Author: Tiffany Reisz

This box too was locked, but with such a small lock she knew she could break it open with her fingers. She took a deep breath, dug her nails under the edge of the lock and began to pull.

From behind her she heard the creak of hardwood.

“Shall I get that for you, ma  chérie?”

18

Nora woke up in the dark in her bed at Griffin’s. Stretching out under the covers, she massaged an ache in her lower back. Taking turns with Griffin and Michael had been both erotic and exhausting. Of course, her two boys had nothing on Søren and Kingsley. Together those two had given her some of the most intense sexual experiences of her life. Tonight’s little play hadn’t really been about sex, however. She’d enjoyed it. Who wouldn’t? But for six weeks now she’d watched Griffin staring at Michael when Michael wasn’t looking and Michael staring back at Griffin the second Griffin looked away. All the angst-ridden pining had started to get to her. Those two needed to get their shit together, man up and admit what they wanted, and get the fuck on with it.

With a sigh, Nora sat up and rubbed her forehead. She found Griffin sitting next to her in bed with his chin resting on his knee. Next to Griffin, Michael lay sound asleep on his stomach with the covers tucked up under his chin.

Nora rested her head against Griffin’s strong bicep. He reached out and laid a hand on her leg in a gesture of pure and simple friendship.

“That bad, huh?” she whispered. Griffin’s eyes were trained on Michael and didn’t glance away even to look at her.

Slowly Griffin nodded.

“Yeah…that bad.”

For a moment she said nothing, merely watched Griffin watching Michael.

“It’s weird,” Griffin said. “Did you notice he’s clinging to the sheets like his life depended on it?”

Nora grinned. Michael always bunched his fingers into the sheets when sleeping.

“I know. I teased him about it.” Nora raised her hand and ran her fingers through Griffin’s hair. His darks eyes glanced her way once before looking again at Michael. “He said he thought his subconscious worried that gravity would be revoked in the middle of the night. He wanted to be prepared.”

Griffin covered his mouth to stifle a laugh. But the laugh quickly faded and Nora saw no mirth in his eyes anymore.

“I can’t have him.” Griffin stretched out his hand and let his fingers hover an inch or two above Michael’s bare shoulder blade before pulling his hand back and leaving Michael untouched. “Søren—”

“Søren is protective of Michael. But he’s not some kind of monster you can’t reason with. Go talk to him.”

Griffin finally turned and met her eyes full-on.

“Talk to Søren? Yes, as if that ever worked for me before. He’ll say no, and even if he didn’t, Mick’s dad…his dad would kill him if he got involved with another guy. The stuff he’s told me about his father… Nora, that bastard actually hit Mick. Hit him. God, it makes me…”

Griffin’s jaw tightened and his hand curled into a fist. Nora knew in his mind Griffin was exacting beautiful revenge on Michael’s conservative homophobic asshole of a father. She, like Søren, didn’t condone any kind of violence except of the consensual bedroom variety. But somebody would eventually have to teach Michael’s father a lesson or two about how to treat a kid like Michael. Preferably a lesson that didn’t land Michael’s father in the hospital and Griffin in jail.

“I know. I understand, Griff. I do. But—”

“But nothing. I want him so much it hurts. Like physically hurts, Nora. And not just sex. It isn’t that. I can’t explain what it is but I just…”

“Wesley,” Nora said and stopped. Where had that come from? Griffin looked at her.

“Wesley?”

She smiled but the smile didn’t reach her eyes or touch her heart.

“Wesley…he has this problem. Type 1 diabetic. Scared the shit out of me, that kid did with his needles and his blood-testing. Every single night, I’d have to look in on him when he was sleeping. I can barely sleep at my own house anymore because he’s not there to keep me up at night. Which makes no sense at all.”

“No,” Griffin said. “It makes perfect sense.” He glanced up at Nora again. “Does this ever go away?”

Something wet and warm ran down her face, and she swiped it off with her forearm.

“No,” she whispered. “Never.”

* * *

Suzanne gasped and spun around. Standing in the doorway of Father Stearns’s bedroom was a man she’d never seen before. Tall and frighteningly handsome, he had shoulder-length dark brown hair, near-black eyes and a Mediterranean complexion.

“Who are you?” she demanded, stepping back but finding her way of escape barred by the bed.

“I suppose I should ask you that. After all, I am allowed to be here. I’m not certain you could say the same. Oui?  Non?”

He spoke in beautiful English tinged with an unmistakable French accent. He stepped across the threshold and for the first time she noticed his clothes. He wore black trousers and a black vest embroidered with some sort of beautiful swirling silver pattern, a white shirt with the sleeves rolled up to reveal muscular forearms, and knee-high riding boots.

“I’m…” she began. “I was…”

“You are Suzanne Kanter, the reporter who has been dogging my dear friend’s steps for two months now. Twenty-eight years old. A freelance journalist who usually spends her days in war zones. I don’t see any wars anywhere.”

“Then you aren’t looking hard enough,” she countered.

“Congratulations on graduating cum laude from your journalism school. A wonderful phrase—cum laude. I’ve always thought it should refer to something else.”

“How do you know so much about me?”

The man smiled, a roguish, dangerous smile that set every nerve in her body on end.

“My name is Kingsley Edge.”

Suzanne gasped and tried to take another step back and nearly fell onto the bed in the process.

“From your reaction,” he said, coming closer, “I will assume you’ve heard of me.”

“I’m a reporter. Of course I’ve heard of you. You destroyed a friend of mine. Gwendolyn Black? Remember that name? You put a sex tape on repeat on every computer in her son’s school. She’s been in therapy for two years because of what you pulled.”

Kingsley shrugged.

“Pas moi. I was in Tahiti at the time. Although I did hear about that unfortunate incident. Pity. But still…she was attempting to make a name for herself by exposing the private life of a man who’d never hurt a fly, a human-rights lawyer who’d saved thousands of lives and put dozens of murderers behind bars. Your friend thought his interest in alternative sexual experiences meant he did not deserve his privacy. I disagree. And so did someone else apparently.”

“Someone else who worked for you.”

Kingsley Edge only grinned.

“Perhaps.”

Suzanne stared at him in silence as she tried to formulate an escape plan, or an attack plan if that failed. So much time in war zones had taught her how to defend herself. But she had no weapons on her, and Kingsley Edge, despite his relaxed posture and elegant attire, definitely had a dangerous air. She’d seen generals in their dress uniforms at cocktail parties who looked more deadly than infantrymen in their desert BDUs. Kingsley Edge had that look about him too. Something in the eyes. Something glinting and fearless. He looked like a man who’d seen so much blood he had the Grim Reaper on speed dial.

“You’re afraid of me,” he finally said as he took another step into the room. “You don’t have to be, Suzanne.”

“Everyone’s afraid of you. Everyone in my world.”

He grinned and the smile overtook his face and rendered him so handsome she could scarcely breathe.

“Then come into my world for a little while and you won’t have to be afraid.”

“What…” She looked around. “What are you doing in Father Stearns’s bedroom? Hell, in his house?”

“He was called away. One of his parishioners is dying. The family needs him. He might not return for a day or more.”

“So what? You’re here to water the plants?”

He laughed, a deep, warm, rich laugh. A fearless laugh.

“I like to get away from the city sometimes. From the phone that won’t stop ringing. The endless decisions I have to make. The senator’s son wants to bottom tonight but his favorite dominatrix is with the famous lead singer. My tailor is out of the country, and I need a new suit for the slave auction. And I’ve been so busy I haven’t had time to properly violate my lovely Juliette in days.”

“Juliette?”

“My secretary.” He sighed luxuriously with a put-upon air.

“Poor you.”

He nodded.

“My life is difficile. I come here for some silence.”

“You just like breaking into the houses of priests?”

“I was invited. I am family, after all.”

Suzanne’s eyes went wide with shock.

“Harrison…” The pieces started to fall into place. “You?” She nearly shouted the question. “You’re the French brother-in-law?”

“Oui. That box that fascinated you.” He nodded at the carved rosewood box. “You wish to open it?”

“I do. But it’s locked. Can you open it?”

Exhaling heavily, Kingsley reached out and took the box from her hands. He pulled a small set of keys from a pocket in his vest, stuck one in the lock and turned.

“You women…all of you are Pandora. You cannot leave well enough alone, can you? Here.” Kingsley gave her the now unlocked box back. “There’s the answer to your mystery.”

With shaking fingers she opened the lid. Inside on a bed of bloodred velvet lay two golden bands, one large, one small.

She pulled the smaller one out.

“Wedding rings?” she asked.

He nodded.

“That was my sister’s, my Marie-Laure. The other one was his.”

Suzanne touched the larger band but didn’t take it from its bed of velvet.

“I still can’t believe he was married before he was a priest. He must have been so young.”

Crossing his arms, Kingsley leaned against the bedpost and gazed out the dormer window.

“Neither can I sometimes. We were just children playing foolish children’s games. We were at school together, le  prêtre and I. Marie-Laure and I were separated after our parents died—I was only fourteen and sent to stay with my American grandparents. She came to visit…I was then seventeen, he was eighteen. She barely twenty-one. I couldn’t stand to lose her again, but she did not have dual citizenship as I did. He married her to keep her here. He married her for me.”

“He didn’t love her?”

“He tried. For her sake. When she realized that he would never feel for her what she felt for him…”

“I know she died. I’m sorry.”

“She didn’t die,” he said, meeting her eyes again. “She killed herself.”

Suzanne nearly dropped the box.

But she held on to it despite her shaking hands.

“I’m…I’m so sorry, Mr.—”

“You may call me Kingsley. Or sir. Or monsieur. But please do not call me Mr. Edge.” He rolled his eyes and laughed again. The reaction seemed so incongruous to their topic that she laughed too out of sheer confusion.

“Okay, Kingsley. I’m sorry about your sister. My brother, he—”

“I know.” Kingsley said the words softly, kindly, and with a look of the profoundest sympathy in his eyes.