The Virgin. Tiffany Reisz

knew?” Nora asked.

      “Juliette and I were working on something together recently. She got light-headed and almost fainted. She told me why she wasn’t feeling well in exchange for me not calling an ambulance for her.”

      “And you didn’t tell me?” Nora asked, grabbing him by the front of his shirt and pointing at his nose. “You jerk.”

      “I’m a priest. Keeping secrets is my job,” he reminded her, taking her hands off his shirt and kissing them. He looked from her to Kingsley. “I’m very happy for you. And relieved you finally said something so I could tell you that.”

      “Are you happy?” Nora asked Kingsley, already knowing the answer.

      “Is the pope Catholic?” Kingsley asked.

      “Pope Francis is a Jesuit,” Søren said.

      “And Catholic,” Kingsley said.

      “Being a Jesuit takes precedence,” Søren said.

      Nora sighed. “Typical. So typical.”

      Søren got out of bed and stood in front of Kingsley. He grasped the back of Kingsley’s neck, bent down and kissed him. Nora went back for the wine and let them have their moment of privacy. She opened the Syrah and poured three steep glasses. She brought one to Kingsley, one to Søren and kept one for herself.

      “When are you telling Nico he’s going to be a brother again?” Nora asked as she slid back onto the bed, careful not to spill any wine on the sheets. They’d already pushed their luck with fire-play and very wet sex. If she got her deposit back on this room, it would be a miracle.

      “Soon,” Kingsley said. “Now that you both know, I’ll call him tomorrow. You think he’ll be happy?”

      “Thrilled and relieved,” Nora said. “The more kids you have, the less pressure he feels to have them. He’s already made Céleste the legal heir to his vineyard. But don’t tell her that. She’s only three, but I can see her attempting a coup.”

      “I’m relieved I won’t have to worry about being a grandfather anytime soon,” Kingsley said with a wink at her. He pushed a pillow behind his back, stretched out his legs and crossed them at the ankles. He had the legs of a professional soccer player, which the kilt displayed to marvelous affect. No wonder Juliette with her fetish and her pregnancy hormones had been all over him the past two days.

      “No chance of that from me,” Nora said. “Cheers to the good Doctor Hélène Faber.” She and Kingsley clinked glasses, which was likely the first time in history two people had ever toasted to a woman’s sterilization procedure before. Then again, no two people in history had Kingsley and Nora’s history. With everything they’d put each other through, they’d had two choices—hate each other or love each other. They were so much alike, hating each other would have been like hating themselves. And both of them were rather too self-important for that sort of nonsense.

      So they picked love.

      “I have you to thank for my children,” Kingsley said, pointing his wineglass at her. “All two and one-third of them.”

      “And why is that?”

      “I would never have known about Nico if it wasn’t for you. I would never have met Juliette if you hadn’t left him.” He pointed at Søren.

      “Then shouldn’t I get some credit here?” Søren asked.

      “Oui, you get all the credit for being such an enormous asshole neither of us wanted to see you for a full year.”

      “Thank you,” Søren said, saluting with his wineglass. “Credit where credit is due.”

      “Did you know Juliette would be the mother of your children when you met her?” Nora asked.

      “The opposite,” Kingsley said. “I thought she’d be a terrible mother when I saw her. In my defense, she was assaulting children. In her defense, they deserved it.”

      “No wonder Juliette wouldn’t tell me about when you all met,” Nora said, pulling the sheets up around her again. She pressed close to Søren, relishing his warmth and his nearness.

      “Juliette,” Kingsley began, and his voice changed subtly as he spoke. He sounded far away and Nora wondered what he was remembering and why it hurt so much. “She was in a difficult position back then. Trapped, you could say.”

      “So what did you do?” Nora asked, as eager to hear Kingsley’s story of that year as they were to hear hers.

      “I did what I always do when I meet a beautiful woman,” Kingsley said with a shrug. “I fucked her.”

       9

      2004 Haiti

      KINGSLEY WOKE UP that morning and decided to fuck the first girl who’d let him. Luckily there was a girl conveniently located in his bed. Who she was he didn’t quite remember, but it didn’t really matter. She was there by his invitation and her choice. Names, dates, places—the rest was irrelevant.

      Last night—that’s when he’d met her. He’d gone to a bar last night, drunk a few gallons of rum...or something. He’d met a waitress who spoke no traditional French and a little English. He spoke English and enough Creole to have her sitting on his lap by the third drink and home with him after the sixth. Home wasn’t anything more than a shack on the beach furnished with a bed and a well-stocked bar, but that hadn’t deterred her from spending the night with him and on him. Gorgeous girl. Coffee-colored skin and eyes, short curly hair that formed a halo around her face, lips like candy he clearly remembered biting.

      And any minute now he’d remember her name. He rolled onto his side, spooned against her back and kissed the tip of her shoulder. Her name—it started with an S. He wanted to say Sabrina but that wasn’t quite it. She stretched out in her sleep and pushed back against him. Fuck it. He didn’t even remember his own name this morning.

      She rolled onto her stomach as Kingsley ran his hand down her back. She had the soft smooth skin of a woman who spent her days naked on the sand.

      “Bon maten,” she murmured as he nibbled the back of her neck that smelled lightly of citrus. Without taking his mouth off her body, he reached over the bed, pulled out a condom and rolled it on. No more accidents. No more mistakes. No more mornings like that one he’d had last year when he saw with his own eyes the consequences of his carelessness.

      He pushed the thought out of his mind as he moved on top of the girl.

      “Oui?” he asked. “Non?”

      “Wi,” she said, Haitian Creole for yes and gave him a smile that also said yes.

      He laughed in her ear, nudged her thighs apart with his knees and settled into her with a few slow thrusts. She was still wet and open inside from the sex they’d had a few hours earlier. Wet and warm and he groaned from the pleasure of it. It had been a long time since he’d let himself have vanilla sex. It felt like a vacation—lazy, easy, self-indulgent.

      But he wasn’t complaining and neither was Sabatina.

      Sabatina—that was her name.

      Kingsley rolled his hips against hers, keeping the pace slow and easy. Her mouth opened under his, inviting his tongue in for a dozen more kisses, a dozen more bites. She tasted like white wine and pears. Lowering his head, he took a nipple into his mouth and sucked deeply while she arched underneath him. He pushed deep and her hips rose off the bed to welcome him into her. Last night...he could barely remember fucking her, although he knew he’d enjoyed it and so had she. Still, it felt like the first time with her so he took his time, relishing each push and the pleasant pressure it gave him in his stomach, thighs and back.

      Her mouth curled into a smile of intoxication. She murmured softly in Creole.