“You already knew that,” he chides, reaching up and rubbing a finger over my damp cheek.
“You didn’t come—I was scared.”
He shrugs. “I had to protect us. You aren’t the only protector here. Plus, I had things to do.”
“Like what?” I run my finger over his bare throat. “Like quitting?”
“That, as well as some issues I had with the Church. A final sermon, a farewell to the parishioners… Plus, I needed to see Paulo Lorenzo.” His jaw tenses. “Before I defrocked. The dog collar has a powerful effect on people.” He tugs at his shirt collar and the lack of weight there seems to be reflected in his eyes. I hope it makes him breathe easier.
“Did you kill him?” I whisper hesitantly, unsure what I want his answer to be.
He shakes his head. “He was still in hospital.”
“Still?”
“Complications due to the alcohol poisoning.” He sighs, reaches up and runs a hand over my hair. “Even if I wanted to, I couldn’t have... Instead, I put the fear of God into him. Told him that he survived only to right the wrongs he made.”
“Do you think that’s enough?”
His lips purse. “No. I’d like to think so, but even though he’s had a scare—I told him that he was drinking so heavily that night out of guilt—I know how temptation works. So I warned that police officer who visited me in the hospital. Esposito? And talked with Lorenzo’s niece, gave her the carabinieri’s card, and told her to use it if her uncle sinned.”
“There’s more than one way to skin a cat.” I see the logic in his actions, and am grateful for them. He has been busy, so I resent our time apart less, but that doesn’t mean I’m not ready to cleave myself to his side. Need has me asking, “What’s the next step?”
“I have a few more hoops to jump through before things are finalized on this end. I want to meet you in the States.” He blows out a breath, and I brace myself, because, from the way he tenses in my arms, I know I’m not going to like this—he’s preparing himself for my rejection. “I want you to go to the hospital. I want you to go for a checkup.”
I want to argue about us leaving separately, but as to the hospital, I can’t. Hadn’t I just been thinking that myself?
I wrinkle my nose. “Okay.”
“Okay?” He scowls at me, but there’s relief in his eyes, and that he’s concerned for me? God, it makes me the luckiest woman alive. “I thought you’d argue.”
I shrug. “I think I need to go too.”
Concern flashes in his gaze, and he hauls me tighter into him, like he can protect me with his body. I wish that were true. “What is it?” he demands. “What’s wrong?”
“My nose is being weird. I just don’t think it’s normal.” I shrug. “Plus, I’m still weak and I tire quickly. I don’t think there’s anything wrong—”
“But a hospital is the best place for you.” He dips his chin. “That seals it. I want you on a plane within the next few days.”
My mouth drops open. “What? No way! I want to leave at the same time! I just thought you meant separate flights!”
“No can do. We need to stay separate. I’ll travel to the States as well, then get trains to your state. I want to zigzag a little.”
“There’s no suspicion—”
“Maybe not, but I want it to remain that way.” He reaches up and presses a finger to my lips. “Let us do this the right way.”
My eyes narrow at him. “Why?”
He shrugs, sighs, but his gaze stays on my lips and the finger he pressed there, not catching my gaze. “I want to give you time to contemplate what you’re taking on.”
I stiffen in his arms. “Are you shitting me?”
Though his expression darkens, his lips twitch. “No. I’m not.”
“You have to be. You can’t think that I’d be the one to back away from this.” My mouth works as I ‘contemplate’ just how crazy he is.
Hell, he says I am.
“I’m fucked up,” he mutters as he presses a kiss to my temple, his words vibrating through his kiss. “I’ll always have night terrors, and I might hurt you in my sleep. I won’t ever let you moan when we’re together that way, and the lashing? I won’t be able to stop that. Not immediately. I’m a lot to take on.”
I pull away, not going far, but separating us so I can grab his hand and rest it on my stomach.
“What if I’m pregnant?”
“Then we don’t have a choice.”
My retort is sharp. “Good. I don’t want a choice. This isn’t about choice. There’s no free will in this situation,” I growl. “And if God has his shit together, then I will be pregnant so we have no say in this.
“You and I are made for each other. Just because you’re a little nuts, well, that doesn’t scare me.”
“I’m a killer,” he breathes, pulling me back into his arms.
His erection tells me he likes what I said though.
“So am I. I condoned what you did,” I counter with a shrug. “And I’ll condone it again. So long as I think it’s right.”
He narrows his eyes. “Only God can help me now.”
My lips curve in a smile. “Oh, baby, he’s been helping you all along since the day I saw you on TV.”
Xavier
Four years later
I pick up the screaming child, wondering what I did to deserve a child louder than his mother.
When the other two start wailing, I plead, “Dear Lord, what will it take to stop you from yelling?”
A snicker sounds from the other side of the room, and I twist around and find my wife staring at me, leaning against the doorjamb and somehow managing to look sexier than she should when she’s dressed for business and not to impress.
She’s wearing a smart pantsuit, not her usual attire of shorts and a cami that always shows just enough to keep me hard if I eye her up, and her hair is twisted up in a bun that reminds me of a secretary.
I want that rope of hair in my hand as I pull her head back—
Damn, I really need to not have an erection right now.
Her smug smile has me narrowing my eyes at her. “You said three hours.”
She grins unapologetically. “The meeting went over.”
“You signed?” She wasn’t sure if the production company who wanted to produce the book she’d written about a priest who killed sinners in his parish would have the same creative vision she had, but from her smug smile, I get the feeling things had gone well.
Yeah, the story was cutting very close to the bone, but before I left Rome, I returned to France to visit my parents, and I changed my name.
I was no longer Savio Martin, but Xavier Martinez, and I was damn glad I had now. In four years of being together, she’d only managed to write one book.
The Vows We Break had been a bestselling hit, and the production companies have been at her for months about a movie.
With a different name, I don’t have to worry about anyone connecting the dots. Meager though they might be.
I don’t believe in coincidence. I believe in a destiny that makes it so me and this woman, my angel, are tied together until the day we die, but that doesn’t mean life can’t get in the way of God’s will from time to time.
“I signed.” She winks at me. “Twenty million coming our way.”
I snort. “No way.”
She wiggles her eyebrows. “Yes way.”
My lips twitch. “You’re too rich.”
“We are.” She shrugs. “Plus, it’s for them, isn’t it?”
The three children who are more like hell spawn than angels for my comfort.
My nose wrinkles. “Why did we have triplets again?”
“Because my body is overactive and you have super sperm?” she teases, strolling in with more of that loose-limbed gait that has my dick hardening.
Again.
At forty-six, I should be too old for these instant boners that remind me of when I was a teenager, but I figure I have a long time to make up
for.
When she picks up one of the snuffling toddlers who had stopped wailing when their mama made an appearance, I haul the others into my arms.
There’s Grayson, Thiya, and Arabella, but Grayson is the biggest baby of them all.
When his mama isn’t around, he sulks like mad.
Huffing now that he’s in Andrea’s arms, like he’s pissed because he was always supposed to be there, me and the girls just roll our eyes at him, but at least they stopped their sobbing too.
I hate hearing them cry, hate it for so many reasons, but though it can make me murderous, how can I slay a table corner they bumped into? How can I slaughter a bottle of ketchup for being empty?
Kids cry at the most random stuff, and I have to be honest, it both amuses me and drives me nuts. I think, to a certain extent, it’s also tempered me.
I never expected to have kids, so having three is a gift. But at the same time? My punishment.
My mouth curves at the thought, and I press my lips to both golden heads.
They all take after their mother, but Grayson has my darker coloring. I’m glad though. They’re all angels, and only have my temperament when they’re hangry.
Andrea holds the back of Gray’s head and flops down into the sofa, making him giggle. I prop myself up beside her, and inform her, “Your mom called.”
Her nose wrinkles. “Why?”
“To remind you about tomorrow’s appointment.”
“I’m fine.”
I have to laugh. “I know you are. But let’s just confirm it.”
Her nose wrinkles harder, but she nods.
There’s no way in hell she isn’t going in for her checkup, but I get it. She hates the MRI machine, and I can’t blame her.
We found out she was pregnant pretty early on when I first left the priesthood, and it was at a bad time. She had some health issues that necessitated her staying in the hospital for a month or so, needed another round of surgery, but I used that time to help us get to know one another.
As much as I felt sure we were destined to be together, fated, I needed her to be sure.
Needed her to know what she was tying herself to.
A homicidal maniac with parasomnias who would kill to keep her safe, who would slay all her demons to protect her.
One dog, two different houses, three children, and four years later, that hasn’t changed. What has? My hair. It’s speckled with gray from the toddler spawn.
“You’re thinking hard.”
My smile deepens as her words have me shooting her a look from under my lashes. The girls are cuddled against me on the sofa, and Grayson is a true genius—his head is propped on her breasts.
For us, this is quiet, and I love it.
I never expected to have it, and it’s all the more precious for it.
“Not thinking hard, just thinking about things.”
“Good things?”
My eyes twinkle. “Is there anything but good in this world of ours?”
She beams at me, and I know I just made her happy.
We don’t lead a regular lifestyle.
I don’t go out to work, neither does she. We raise our kids, and her royalties pay the bills, and we just live.
No walls, no locks, no rat race.
Our house is deep in the countryside with more open space around it than we know what to do with. It’s a running farm and we pay people to keep it going, but I do my bit. Being outside, working the land? It’s probably the best therapy out there for a man like me.
My father-in-law doesn’t approve, but he’s an army man. Solid, stolid. He thinks I’m taking Andrea for a ride, and little does he know I am, just that it’s the ride of her life.
Beyond the sofa where she’s seated, at her back, is a bay window that overlooks the rolling fields that all belong to our family.
It’s a quiet life, even if things have gotten a little crazier since Andrea released this last book. She told me once that she missed writing, but it had never flowed for her since her surgery, so when she started plotting, I’d been happy for her.
Until she told me what she was writing.
Talk about merging the past with the present, and in a way that endangered us.
But my job in this life?
To make her happy.
To make sure that she’s fulfilled in all things, so watching her write again was a gift.
I don’t think she expected it to be successful, don’t think she thought it would do well, but here she is, signing up with production companies with new awards on her office desk.
I’m proud of her.
More than she will ever know.
“I like that smile on you,” she whispers. “Like it even better if I could taste it,” she purrs, switching to Italian.
The smile she wants to taste darkens, and I murmur to the girls on my lap, “Nap time.”
Ten years later
Andrea
I slip my hand into Xavier’s and he squeezes. Hard enough to make me realize he’s feeling more than he’s showing.
Not that it comes as a surprise, considering what’s happening.
Xavier and his father never really reconnected after he left Italy for the States. Not because he didn’t try. We all did. We bought a place about twenty minutes away from the town he grew up in after Priest hit movie theaters, and we made sure to spend time here every year.
It’s easy to have freedom when you homeschool your kids, which we do. They’re standing with us beside their grandpapa’s graveside, tears rolling down their faces for a man who let them in, but never really reconnected with his son.
I’m not sure why, to be honest. We’re closer to Xavier’s mother, and that’s evident in how Grayson’s arm is curved around Lilith’s waist and his head is tilted onto her shoulder.
He’s a somber little man for a thirteen-year-old, unlike his more playful sisters. I see a cast of his father in him, especially where his kindness is concerned, and his protectiveness?
Oy vey.
He’s almost crazy protective.
But I don’t mind that.
His sisters flit around like dandelions flying in the breeze. They’re the light to his dark, just like I am for his father. I almost think he’ll be like Xavier in that he’ll be a one-woman man. Once he finds her? That’s it for him. And for her.
I can even see him doing something vocational—like becoming a doctor. He’s got the touch, but I’ve seen him with the animals on our farm and figure he’s more suited to being a vet. It’s a shame Marco died in an accident on the roads here. I’d have preferred for Gray to work with animals than become a doctor, but it’s these kinds of traumas that sit in young minds and grow roots.
I saw my boy’s face when we were in the local clinic, the impotent rage in him as he balled his small fists while we waited on doctors to heal his grandpapa.
They failed.
He’s been angry ever since.
I turn my face into Xavier’s arm, squeezing his hand as I do so.
He’s looking stoic, because I know he wants to be anywhere other than here. The service is Catholic, and he’s made it a point to avoid all things religious since we first got together. I mean, he could have sneaked to church without my knowing, but I don’t actually think he would.
We lead tight lives, we’re always together, and while we have our freedoms and our own personal hobbies, I think he’d tell me if he visited a chapel. Just like he told me he was monitoring one of the farmhands a year ago because he had a bad feeling about him—he wasn’t wrong. Derick Roberts is in jail now for sexual assault. Or that he was waiting on our cue of ‘Only God can help me now,’ when we met Lina Gordon at a homeschooling group where the kids got together to socialize—she’d only just lost both her children to Child Services. I didn’t know the details of how or why she had, but wouldn’t be surprised if Xavier was involved on that score too. Away from the church, finding sinners isn’t as easy—something I’m grateful for—but life being the bi
tch it is, they still drift our way from time to time.
It’s been years since a kill’s been sanctioned. Corelli was the last one, but I don’t think God’s done with us, just that he’s finding other ways of getting us to act.
Xavier, in particular.
The strongest man I know, the purest heart I’ve ever seen…
My man.
Today is going to be rough. There’s no avoiding a church when it’s time for a funeral, and he’s been avoiding them a long time to evade the flashbacks. I wish I could cure him, but I can’t. He still has them, still has night terrors, and they surge up out of nowhere, making him fragile and brittle all at the same time. He uses the lash less, but last night?
I heard him.
And it kills me.
But he’s the strongest man I know because he never turns from me during these times.
If he wakes up from a nightmare, he tucks me harder into his side, then talks through it like I was his shrink before falling back to sleep.
The nightmares have returned in a flood since Marco’s death, and every now and then I see him dig his fingers into his belly wound where I stabbed him. I always feel guilty when he does that because it still aches. That’s why he does it though, the pain.
It’s never around the kids. The lashing goes down in one of the barns. And while it’s messed up, while I want to change things, stop him, I can’t.
He has his ways of coping, and I have mine.
As the service slides to a close, I turn to face the cemetery where countless loved ones have been buried over time.
I like it here.
Not the cemetery, although it’s peaceful. I like France. It does something for me.
The States is home, and my parents, now that my dad retired, live close to us on the farm in northern Oregon, but I just...
I don’t know.
My intention was to stay here until Lilith could get used to dealing without Marco, but I have good vibes about this place.
We came for long summer nights and the freedom of the French countryside. We wanted the kids to learn French naturally, wanted them to grow closer to their other family, and we’ve made this our almost-home.
But not a permanent living place.
The Vows We Break: A Twisted Taboo Tale Page 20