BROKEN: A forbidden romance by Serena Akeroyd

Author:Serena Akeroyd [Akeroyd, Serena]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Serena Akeroyd Publishing Ltd.
Published: 2024-08-02T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 23

Andrea

Hallelujah - Rufus Wainwright

My mind races with his confession, but his misery is as tangible as the blood seeping from his wounds.

Rather than issue another blow, I ask, “Did you seek penance for your part in the boy’s death?”

“Yes.”

My heart aches for his pain, making me wish I could take it away, but it’s never that easy.

“And did you mean it?”

“Yes.”

“Then his death isn’t on your soul.”

He blows out a breath that gusts against my belly, pooling warmth there. “I’ve never been a popular priest.”

There’s no way I can stop myself from pressing a kiss to his temple. “Why do you say that?”

“I ask too much of parishioners.”

“Isn’t that the curse of a modern parish?”

“Perhaps. They want lazy priests and I’m not that. I might not believe in everything I preach, but I don’t believe in loopholes.”

“Loopholes?”

“When they sent me to Spain, I lived in this tiny town just outside of Madrid. It might have been on the commuter belt, but the parish wasn’t that large.

“A girl came to me, her mother dragging her there because she’d stolen something. We discussed what she stole, then she told me that she only did that because her mother punished her by denying her food.” His throat works. “Sin is everywhere.”

“What did you do?”

“I told her that stealing was bad and that if she was hungry, she should come to me, and I’d feed her.”

“That sounds like you were a good priest to her.” I reward him with a kiss on the crown of his head this time.

“You’re not getting the point,” he mumbles, but he doesn’t pull away from me. If anything, he tightens his hold. “I’m a Bible scholar. I know the ‘rules’ of religion, and wherever I turn, there are these things that nag at me.

“She stole, Andrea. She should have atoned. Yet she wasn’t to blame. Her mother was, but when I confronted her during her own confession, she refused to atone for denying her daughter food.” A shaky breath escapes him. “In that situation, I broke the seal of confession.”

“I didn’t know that was allowed.”

“It isn’t. I had the girl taken out of the mother’s reach for her safety. She complained to the archdiocese so I was shuffled onto another town.”

“If you did it once, why didn’t you go to the cops with the others?”

“Because they were unique. A brush with the law wasn’t adequate absolution for their sins. And that is why I’m damned forever: because there is no apology in my heart for God to accept.

“I had the option, and I didn’t take it. I chose my path, and I damned myself forever with that decision, something I believe He’d want me to do to protect His innocent children.”

My brow furrows at his words, but I run my hands through his hair, loving how he huddles into me as if I represent safety now.

He’s a broken man. Twisted. Shattered. But he’s mine, and he needs me.

That’s why I carry on soothing him. Why I don’t run for the hills.

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