“Have you and Jack decided whether you’re going to find out if it’s a boy or a girl?”
“Nah, gender is a construct, and I know you’re trying to change the subject.”
“From what?” Playing dumb seemed to be his best option with Hannah. She seemed to be out for blood, and it probably wouldn’t help. But he couldn’t think of anything else.
“From the fact that you’re toying with my best friend’s emotions.” Guilt hit Patrick in the guts when she said that. It was certainly how things would look, even though it hadn’t been his intention.
“I never meant to—”
Hannah put up one hand. “It doesn’t matter what you meant to do.”
That was true. He hadn’t intended to sin, but he’d done it anyway. And the thought that he’d hurt Sasha was even more torturous than having to live with violating his vows. She’d told him that they were not a thing when she’d walked out of the bar. But she’d kissed him, and he’d kissed her back.
She made him question everything. She terrified him.
His maudlin reverie was cut off by Hannah’s sharp laugh. “You really like her, don’t you?”
“Of course I like her.” Patrick shouldn’t really be discussing this with her. “She’s my friend.”
Hannah rolled her eyes at him. “Okay, if you’re going to play it this way, I’m just going to have to lay it out.”
Patrick could see why his best friend loved this woman. She didn’t let him get away with anything. “If you hurt her anymore, if you lead her on and make her think you’re leaving the priesthood for her only to chicken out like a fucking punk, I will make the fires of hell look like a damned picnic in the park.”
“Noted.”
Hannah nodded. “Now sign these contracts so that I can go home and defile my husband.”
Patrick was jealous, but just looked at her. “I’m still a priest, you know.”
“Yeah, like I care.” Hannah smiled, and Patrick knew that she hadn’t been bluffing about being more arduous than hellfire. “I like to see your collar in a wad.”
The insinuation being that he shouldn’t be wearing one anymore.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
THE LAST PLACE THAT Patrick wanted to be was at the reception for Matt and Bridget’s second wedding. He felt guilty about being relieved that they’d decided to get married at City Hall—Matt wasn’t Catholic, and Bridget wasn’t a churchgoer. But Patrick would have preferred to avoid the whole thing. Now that Jack and Hannah knew there was something going on, or something had gone on, he didn’t doubt that all their friends knew there was more than a crush between the two of them.
He couldn’t beg off, however, because Bridget would be deeply disappointed in him. He was genuinely happy that she’d found happiness after her toxic relationship with his brother. She was like family—sometimes more like family than his own—and he liked to think he was made of sterner stuff than making an excuse.
Plus, no matter what, he was going to have to see Sasha again. It was better if it was at a big public event rather than alone in his office. Or alone in the rectory. Or alone at Dooley’s. Any of the places where he could forget that he wasn’t allowed to touch her or kiss her or even want her.
He’d attempted to mentally prepare for seeing her again, but it had been foolish to even try. She looked even more ethereal with short hair that showed off her long neck. The new style should remind him of what she’d been willing to sacrifice to get away from him, but it instead made him contemplate the curve of her neck.
During the cocktail hour, he greeted the newlyweds and grabbed a beer. When he found a dark corner, he leaned back against the wall, hoping to blend into the lushly appointed furniture at the private club that Matt’s parents had bought out for the night.
His eyes kept being drawn back to Sasha. He couldn’t help it. She looked at home in the room—one where politicians had probably made backroom deals for a hundred years. This was a room he wouldn’t ever be welcomed into, not unless he had the ambition to climb the Church’s hierarchy. Bishop Rafferty was probably a member. Even his brother—who was absent from this event for obvious reasons—would be more at home in a room like this than Patrick was.
But Sasha laughed and smiled and seemed to know everyone. It made him feel like a miserable prick for wanting her. He could never give her this. Even if he left the Church, he didn’t have a plan. Sasha was the kind of woman who wouldn’t choose a man without a plan. She contained more multitudes than she usually let out, but she was a pragmatist.
And she didn’t want him—not really and not for keeps.
Still, he kept willing her to look at him. She never did. And he decided to switch from beer to scotch.
* * *
—
SHE NOTICED HIM LOOKING at her, and it was very distracting. Trying to ignore him was the only thing keeping her sane right now, and he was making it impossible. An uncharitable part of her mind wished that he’d just stayed home, even if he had known Bridget his whole life.
When she felt his eyes on her, it just made her laugh louder and flirt more with everyone else. Maybe then he’d get the message that she’d moved on, even though she was really only trying and failing to move on.
He was even more handsome when he was brooding. Leaning back in an antique upholstered chair at one of the tables at the edge of the room, he looked disreputable—more like an old-timey gangster than a man of the cloth.
Hannah, who was still moving very quickly and silently for someone who was starting to pop an impressive belly, sidled up to her without her noticing. “Stop looking at him like that.”
“I thought you didn’t care that I was looking at him like that.”
“I wouldn’t care if you were looking at him like that if you were actually going to do anything about it, but both of you are too up your own asses to make a move. This is just torturing you both.”
That’s right, Hannah had gone to see Patrick because Sasha was too much of a chicken to be in a room with him after the kiss/scissors incident. “He seems tortured?”
“The man is a mess.” Oddly, her best friend sounded delighted by that fact. “He’s so forlorn that he doesn’t know which way is up.”
Sasha let herself glance at him then and met his gaze. It held for long moments, and she couldn’t tear her eyes away from him. And he looked like he was trying to fill himself up with her, too.
“If he’s so forlorn—if he wants me that much—why doesn’t he come and get me?”