I didn’t know what Gypsy’s belief systems were. I only knew that, on some level, she felt safe here. She often stole in here secretly, confessing her darkest secrets, only to flee as though she’d never spoken them aloud at all. It was the reason that even though she represented everything I loathed, I wanted to believe there was redemption for her.
She trailed along beside me, pausing to observe the water inside the baptismal font. I dipped my fingers into the liquid while she watched, making the sign of the cross on myself. Then, against my better judgment, I wet my fingers again. I met her eyes, and she sucked in a breath, and everything else around us seemed to slip away. With scrupulous care, I anointed her forehead and sternum before dragging my fingers across the sensitive flesh of her collarbone to finish on her right.
She trembled, and it triggered an image of me baptizing her naked form in this holy water, only to desecrate her afterward like the true heathen I was. My eyes closed on a sigh, and I tried to gain control of my body and thoughts before they ventured into darker territory. I wanted to protect this girl, but I couldn’t deny the urge inside me that wanted to ruin her too.
We took a seat in the outer pews, and she seemed relieved that I didn’t make her sit up front. I wasn’t certain what to expect when the priest and his attendants took their places for the service. Part of me suspected she would throw a fit and demand to leave, but she didn’t.
Instead, she listened raptly throughout the service as if she were trying to decipher the true meanings behind the hymns. Catholicism was, in essence, a series of rituals. And while I didn’t necessarily consider myself a devout Catholic, I respected the rituals. They gave order to the chaos inside my head at a time when I needed it the most.
After the darkest chapter of my life, I’d found peace in this place, and I brought Gypsy here with the hope that someday she might too.
The service finished without delay, and she remained quiet on the drive home. I didn’t intrude on that silence. I felt it best to let her digest it on her own. At times, I could teach her, but there would be moments she’d have to learn on her own.
WHEN WE GOT BACK HOME, I left Lucian to finish some of my cleaning duties. Partly because I just wanted to finish them, and partly because I needed to organize my thoughts about this man.
He was an enigma. A man who essentially blackmailed me into a marriage and threatened to send me to prison at every opportunity, but one who apparently concerned himself with my soul. It didn’t make sense. Nothing about this situation made sense.
I replayed this morning’s events over and over again, searching for clues to determine his motivations for bringing me to that church. It crossed my mind that he knew about my secret confessions, but then I remembered that the priest told me himself he was bound to silence, and he would not break that silence.
Very few men in this world were worth trusting, but I believed in Father Hawk. He hadn’t betrayed me so far, even after he’d seen my face and talked to me without the veil of a confessional booth. The only logical conclusion I could draw from the day’s events was that Lucian took me there merely because he wanted to. Perhaps in time I would understand his reasons, but it wouldn’t be today.
I was just finishing the dusting when I heard his alarm go off. Another oddity about Lucian was his timed meals. It didn’t matter what he was in the middle of, when that alarm went off, he ate. The strangest part was that it seemed robotic. There was no enjoyment on his face when he ate, and whenever he finished, he logged everything into a nutritional app before marking it off on his calendar.
He was methodical and rigid. Unyielding, in fact. And my brain could only speculate what forces of nature shaped his mindset. I could have asked, but I had a feeling that he wasn’t the sort of man to give anything away. Unlike the men I targeted, he was a closed book. A locked diary, to be more accurate. And that lock had a trip wire on it that would explode if you dared to poke at it.
If I was going to get any answers about him, it would have to be done the hard way. Regardless, I had two years to figure it out.
“Is there something wrong with the salad?” Lucian asked.
I flung a piece of greenery across the bowl to get to the chicken. “Not really, I guess. But I don’t usually eat this kind of stuff.”
“You mean healthy?” he mused.
I looked up at him. His voice was lighter. His whole demeanor was lighter, and I wondered if it was from the spiritual experience of this morning’s events or something else.
I set my fork down and took a sip of lemon water. “I do eat healthy, but I also choose to eat good food. This has no flavor.”
“Tell me what you’d like on the menu, and I’ll see what we can do,” he suggested.
I stared into his cocoa brown eyes. When they were warm, they looked like melted chocolate. It was hard to remember that he was such a prick when he had the capability of looking like a puppy too. And I was fairly certain this was some kind of a cruel trick, but I decided to humor him. “A little pasta wouldn’t kill us, would it?”
He shrugged. “Probably not.”
“And some wine. Good wine. Not the cheap crap.”
His lip tilted at the corner. “We’ll see about that one.”
“I like fruit more than vegetables,” I admitted.
“That doesn’t mean you can get out of eating them.”
Somehow, I didn’t doubt he was serious. I went back to picking around the greens and polished off the chunks of chicken in my bowl. “I usually drink them with a Caesar. Does that count?”
Lucian got up to clear our plates and load the dishwasher. “No, it doesn’t.”
He started sifting through the cupboards, moving boxes around and shifting items until he seemed to find what he was looking for. He pulled a few containers from the inventory and set them on the counter.
“There.” He dusted off his hands and wiped them with a towel. “Tonight, we can work on rice and beans. And good news, pet. You get to cook it.”