Beautiful Sinner: a standalone forbidden romance (Beautiful Series)

I HAVE LIVED my life at God’s will. It was His will that led me to my ministry. For twelve years, I served Him without fault.

So why has He brought me to this? Why has He shown me love, given me the keys to a different life, if only to take them away?

If this is providence, faith in His plan, then my faith is failing.

“Are you sure about this?” Bishop Hawthorne asks in his office. My letter sits on his desk, and I’m across from him, my hands shaking in my lap.

“I am.”

He leans back, seemingly in thought. He begins to drone on about commitment and God, advising me to pray on it longer and what verses to read before I decide to go through with this, but I’ve tuned him out. I nod along, and persist when he asks me again.

I’m really doing this.

Cadence boarded her plan last week. Bridget and Daisy sobbed all morning, and neither of them spoke to me when they came home from the airport. I can’t be in the house, but I can’t be in the rectory either.

Everything that happened that day came down so fast, but I’d be lying if I said I didn’t expect it. We rushed things that were too delicate to be rushed. We brushed aside the conversations that we were both afraid would end what we had built, but I know that if we had faced them when we were supposed to, it might not have ended like this.

She was right. I was going to marry her out of duty. What kind of man would I be if I didn’t? But she didn’t put the faith in me, in us, that I needed. Those doubts and fears I watched swirl around her head tore us apart, and all I could do was revise my fucking letter one more goddamn time.

I should have turned this in three months ago. My ass should have been in this chair the first time I watched her lips move, hanging on every word like it was God who spoke them. I was a coward.

I asked her to hang around for me. I kept her hidden like a dirty secret and then somehow acted surprised when everything imploded. Of course she doubted my loyalty.

But the moment she walked out that door, I promised myself I would not contact her again until I was available in the way she deserves. Unfortunately, my line about these things taking time wasn’t a lie. To become laicized can take up to a year or more, which is why I’m here to beg Bishop Hawthorne for mercy and to get this process rolling faster than usual.

Without sounding too disrespectful.

“I can’t convince you to stay through Christmas, can I?”

“I’m sorry.”

It’s already September. I hate to think about the holidays without Cadence. The sooner I get this over with and get her back, the better. If it’s not already too late by then.