The Priest (The Original Sinners #9) - Tiffany Reisz Page 0,98

ride. A black Ducati motorcycle.

“Who’d you have to sleep with to get one of those?”

“This was a bribe,” S?ren said as he took his helmet out of the saddlebag. “My father—who was vile in every way imaginable—tried everything in his power to stop me from joining the Jesuits and becoming a priest. Threats of violence. Threats of public humiliation. Threats of harming the few people in my life I loved. In the end, he resorted to simple bribery. Jesuits aren’t allowed to own personal property and everything is owned in common. If I wanted to keep the bike for myself—which I did, of course—I would have to leave the Jesuits.”

“But you got it.”

“My father didn’t know about the loophole—a Jesuit can ask permission to keep gifts. Sometimes it’s granted, usually for small personal things, rarely anything large or expensive. My advisor and confessor, however, gave me permission to keep it. I believe his exact words were, ‘You keep the Ducati. Your father can go to hell.’ And when he died, he did.”

“Damn,” Cyrus said. “You’re pretty cold for a priest.”

“You don’t know much about priests if you think we’re better people than everyone else. I am living proof of that. In fact, if I had one piece of advice to give you as you investigate your case—”

“I’ll take it,” Cyrus said.

“Assume the worst.”

Chapter Thirty-Five

The verdict was in. The color was Return to Paradise—a pale blue-green. Kingsley approved, begrudgingly, and Céleste approved wholeheartedly. As always, what Céleste wanted, Céleste got, God bless that girl.

Juliette preferred oil-based paint for its finish, but it stunk to high heaven. Juliette, Céleste, and Kingsley decamped to the Ritz-Carlton for a few days, leaving Nora alone with the fumes. With the windows open and a paint mask on, Nora was fine, more or less. Except for when she hallucinated a young Christopher Plummer, riding on the back of a white horse, coming to carry her away. She’d taken a break after that.

With the family gone, Nora could have simply hired someone to paint the nursery. Though tempted, she’d decided against it. Better to stay busy than sit around obsessing over everything Mercedes had said to her. So she cranked the music—Madonna and Prince were good company for manual labor—and got to work.

Music helped for an hour or two, but once Nora settled into the rhythm of the work, the swish and whoosh of the roller brush on the wall, her mind wandered again to the warnings Mercedes had given her.

She would face a difficult choice. She would make the wrong choice. Innocent people would be hurt. And it was a man who would lead her astray.

It was that last part that turned Nora into a skeptic. Deep down, she knew she was perfectly capable of fucking up royally and hurting people without even realizing what she’d done. She’d been that person more times than she wanted to think about. But the men in her life? S?ren. Nico. Kingsley. Cyrus. Gmork?

Nico was in France and wasn’t even aware of what was happening right now. Nora would tell him, but only when she had more answers than questions.

Kingsley? True, he was a reformed rake, minus the reformed part, but he was protective of the women in life—especially Juliette and Céleste but her, too.

Cyrus? Cyrus was up to his eyeballs in love, lust, and adoration of his fiancée. He wouldn’t do anything to mess things up with Paulina, much less lead Nora “astray.”

And S?ren? He would die for her, plain and simple. He would never talk her out of doing the right thing or into doing the wrong thing.

Would he? Not on purpose anyway.

She was fairly sure she was hallucinating again when she received a text message from Cyrus that read, Emma Stone wants to fuck your Viking.

Nora left the nursery and went out to the backyard to breathe some fresh air and make sure she’d read that right.

She had.

Therefore she replied, Do I get to watch?

You’re as crazy as he is.

I warned you about the running thing. But no, you didn’t want to listen to me.

Yeah, you warned me. That’s on me. Call me.

Nora called him.

“What’s up?” she asked him. “Wait. How sure are you this phone call is actually happening?”

“Ninety percent. Why do you ask?”

“I’ve been inhaling a lot of paint fumes. Oil paint. I’m not sure about reality at the moment. Not that I’m complaining.”

“You’re not even gonna ask me about Emma Stone?”

“Sexy young redhead with good tits flirted with S?ren while you two were running