I perk up. “Really?”
“Really.”
“I just…” Why can’t I get over this? “You’re so young.”
“Hmm.” When I look up, she’s got her head tilted and her lips pursed as if this is an academic problem and not a deeply personal one. “Well,” she asks, “I suppose the question is if you’d be like this with any other woman you cared about?”
I think of my lovers in the past, and while I’ve slept with women all across the range of race, religion, and age, there’s a problem with that question, and it’s a simple one. “There are no other women I care about like this,” I explain. “You’re the first, and frankly, given my age, I think you’ll probably be the only one.”
Her mouth parts but she’s not breathing, as if I’ve said something monumental or something insane—or something monumentally insane—but I haven’t. It’s just a plain statement of fact. And it’s a fact that I thought she already knew.
She finally takes in a breath and averts her gaze to the window. The morning light plays across her face, burnishing the bridge of her nose and her cheekbones with the faintest luster of gold. “Sean, I don’t know what to say to that.”
My eyebrows furrow in puzzlement. What does she think she needs to say? It was just an objective truth, like the color of the sky or the reading order of the Wakefield Saga novels. It doesn’t need a response.
But then I realize that perhaps she thinks I would like her to respond in kind, to make some kind of declaration about her feelings in turn, which of course I don’t expect…
I mean, I definitely don’t expect it, and it hadn’t occurred to me before, but now that it has occurred to me, I can feel this thing inside my chest, a gap. It’s almost like a physical space, and somehow I know that if she said something back to me—that she liked me, that she cared about me, anything—it would fill up that mysterious chink, and somehow that would make me feel better.
“Back to my age,” she says, and I nearly let out a bleak laugh. We’ve ventured into strange territory indeed if our massive age gap feels like a safer topic of conversation.
“Yes?”
It’s her turn to cup my hands now and she gives me a smile, one of those Zenny smiles full of contradictions, because I can tell she’s trying to be reassuring but that she’s also troubled about something. I don’t like this, any of it, the troubled smile or knowing I’ve made her uncomfortable, but I also can’t bear to take back what I said about her being the only one for me.
“I appreciate you checking in with me, and while there might be some women in my position who would feel stifled or patronized, I’m okay with it. I like it, actually. I feel rather, well, doted on, and it’s nice. And I also trust that if I ask you to back off, you will.”
“Anything. Anything you say or want, and I’ll do it.”
“I believe you,” she says, and I wish that she didn’t look so worried as she said it.
Three weeks left, I remember. Only three weeks left.
As the days go by, she’s growing bolder and bolder in bed, using those words I like: pussy, dick, come. Fuck. She’s growing antsy for my cock, which is exactly what I wanted, for her to be peeling apart with lust, bursting with it, aching and heavy and ripe with it—and tonight’s the night I’ll finally give her what she’s so eager to have.
But two things first.
First order of business: I think I’ve found a place for the sisters, a renovated warehouse sitting empty on the north end of downtown, with an owner who’s desperate for any kind of tax relief on the vacant property. It would need a kitchen and dormitory space, but not only is it centrally located to bus stops and interstates, but it has ample room for a birthing center in an adjoining property that the owner is willing to lease out as well.
I take some time out of my afternoon to tour it personally, politely listening to the owner chatter on about all his financial woes since taking the property on and how hard it is to find commercial tenants in this part of town and—
Okay, maybe I’m not so politely listening to him because I ignore the rest of what he says. It’s irrelevant—I’ve seen his financials and I know that the write-off that the nuns would bring would give him a huge boost. We leave on a handshake deal and I call my assistant to see if he’ll arrange a meeting between me and the prioress.
He calls me back a few minutes later.
“So the prioress says that she already met with Charles Northcutt. Well, she and Zenobia Iverson met with him. Before lunch.”
Roaring red flames my vision, making everything crimson and hateful.
I’m.
Going.
To.
Kill.
Him.
I call Zenny immediately, but I know she won’t answer because she’s in class and she’s one of those nice humans who silences her phone in those situations. I fume for a minute—not at her, never at her—but at Northcutt. At whatever he’s done.
And when I get back to the office, surprise, surprise, he’s nowhere to be found. Probably left early to get his devil horns sanded down before the fundraiser tonight.
Which brings me to the second order of business: there’s a fucking fundraiser tonight, and it was supposed to be glamorous and fun and the perfect prelude to finally taking my little nun to bed, but unfortunately now it’s going to have to be the scene of a homicide. Northcutt-icide.
I’m going to kill him.
Chapter 20
I can hear Zenny’s breath trembling over the phone. “This is for me?”
“It’s for you,” I confirm. I pin my phone between my shoulder and my ear and glance around the dull-ass country club. Valdman is supposed to meet me here, and I’ve encountered several Valdman-like men, paunchy and white and entitled, but no actual Valdman. Just lots of polo shirts and huffing laughter.
“Sean, I…this is beautiful. Thank you.”
I scrub at my perfect hair in frustration. I was supposed to be there right now, I was supposed to be there with Zenny surprising her with the gorgeous gown I bought for her, helping her change into it, dropping teasing hints about when I’d peel the dress back off her body. I’d made big fucking plans about every detail of tonight—Zenny hadn’t even known I was taking her to this fundraiser, it was going to be a little surprise—and now it’s been ruined because I have to see Valdman about Northcutt before he does any more damage.
“Nothing’s too beautiful for you,” I tell her seriously. “I’m so upset that I can’t see you right now.”
She laughs. “You’ll see me soon enough. What time is this party again?”
I look at my watch and stifle an impatient groan. “Ninety minutes. Look, I have to meet with my boss, but I’ll—”
“I completely understand,” she says, although she doesn’t exactly. I haven’t spoken to her about Northcutt yet because I want to have everything fixed before I ask her what happened and what inevitable shitty thing he did or said during the meeting. I want to be able to pull her into my arms and croon that Sean’s taken care of everything, that everything is going to be okay, and that Northcutt is going to be castrated for his crimes. “You’ve got a job. A big fancy job. I get that and I’m a big girl, Sean. I can handle dressing myself.” She sounds amused.