The Saint(57)

He opened the back door and waited. She took a step toward him and stopped. Her pride and anger wouldn’t allow her to take another step forward.

Søren came to her, shedding his coat as he walked. When he wrapped it around her, she didn’t even acknowledge him. With his arm around her shoulders, he guided her to the car.

“Hypothermia?” she said. “You’re not worth getting a tan over.”

She got in the car and refused to look at him, even when he sat opposite her on the bench seat.

He leaned forward and dug through the folds of his coat until he found her hands. He took them into his and chafed them, warming her skin with his own.

“Stop,” she said. “I don’t want you to touch me.”

“I’ll stop when you’re warm. Your teeth are still chattering.”

He pulled the coat tighter. All she wanted to do was close her eyes, fall asleep and never wake up again.

“Can you tell me what you were doing at Kingsley’s house tonight?” Søren asked.

“I went to see Dad,” she confessed. “He called me and said he was going to be sentenced and he’d be in prison for years. This was my last chance to see him.”

“I see,” Søren said.

She took a shuddering breath. Her whole body hurt.

“But he was lying,” she said. “He doesn’t love me, and he’s not going to miss me. He was trying to get me to recant what I said. He said he might get a new trial and if I lied for him …”

“What did you tell him?”

“I told him he was an asshole. We fought and I ran for it,” she said, leaving out the part about the slap for some reason. It was too embarrassing to admit her own father had hit her like they were some family on Jerry Springer. “But I left my coat in his apartment and it had my money in it.”

“I’m sorry your father did this to you. I ordered you not to see him or speak to him.”

“I tried to call you.” Eleanor felt her body warming and relaxing. She pulled her hands away from Søren’s and tucked them against her stomach. “I called the church. You were supposed to answer my questions tonight. But Diane said you were gone until Sunday. You forgot about me.”

“I did not and will not ever forget about you. I was coming back to Wakefield tonight and leaving to visit my sister tomorrow morning. I know your mother works late on Friday nights. I thought we’d have more than enough time to talk.”

“I don’t want to talk to you anymore.”

Søren sighed and sat back on the bench seat. He turned his head and stared at the frozen city that surrounded them.

“What you saw tonight—” he began.

“Stop,” she said. “I told you I’d be pissed if you ever talked to me like I was a child. If you’re going to pull that ‘ignore the man behind the curtain’ bullshit, let me out of the car right now.”

“I would never speak to you like a child. Even when you’re acting like one.”

Eleanor couldn’t meet his eyes when she asked the question she didn’t want to ask.

“Did you have sex with her?”

“Did you have sex with Lachlan?”

“That’s none of your business. I’m not your daughter, and I’m not your girlfriend.”

“But it’s your concern what I did tonight?”

“You’re a priest. You have vows—”

“Vows you’ve been trying to get me to break with you for months.”

“That’s different.”

“How so?”

“Because it’s me,” she said, anguished. “Because you promised.”

Tears ran down her face, tears of jealousy and shame and fury.

She wanted to argue with him, but couldn’t. So instead she pulled off his coat, threw it at him and curled up in the seat, her arms around her legs for warmth. Søren sighed as he folded his coat and placed it on the seat next to him.

They left the city and she recognized they were on the road back to Wakefield. She wanted to ask him why they were in a Rolls-Royce, who was driving, what would happen to his Ducati back at that house and a million other questions. But instead she punished him with her silence. Half an hour passed without them saying a word to each other. She could tell he waited for her to speak. Fine. He could wait all damn night if he wanted. She wasn’t going to say another word to him.

Søren reached out and took her hand again. She felt her resolve to hate him melting.

“Little One, I didn’t have sex with her,” he said softly. “And you have a very large bite mark on your neck. If he hurt you in a way you didn’t like, I need you to tell me.”