.”

“I think I’m done puking.”

“You’ll probably bleed for a few weeks. That’s normal. But I want you to come back here in a week. We can do a sonogram.”

Elle stared at her wide-eyed.

“You can do that here? You get a lot of knocked-up nuns in here?”

Sister Aquinas smiled. “Kidney stones. I see a lot of those.”

“I see.” Elle rolled back onto the cot while Sister Aquinas prodded her stomach. “I’m going to be okay, aren’t I?”

“Okay? Physically, yes. You’ll be fine. Emotionally and spiritually? That’s between you and God. But if any place can help you get right with God, it’s here.”

“I don’t regret it,” Elle said, and she meant every word.

“Pride is a sin, young lady.”

“Put it on my tab.”

“God sees the heart,” was all Sister Aquinas said to that.

Sister Aquinas continued her perfunctory examination. She made no further comment about Elle’s choice or her spiritual state. But when Elle took her shirt off, Sister Aquinas froze. It was only for an instant, and unlike Mother Prioress, no Catholic oaths were released.

“It’s not as bad as it looks,” Elle said. “Only welts and bruises.”

“Did the man who got you pregnant do this to you?”

“Yes,” Elle said. It wasn’t a lie. Søren had been in Rome ten weeks, and Kingsley had been her only lover in that time. No doubt who the father was.

Sister Aquinas placed her hand gently on the top of Elle’s head. It felt like a blessing although what she’d done to deserve a blessing, Elle didn’t know.

“God sees the heart,” Sister Aquinas said again. This time it didn’t sound like a platitude. This time it sounded like an apology.

Sister Aquinas applied some sort of cream to her bruised back and gave her a week’s supply of a mild painkiller. Elle accepted the pills with gratitude. It would be nice to be out of pain again. Even better than drugs, Sister Aquinas brought her a tray of food. Last night’s leftovers warmed up, but Elle ate every single bite of it.

“Feeling better?” Sister Aquinas asked when she came for the tray.

“Much better. Almost human.”

“Good. We like humans around here,” she said with a smile. “Sister Mary John will be back soon. Lie down and get some rest.”

Rest sounded heavenly. And rest was heavenly. The pillow under her head felt like a cloud. The plain white cotton sheets might as well have been silk. She was safe, safe at last. And now, now she could finally sleep.

Elle closed her eyes.

Then she heard a noise.

She sat straight up in the cot, her heart hammering against her chest.

Seemingly of its own volition, her body forced her onto her feet, her feet forced her forward. Her steps brought her to the window in the infirmary. It was well after 2:00 a.m. and all was dark for miles around. Elle could see the moon and the stars and the slight reflection of them both on the rolling hills, the fields and forests that surrounded the abbey. She saw nothing else. But she didn’t have to see it. She heard it.

“What is that?” Sister Aquinas asked, coming to stand next to her. “Is that a car out there?”

“No,” Elle said, her voice hollow and scared. “It’s a motorcycle.”

“How can you tell?”

“I know cars,” she said. “And I know motorcycles. That’s a 1992 907 I.E. Ducati. Black.”

Sister Aquinas laughed. “You know the color?”

“That’s the only year they came in black.”

The nun narrowed her eyes and peered out onto the black night.

“Someone you know?” she asked, looking at Elle with a curious light in her eyes.

Elle took a step back away from the window.

Then another step.

Then another. She shook her head.

“No.”

8

2015 Scotland

“I DIDN’T KNOW,” Kingsley said, and Nora turned to look at him.

“What didn’t you know?” she asked.

“I didn’t know it was that hard for you.” Kingsley’s back rested against a bedpost at the foot of the bed and his eyes searched her face. “I didn’t know about the pain.”

“It was fine after a couple days. Bad cramps, that’s all. Women are used to that.” She shrugged it off. The past was past. She still remembered the pain, but there was no reason for Kingsley to know how well she remembered it.

“We should have been more careful, you and I,” Kingsley said.

“We were fluid-bonded. It’s what we do. That’s the risk we take,” Nora said. “I don’t blame you. Or myself. Not anymore. Accidents happen, right?”

“I’m sorry you went through that alone,” Kingsley said. “I should have said that a long time ago.”

She smiled at him, grateful for the words. “You wanted kids and I knew it. It would have been too sadistic, even for me, to make you hold my hand during the whole process.”

“I thought...” Kingsley began and stopped.

“Go on,” Søren said. “We’re talking about it finally. Talk.”

“I thought I’d lost my only chance to be a father,” Kingsley admitted. “I convinced myself of that, which is why I wasn’t there for you the way I should have been.”

“You did the best you could.” Nora stretched out her leg and touched her bare toes to Kingsley’s. “We both did.”

“I didn’t,” Søren said.

“You were in Rome.” She turned to look at him. “You couldn’t have done anything.”

“Somewhere along the way I did something wrong. If I hadn’t, you wouldn’t have been scared to tell me,” Søren said.

“I wasn’t scared to tell you,” Nora said, not entirely truthfully. “I didn’t want to drag you into this. And I didn’t need to talk to anyone about it. As soon as I knew, I knew what I wanted to do. No reason to talk to you about it.”

“Except you belonged to me, and you were going through a difficult time,” he said. “I would have liked to have been there.”

“And I would have liked my privacy,” she said.

Søren took her hand and kissed the back of it. His way of saying “You win this round.”

“That was you, wasn’t it?” Nora asked. “The motorcycle I heard?”

“It was.” He gave her a penetrating stare as if trying to see the woman she’d once been and reconciling her with the woman in front of him.

“Why did you come to me there?” she asked.

“I had to,” he said simply. “If there was any chance, any chance at all I could speak to you or even see you, I had to take it.”

“How did you know where I went?” she asked. “I was gone one day and by the next night, you’d found me.”

“I knew where you would go because you did what I would have done in your place,” Søren said. “If I were scared and in pain and on the run.”

“You would have gone to a convent?” she asked, smiling at the idea.

Søren smiled. “No. To my mother.”

“I would have loved to have gone to your mom’s house,” Nora said as she glanced at Kingsley who watched them both with quiet intensity. It had been her first instinct to leave the country and hide out at Gisela’s house in Denmark. She’d rejected it out of hand.

“She would have taken you in,” Søren said. “You know how much she loved you. It didn’t matter I was a priest. She considered us married.”

“I know. And I know she would have taken good care of me,” Nora said, recalling in an instant a thousand memories of Søren’s mother. Her Æbleskiver pancakes she’d made in winter. Listening to her and Søren playing piano together. The long talks she and Nora had while Søren was outside playing with his nieces. Nora sensed Gisela wanted Søren to leave the priesthood, get married and have children, but she never said a word about it. His mother respected their life together, their choices, even with all the risks they took. And Nora always loved her for not trying to change either of them.

“You might have been happier with my mother than you were with yours,” Søren said, knowing how fraught her relationship with her own mother had been. Fraught until the day Nora’s mother died over two years ago.

“Probably. But I loved your mom too much to make her pick sides between her only son and me. That wouldn’t have been fair to her,” Nora said.

“Considering how I behaved that night, it’s safe to say she would have sided with you,” Søren said. Nora wondered how her life could have changed if she’d chosen to run to Søren’s mother instead of her own. That year at her mother’s convent had changed everything, and if she’d gone to Gisela’s she probably would have returned to Søren as his submissive in a week. “He sided with you against me.” Søren nodded toward Kingsley.

“You can’t blame me,” Kingsley said without any hint of contrition. “You fucked up, and I wanted to rip your heart out with my bare hands. It feels good to say that out loud.”

Nora laughed, and shockingly so did Søren.

“I wasn’t very happy with you, either,” Søren said. “You left without a word. Didn’t tell anyone where you went, not even Calliope.”

“That was the point,” Kingsley said, rolling onto his back. “How could anyone tell you where I went if I didn’t even know where I was going? I got to the airport and bought a ticket for the next international flight out.”

“Where did you go?” Nora asked.

“Greece,” Kingsley said. “Then Japan. I spent a month in Hong Kong, a month in New Zealand. New Zealand gave me island fever. I went to the Philippines next, and after that, the French Caribbean.”

“Meanwhile I’m in upstate New York in a convent. Next time I split town, I’m going to your travel agency, King,” she said.

“No more leaving,” Søren said. Nora crawled across the bed and kissed him.

“Never again, I promise,” she said, meaning every word. They kissed again, Søren’s hand resting lightly on the side of her neck, pressing into her collar so she could feel it against her throat. She hadn’t wanted to talk about that year ever, but now that they’d opened Pandora’s box, she felt better, as if the last and final wall between the three of them was tumbling down at last. They should have talked this out years ago. She and Kingsley hadn’t ever talked about the pregnancy they’d ended, but Søren was right as he usually was. Ignorance wasn’t bliss. Ignorance was cowardice.

“Stop kissing him,” Kingsley said. “Get to the nun-fucking already.”

Nora turned her head and glared at Kingsley.

“I’ll tell you about my first night with Juliette if you tell me about your nun. It’s a good story,” Kingsley said. “Deal?”

“Fair trade,” Nora said, and held out her hand. Kingsley shook it. “But my nun didn’t show up for about eight months. Let’s see, I got there in June. It was almost spring when I saw her the first time.”

“That’s when I met Juliette, too. February in Haiti on the beach. I don’t remember the day of the week, but I know it was Valentine’s Day. Someone told me that.” He laughed at something and didn’t tell them what.

“You start,” Nora said as she slid over Søren and got out of bed. “I’m opening the wine.”

“We’re saving that for the reception,” Kingsley reminded her.

“If this storm doesn’t stop, we’ll all drown by morning and all that wine will have gone to waste.”

“You make a good point, Elle,” Kingsley said. “I’ll have a big glass. I’ll get in trouble with Jules for hiding from her. I might as well get in trouble with her for drinking, as well.”

“Why would she be mad at you for drinking?” Nora asked.

Kingsley grinned broadly. “Because she can’t have alcohol again for seven more months.”

Nora almost dropped the wine bottle.

“Juliette’s pregnant?” Nora asked.

Kingsley raised his finger to his lips. “Only you two know now.”

Nora ran to Kingsley and embraced him. “You slut,” she said, planting a kiss on both cheeks.

“She wanted two,” Kingsley said. “And le prêtre doesn’t look a bit surprised.”

“I’m trying to look surprised,” Søren said with a sly smile.

“You knew?” Nora asked.

“Juliette and I were working on something together recently. She got light-headed and almost fainted. She told me why she wasn’t feeling well in exchange for me not calling an ambulance for her.”

“And you didn’t tell me?” Nora asked, grabbing him by the front of his shirt and pointing at his nose. “You jerk.”

“I’m a priest. Keeping secrets is my job,” he reminded her, taking her hands off his shirt and kissing them. He looked from her to Kingsley. “I’m very happy for you. And relieved you finally said something so I could tell you that.”

“Are you happy?” Nora asked Kingsley, already knowing the answer.

“Is the pope Catholic?” Kingsley asked.

“Pope Francis is a Jesuit,” Søren said.

“And Catholic,” Kingsley said.

“Being a Jesuit takes precedence,” Søren said.

Nora sighed. “Typical. So typical.”

Søren got out of bed and stood in front of Kingsley. He grasped the back of Kingsley’s neck, bent down and kissed him. Nora went back for the wine and let them have their moment of privacy. She opened the Syrah and poured three steep glasses. She brought one to Kingsley, one to Søren and kept one for herself.

“When are you telling Nico he’s going to be a brother again?” Nora asked as she slid back onto the bed, careful not to spill any wine on the sheets. They’d already pushed their luck with fire-play and very wet sex. If she got her deposit back on this room, it would be a miracle.

“Soon,” Kingsley said. “Now that you both know, I’ll call him tomorrow. You think he’ll be happy?”

“Thrilled and relieved,” Nora said. “The more kids you have, the less pressure he feels to have them. He’s already made Céleste the legal heir to his vineyard. But don’t tell her that. She’s only three, but I can see her attempting a coup.”

“I’m relieved I won’t have to worry about being a grandfather anytime soon,” Kingsley said with a wink at her. He pushed a pillow behind his back, stretched out his legs and crossed them at the ankles. He had the legs of a professional soccer player, which the kilt displayed to marvelous affect. No wonder Juliette with her fetish and her pregnancy hormones had been all over him the past two days.

“No chance of that from me,” Nora said. “Cheers to the good Doctor Hélène Faber.” She and Kingsley clinked glasses, which was likely the first time in history two people had ever toasted to a woman’s sterilization procedure before. Then again, no two people in history had Kingsley and Nora’s history. With everything they’d put each other through, they’d had two choices—hate each other or love each other. They were so much alike, hating each other would have been like hating themselves. And both of them were rather too self-important for that sort of nonsense.

So they picked love.

“I have you to thank for my children,” Kingsley said, pointing his wineglass at her. “All two and one-third of them.”

“And why is that?”

“I would never have known about Nico if it wasn’t for you. I would never have met Juliette if you hadn’t left him.” He pointed at Søren.

“Then shouldn’t I get some credit here?” Søren asked.

“Oui, you get all the credit for being such an enormous asshole neither of us wanted to see you for a full year.”

“Thank you,” Søren said, saluting with his wineglass. “Credit where credit is due.”

“Did you know Juliette would be the mother of your children when you met her?” Nora asked.

“The opposite,” Kingsley said. “I thought she’d be a terrible mother when I saw her. In my defense, she was assaulting children. In her defense, they deserved it.”

“No wonder Juliette wouldn’t tell me about when you all met,” Nora said, pulling the sheets up around her again. She pressed close to Søren, relishing his warmth and his nearness.

“Juliette,” Kingsley began, and his voice changed subtly as he spoke. He sounded far away and Nora wondered what he was remembering and why it hurt so much. “She was in a difficult position back then. Trapped, you could say.”

“So what did you do?” Nora asked, as eager to hear Kingsley’s story of that year as they were to hear hers.

“I did what I always do when I meet a beautiful woman,” Kingsley said with a shrug. “I fucked her.”

9

2004 Haiti

KINGSLEY WOKE UP that morning and decided to fuck the first girl who’d let him. Luckily there was a girl conveniently located in his bed. Who she was he didn’t quite remember, but it didn’t really matter. She was there by his invitation and her choice. Names, dates, places—the rest was irrelevant.

Last night—that’s when he’d met her. He’d gone to a bar last night, drunk a few gallons of rum...or something. He’d met a waitress who spoke no traditional French and a little English. He spoke English and enough Creole to have her sitting on his lap by the third drink and home with him after the sixth. Home wasn’t anything more than a shack on the beach furnished with a bed and a well-stocked bar, but that hadn’t deterred her from spending the night with him and on him. Gorgeous girl. Coffee-colored skin and eyes, short curly hair that formed a halo around her face, lips like candy he clearly remembered biting.

And any minute now he’d remember her name. He rolled onto his side, spooned against her back and kissed the tip of her shoulder. Her name—it started with an S. He wanted to say Sabrina but that wasn’t quite it. She stretched out in her sleep and pushed back against him. Fuck it. He didn’t even remember his own name this morning.

She rolled onto her stomach as Kingsley ran his hand down her back. She had the soft smooth skin of a woman who spent her days naked on the sand.

“Bon maten,” she murmured as he nibbled the back of her neck that smelled lightly of citrus. Without taking his mouth off her body, he reached over the bed, pulled out a condom and rolled it on. No more accidents. No more mistakes. No more mornings like that one he’d had last year when he saw with his own eyes the consequences of his carelessness.

He pushed the thought out of his mind as he moved on top of the girl.

“Oui?” he asked. “Non?”

“Wi,” she said, Haitian Creole for yes and gave him a smile that also said yes.

He laughed in her ear, nudged her thighs apart with his knees and settled into her with a few slow thrusts. She was still wet and open inside from the sex they’d had a few hours earlier. Wet and warm and he groaned from the pleasure of it. It had been a long time since he’d let himself have vanilla sex. It felt like a vacation—lazy, easy, self-indulgent.

But he wasn’t complaining and neither was Sabatina.

Sabatina—that was her name.

Kingsley rolled his hips against hers, keeping the pace slow and easy. Her mouth opened under his, inviting his tongue in for a dozen more kisses, a dozen more bites. She tasted like white wine and pears. Lowering his head, he took a nipple into his mouth and sucked deeply while she arched underneath him. He pushed deep and her hips rose off the bed to welcome him into her. Last night...he could barely remember fucking her, although he knew he’d enjoyed it and so had she. Still, it felt like the first time with her so he took his time, relishing each push and the pleasant pressure it gave him in his stomach, thighs and back.

Her mouth curled into a smile of intoxication. She murmured softly in Creole. He didn’t understand a word of it, but the tone was definitely encouraging. He licked and kissed his way from one breast to the other. Still he moved in her, harder and deeper. She reached her arms up to wrap them around his neck. Out of pure instinct he grabbed her arms and pressed her wrists down into the bed on either side of her head and bore down on her with a brutal thrust. She gasped and cried out. Kingsley froze.

“Don’t stop,” she said in her heavily accented English. He put more weight onto her wrists, more power into his thrusts and fucked her six inches into the mattress. Spread out beneath him, she received everything he gave her without protest and with enthusiasm. He released one of her wrists and yanked her leg around his back. When he pulled out, he pulled out all the way to the tip. When he thrust back in, it was with every inch at once as far as he could go. A deep pulsing resonated inside his thighs and hips all the way to his cock. He couldn’t hold out much longer, but thankfully neither could she. He increased his pace and was rewarded with the lusty cry of her orgasm and the subsequent contractions of her vagina around him.

He dug his fingers into her flesh and let himself come at last. The relief as he collapsed on her body was profound. He wanted to close his eyes, fall asleep inside her and not wake up for days. Instead, he pulled out and lay on his side facing her.

“You liked that?” he asked.

“Non,” she said, smiling broadly. “I loved it. But...”

“No buts,” he said. “You stay. I’ll find breakfast.”

“I can’t.” She rolled up and stretched her neck left to right. From the floor she picked up her dress and pulled it on over her head. “I have to go.”

“You have to work?”

“Babysit,” she said. “Maman has to work today.” She kissed him quick and hard before sliding off the bed. She shoved her feet into her sandals and tied a ribbon in her hair to tame it. “But I can come back tomorrow night.”

“You should,” he said. “I’ll be here.”

“For how long?” she asked.

“I don’t know,” he said. “Until they kick me off the island.”

“This is Haiti. You spend money here, you can stay forever.”

“Maybe I will.” His money wasn’t running out anytime soon. And the thought of returning to New York now, in winter, with no one to welcome him home but a brokenhearted priest?

“Good. I never fucked a white man before.”

“Is that why you came back here with me?”

“Wi,” she said with a wink.

Kingsley laughed. “I feel so used.”

“You want me to come back and use you again?”

“Why not?” he asked.

“I don’t know.” She stared at him through narrowed eyes. “You were talking about another girl in your sleep last night.”

“I was? Who?” Kingsley hadn’t talked in his sleep in years as far as he knew. Not since that year after he moved to Manhattan and was still recovering from his gunshot wound.

“You never said her name. It was ‘she.’ Who is she?”

“I must have been dreaming. I know a lot of girls. They all have names.”

Sabatina grinned. “I’ll use you again tonight maybe. Come back to the club if you want. I can be your Valentine’s Day date.”

“It’s Valentine’s Day?”

“You didn’t know?”

“I don’t remember what year it is.”

Laughing, she bent over and kissed him once more.

“It’s 2004. Valentine’s Day. Now I have to get home before Maman kills me.”

“You live with your parents?” Kingsley asked.

She nodded as she bent to tie the laces of her sandals.

“How old are you?” he asked.

“Eighteen,” she said, standing up straight again.

Kingsley’s stomach flipped a few times. Eighteen? She was only eighteen? His last girlfriend had been twenty-seven. Somewhere deep in his psyche, his conscience reminded him it still existed.

“I have a rule. I don’t fuck women under twenty-five.”

“Then you broke your rule.” She laughed again. “It’s good. I like older men.”

She ran a hand through his hair once, and after one more kiss, a kiss he didn’t return, she left him.

Somewhere he had a watch but he didn’t bother checking it. All he did was grab a towel, wrap it around his waist and walk out to the ocean. It must have been early. It looked early. But the temperature had to be in the eighties already. No one else was on his stretch of beach yet so he dropped his towel and dived naked into the clear waters. He swam out a hundred yards and rested on his back in the water. When was the last time he’d taken an actual bath or shower? He couldn’t remember. Who needed a porcelain bathtub when he had the ocean fifty feet from his front door?

As he floated under the morning sun, he tried to forget he’d fucked a girl twenty-one years his junior last night. Twenty-one years. He was old enough to be her father and then some. Then again, he’d lost his virginity when he was twelve or thirteen...twelve maybe. Thirteen? Whichever it was, by that math he couldn’t fuck anyone more than thirteen years younger than him. That was Elle’s age...twenty-six. For a minute he let himself think about her, something he’d been trying to avoid for months. Where had she landed? Had she given up and gone back to Søren? He doubted it. Once a week he called back to his office and spoke to Calliope. No news from her yet. The house was quiet. The city was quiet. The dogs were content and his clubs were thriving in the hands of their capable managers. Everyone missed him, Calliope said. But no one needed him.

And no one back at the house had seen or heard from Elle or Søren since Kingsley had left the country in June. Either they were tucked tenderly in Søren’s bed making up for all that happened between them, or she was still gone and he was still searching. Kingsley refused to admit that he cared which one it was. His part in their domestic drama was done. They were adults. They didn’t need him around to solve their problems for them.

Yet...

Still...

He couldn’t stop wondering.

Reluctantly he swam toward the shore and grabbed his towel off the sand. He didn’t dry off with it. No need in this heat. He’d be mostly dry by the time he reached his beach hut. Back inside, he drank a bottle of water and pulled on a pair of tattered khaki pants and a white shirt. He didn’t bother buttoning it. He put on a pair of sunglasses and walked back out into the heat of the day in search of food and alcohol and anything else that would get him through the day.

A hut on another patch of beach half a mile away sold fish and fruit to visitors. He might eat there. He might keep walking. Didn’t really matter. He wasn’t going to starve. And he had no schedule to keep. If he was honest with himself, he’d admit he was bored. Bored in Paradise. But after five weeks of sleeping on a beach, bathing on a beach, walking on a beach, eating on a beach, having sex on a beach...he’d kill for the sight of a skyscraper or a mansion or a television broadcasting a French football match. He had no idea how Les Bleus were doing this season. As long as they were beating Denmark he could sleep at night. When he called home next time, he’d ask Calliope to check the scores for him. Even in Paradise, a man had needs.

Kingsley turned a corner and smelled fish frying in the near distance. Instead of awakening his appetite, it made his stomach tighten. After all he drank last night, he wasn’t quite ready for solid food yet. Maybe in an hour or two he could eat. For now he would wander and not care where his feet took him.

He started caring very quickly where his feet took him when he realized they had taken him into a heavily touristed area. He would have been happy to go his entire stay in Haiti without setting eyes on any white Americans. So far he’d done fairly well staying away from happy families and/or businessmen trying to find a new way to exploit Haiti’s beauty and resources. Yet everywhere he looked, he saw white faces squinting behind fashionable sunglasses, teenage girls in tiny bikinis, little boys building and destroying each other’s sand castles, and bored mothers and bored fathers trying to pretend they weren’t annoyed when their children interrupted their naps or their reading.

How did people go through life being so bored and so boring without killing themselves? Never be boring was the one and only commandment he followed. All the other commandments he considered mere suggestions.

He hated to admit that maybe if he stayed here in Haiti he would turn boring, too. Sleeping with an eighteen-year-old girl by mistake had been the only not-boring thing he’d done in weeks.

Bored and boring. He did the same things every day, walked the same paths, saw the same faces give or take a few minor variations. He’d caused no trouble, started no fights, blackmailed no politicians and engaged in only the most minor and unimpressive of sexual peccadilloes. If things didn’t get more interesting fast, he’d be forced to go back to Manhattan to find a reason not to shoot himself in the head.

Good thing he hadn’t packed his gun.

A few women and even more teenage girls gave him appreciative stares as he wove through the path of their chaises longues and beach chairs. He saw the rapacious looks in their eyes, their knowing smiles at each other. American women in foreign countries were more ravenous than a pack of sharks in a feeding frenzy. Could they not get laid back in the suburbs where they came from? He glanced at the men with them and rolled his eyes behind his sunglasses. No wonder they were staring at him. They really should have left their excess baggage back home.

He passed through a cluster of torchwood and palm trees. Off the path now, the ground grew rockier. He didn’t care. This morning he’d remembered to put on shoes before heading out. Shoes were pleasantly optional on the beach in the morning. And if he wasn’t going to wear boots, he’d rather wear nothing at all.

Boots. He did miss his boots. He missed his boots and his bed. The beach hut wasn’t bad but the bed was no bigger than a full-size. He could only fit two people in it. After island hopping from New Zealand to the Philippines, he’d come to Haiti five weeks ago, rented a hut and settled down. But perhaps it was time to go home. Calliope asked him every week when he was coming home. He still didn’t have an answer for her. If Elle was still on the run, he’d given her an eight-month head start to hide. And perhaps Søren had gotten the hint that Kingsley wouldn’t do his dirty work for him this time. Kingsley turned around. He’d make a call. See what the flight options were for the week. Maybe it was time to go back. Or at least go somewhere else. Martinique? St. Croix? Miami? Manhattan? He would miss Haiti. After all it was beautiful, peaceful, restful.

And boring.

Kingsley heard a scream.

He whipped around, all senses on high alert. The scream had been loud, high-pitched and pained. He raced a few steps deeper into the trees and saw a boy—pasty white and still wearing his baby fat despite being twelve or thirteen—squealing in agony. Another boy next to him dropped a coconut-sized rock on the ground.

“Pick on someone your own size,” Kingsley heard a woman yell at the boy in a strong French accent.

Then a rock whipped through the air and hit the boy again on the back of his Ludacris T-shirt.

“Crazy bitch,” the boy shouted. The woman picked up another rock and threw it at him, hitting him in the thigh.

“Tu n’es qu’une merde, tu ne sais à rien,” she shouted.

“You’re psycho,” his friend yelled, and he picked up a rock as big as a fist. The woman had thrown rocks the size of walnuts which would leave nothing but bruises. This boy was out for blood.

“Do it,” she said. “You murdering little bastards.”

Kingsley stepped between the woman and the boys.

“I wouldn’t do that if I were you,” Kingsley said in English to the boy with the big rock.

The boys took one look at him and made their first smart decision in their young lives.

“Come on. Let’s go,” the other, smaller boy shouted at his friend. The older boy dropped his huge rock and ran off as fast as his pale, hairless legs could carry him.

“Casse-toi,” came the woman’s voice again. She cursed in French but switched back to English when she saw him standing there. She must have assumed he was American. How insulting. “I should have killed them.”

She bent down and picked up a soccer ball.

“You forgot your ball,” the woman shouted, this time in English. “Want it back?”

She made as if she would throw it at them. Kingsley stopped her.

“I’ll take it,” Kingsley said. He grabbed the ball out of her hands, dropped it on the sand and kicked it with the perfect blend of force and precision. A hundred feet away, the ball hit the older boy in the back of the legs and sent him tumbling to his knees. He scrambled up and ran off again.

Kingsley looked at the woman. She looked at him.

“You have good aim,” she said.

“You’re not the first woman who’s told me that.” He waited. The woman got the joke. He could see that in her eyes. She did not, however, find it funny. She turned from him and knelt on the ground.

“What were they doing?” Kingsley asked her.

“Killing babies.”

Kingsley looked down and saw a bird’s nest on the ground, eggs shattered and oozing on the sand. A small bird with yellow on its wingtips danced in distress around the branches of a flowering bush. The woman studying the broken nest had dark skin and large black eyes. She looked much closer to twenty-eight than eighteen, thank God. Her long straight hair was pulled back in an elegant high ponytail. She wore a white ankle-length skirt and a white halter top that left her flat and muscled stomach bare. She was tall, too. Almost as tall as he. Her eyes were full of fury and her hands had balled into fists. She had the bearing of Cleopatra, the face of Venus and the wrath of God. And whoever she was, she’d attempted to stone two boys to death for the crime of throwing rocks at a bird’s nest.

“Little monsters. Look what they’ve done.”

“Do you want me to kill them for you?” Kingsley asked, almost sincere in his offer. He could hardly imagine a good man growing up out of the sort of boy who’d crush bird eggs for pleasure. “I didn’t pack my gun, but I can use my hands. I can drown them and make it look like an accident. Oui? Non?”

Her dark eyes flashed in his direction.

“Are you mocking me?”

“Not at all,” he said. Pas du tout. If this woman had asked him to bring him the heads of those boys to her on a platter, he would have done it.

“No,” she said. “Let them go. They’re in God’s hands. We all are.”

It could have been a platitude—in God’s hands—but the way she said it made it sound like a fearful threat.

The woman knelt in the sand in front of the bush that the boys had attacked with their rocks. She studied the scene of carnage—the shattered eggs, the broken nest.

“Men destroy everything,” she said, talking to herself. “Why do they have to destroy everything?”

Carefully, as if the nest was made of glass, the woman lifted it off the ground and tucked it into a tree. Then she bent down again and covered the broken eggs with sand. She did so quietly, reverently, as if performing a sacred burial ritual. The mother bird flitted down to the sand, looking for her lost babies.

“Try again, Maman,” the woman said to the little bird. “Try again for me.”

He looked at her face, and saw tears on it. Tears over a broken nest and a baby bird.

Fuck Manhattan. And fuck the entire world.

Haiti had just got very interesting.

10

Upstate New York

“BEWARE THE IDES of March” read the note Kingsley had slipped under her bedroom door. “Don’t drink any alcohol today. Dress in your finest and wait for me by the Rolls at ten.”

Eleanor supposed this note was Kingsley’s version of a birthday card? Card and invitation. She hadn’t planned on a big party for her twenty-sixth birthday. Sounded like Kingsley had planned one for her.

When evening turned to night and the city turned on its lights and switched off its inhibitions, Kingsley put her in the back of his Rolls-Royce. He had a smile on his face, a secret little smile. Something told her she was about to get her birthday present.

“You know I’ve had sex in the back of a Rolls-Royce,” she reminded him. “So don’t even ask.”

She’d had sex with him in the back of a Rolls-Royce so many times she’d lost count. Luckily it was a limousine-style Rolls that kept the backseats separated from the driver by a partition and a thick black curtain.

“I know you’ve had sex in the back of the Rolls-Royce. But not with him.”

“Him who?” Eleanor asked.

The car pulled over. The door opened.

A young man of about twenty-three years old with dark spiky hair, a handsome face and a dirty grin got into the car.

“Happy birthday, beautiful,” he said.

“Oh my God. Griffin.” Eleanor threw herself into Griffin’s arms, and he pulled her so close to him it almost hurt. “When did you get back?”

“Two nights ago.”

“And you didn’t call me?” she asked, feigning irritation.

“Surprise,” he said, grinning.

She sat on this lap and wrapped her arms around him. Griffin...she loved this kid. Had it only been eight months ago when Kingsley had first summoned Griffin to the town house and shown him the ropes? She’d been in the ropes that night as Kingsley beat her and fucked her, all as part of a demonstration showing Griffin what kink in action had looked like. He’d taken to the scene like a duck to water, but old habits had died hard. Kingsley had caught him snorting coke in one of the town house bathrooms one day and stone drunk the next day. Kingsley had enough demons of his own, he’d said, without inviting Griffin’s demons over for tea. So Kingsley had laid down the ultimatum—go to rehab and get clean or...get out. Griffin had gone to rehab.

And now he was back.

“God, I missed you,” she said as she pressed her face against his warm strong neck and inhaled cedar and suede. Griffin always smelled as if he’d just stepped out of a shower.

“Good,” he said, taking her by the upper arms and positioning her on his lap. “Because I’m your birthday present.”

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