Page 13 of Sinfully His

“You’re a…?”

“You expected God himself to come down and save you?” I raised an eyebrow at her. “You were assaulted in the alleywaybehind the church. This church has the small rectory with the entrance in that alley.”

I had been given the option of other accommodations; there were a few clergy houses nearby, and hardly anyone lived here. Most did not like the dark subterranean levels, but I loved it. These rooms were decorated, showing off the true luxury and wealth the Catholic Church possessed.

Everything was made with the highest-quality materials, including rich woods, lush velvets, and silks. The furniture was heavy, made to last generations by master artisans. It wasn’t the bright, airy, modern decadence that spoke of minimalism and taste but of old-world decadence.

I may have taken a vow of poverty—that I ignored as freely as every other vow I was forced to take—but I was still a Manwarring, and that demanded a certain lifestyle.

“I… but… you… in the other room.” Rose was opening and closing her mouth, a single word occasionally making it through.

“Angel, if you want me to answer your questions, I’ll need you to put a full sentence together. If not, let’s return you to where you belong. Somewhere without dirty alleys and Irish thugs, no doubt.”

“But you’re a priest.”

CHAPTER 7

THOMAS

Iwasn’t the least bit surprised when I got the call from Mary Quinn’s assistant inviting me to her home for tea. The assistant informed me that Mrs. Astrid would like to discuss how the Astrid family could further contribute to the winter programs held at the church.

It made perfect sense that was the excuse she would use.

Between Mary Quinn’s currently slightly bruised reputation and my new assignment at the church of the New York elite, the call should have come moments after I stepped off the plane. But Mary Quinn, ever the strategist, wanted to make it seem like she didn’t need me. Or, better yet, that she would pretend that she had only just heard through the grapevine—and not her spies—who the new priest was, and she felt the need to reach out and offer a helping hand.

I couldn’t wait to take that hand and use it to drag her through hell and back again.

There was no doubt in my mind that Mary Quinn wanted a look at me, to bask in what she thought was a personal triumph. Her ruin would be all the sweeter for it.

Or maybe she really wanted to help. Not for altruistic purposes, of course, but I had heard from other priests andthe maids employed at my father’s house that Mary Quinn’s reputation had taken almost as much of a beating as her ego.

Things started falling apart publicly for her a few years back. One daughter leaving her fiancé at the altar to marry another man was one thing. For that embarrassment, she could be forgiven—mostly because it provided entertainment and gossip.

But to then publicly announce the engagement of her son to a society woman, just to have him dump her and immediately marry a girl who came from nothing?

Worse than that, he snubbed that socialite for his paralegal. Which, in the minds of other society women, might as well have been Harrison Astrid publicly marrying his secretary and thereby implying that it was acceptable for their husbands to leave them for the tarts that blew their husbands for “stress relief” at work.

No, that could not be tolerated.

Then for them to find out in a press release from that very same man that the indignity came from a bastard. Again, insinuating that their husbands’ bastards should be claimed and the legitimacy of their legitimate children tested. After all, if an upstanding woman like Mary Quinn could cuckold her husband and pass off another man’s child, who was to say she was the only one?

Mary Quinn’s actions, and the actions of her children, made them look bad. That would not be tolerated.

Any other woman would have been destroyed, and Mary Quinn should have been. So, really, I was just setting everything right with the world.

Ever in love with her power games, Mary Quinn tried to send her car, but I took my own, wanting to make sure that I left on my terms, not hers. I wasn’t entirely sure what kind of bullshit Mary Quinn was about to pull, but I knew to expect anything.

My driver pulled up to the estate, and I looked out the window at the multi-million-dollar address. I had been here before, of course, usually tagging along with my brother when he came to hang out with Harrison, but it had been years. I had forgotten how little taste Mary Quinn really had.

Such a beautiful classic building, its appeal stunted by modern touches like the security camera on the gate and the big black digital call box. One would think with all that money, she would at least hire the right people to add modern security features but install them to blend with the building, or at least appear a little less obvious. Maybe she just didn’t understand that a home had to be more than expensive and old to be stylish.

The added tacky features ruined it. It felt empty and cold.

However, I had to admit there was the chance that maybe that was what she was going for. Maybe she told the designer to make it look like her, expensive but tacky. Old but full of modern features that just didn’t quite fit. For the house it was the new cameras. For Mary Quinn, it was the new nose.

Or maybe my time in Rome had given me a different appreciation for what was and wasn’t art. There was no greater show of majesty, taste, and opulence than the Catholic Church. After living in the Vatican for so long, everything modern just felt dead.

As I walked up to the door, the excitement almost had me vibrating with anticipation. I thought being back here, ready to face the beast, would fill me with anger or dread. But I was almost drunk with a wild nervous energy.

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