Beautiful Sinner: a standalone forbidden romance (Beautiful Series)
Beautiful Sinner: Chapter 22

SOMETHING IS OFF ABOUT CADENCE. All day she’s been acting like she’s thinking too much. She was fine this morning when she came into my office, but then after that it was like a switch was flipped. Is she thinking about my ultimatum? That stupid fucking ultimatum that I wish I could take back.

That’s not fair. She has a hard enough time making choices for herself, and I just went and asked her to make life choices based on me.

She’s sitting across the table with her mom, who is sticking to the ice water while we listen to the band play. It’s not the fact that I’ve heard these guys play over a couple hundred times that keeps me from focusing on the music. Cadence seems to be somewhere else tonight, and I’m desperate to get her alone to talk about it. She’s sipping on her Guinness, eyeing her mother nervously every few moments.

Finally, the band takes a break and Cadence’s mother erupts with cheers and whistles. If I can get the band to come over, it’s possible I can pull Cadence away for just one moment. I’m not in my collar tonight, not that it makes any difference. Everyone knows who I am.

I wave Roger, the first guitar player over and he answers with a smile.

“Hey, Roger, come meet Cadence’s mum.”

Claire is on her feet in a second, shaking Roger’s hand. He’s single and not terrible looking for his age, which is a good ten younger than me—just her type, I bet. It might just be enough to keep her occupied for a moment. The rest of the band makes their way over to make conversation.

Pretty soon it’s half the pub and the only chance I have of getting Cadence alone is now long gone. It’s when I notice Claire clinging to the twenty-five year old bartender that I realize why Cadence is struggling today. She’s watching her mother with a sort of resigned concentration, like she’s waiting for the end of a movie she’s already seen.

Is that how she sees herself? Is this where she started measuring herself based on how much attention she could get from men?

The heavy third wheel feelings come creeping in around midnight, when Cadence starts flirting back with the guys around the table who do give her attention.

Her Guinness has kicked in, I can tell, and she’s starting to look more like the lively, sociable girl I know, but I wish for one fucking second she’d look at me. She’s too busy learning how to hold a fiddle on her shoulder or chugging a beer with the guys.

Her smile is fourteen-carat bright, and I’ve never been more fucking desperate to get her out of here and home, sleeping by herself in the room next to mine. I’m ready to flip this fucking table over.

“It’s getting late,” I say sternly, leaning across the table.

“Then go home.”

Her eyes are playful, but her words sting.

“Come with me.”

Now the rest of the table is staring at me.

“I mean, let me walk you home. You shouldn’t be walking alone tonight.”

“I’ll get her home safely, Father Callum.” I glare at Michael while the words I want to say to him float through my mind.

I’ve heard enough about you to know that’s not going to fucking happen—is what I want to say to the young punk, but I don’t.

“You have work tomorrow. I think we should call it a night.”

Finally, she looks up at me, and I’m waiting for her to argue when she finally sighs and nods. “Fine. You’re right. Mom, are you ready?”

“I guess,” Claire replies, and I bite down my disappointment. I want Cadence alone.

Now.

It’s just after one in the morning when I finally walk them back up to their rooms. Claire is clearly sober, and she walks just behind us, marveling at every building on the way. Cadence is clinging to my arm in a way that she definitely shouldn’t if we are to maintain appearances, but of course, I enjoy it, so I don’t pull her off. I am a ball of nerves, ready to let out all of this frustration from today.

When we get to the house, Claire offers to help her daughter to bed, but Cadence brushes her off, claiming that she’s perfectly fine, and I don’t intervene. As we reach the third floor, I feel Cadence’s eyes on me. Sound carries so easily through the house so once we’re alone, I’m careful not to make a sound as I scoop her up, wrapping her legs around my body as I carry her to my bedroom.

“What are you doing?” she whispers.

I press her roughly against the wall and shove my face into the crook of her neck. I love the way she smells so much it hurts, but right now her scent carries too much from the pub of beer and other people’s breath, so I tear her shirt off her body.

She barely reacts as I pepper her chest and shoulders with kisses. I don’t know what I’m doing. I’m breaking my own rules, but I am driven by something much more powerful than rules.

Her hands dig into my hair as I work my way up to her lips. When I finally taste her mouth, my mind goes blank. I have no commitments or vows. I am nothing more than an extension of her.

My hands squeeze her hips tighter as I grind myself against her hard, letting her feel the extent of my arousal.

“Cadence,” I mutter quietly, my voice nothing more than a low growl. “I want you.”

“No,” she argues without pushing me away. Instead she tilts her hips so I grind myself against the exact spot I want to enter her.

“Tell me you’re mine,” I mumble as I pull down the strap of her bra and press my teeth gently around the soft flesh there. She moans quietly.

“No, Callum.”

We’re both drunk. That much registers now as we both fumble helplessly toward something neither of us have the mental capacity to stop.

“Tell me you’re staying. Say it, Cadence.” My hips press her so roughly against the wall, I know it must be uncomfortable for her, but she doesn’t protest. She just pulls my lips to hers and kisses me instead of answering my request.

While our lips are still touching, she softly answers, “No.”

In my head, I’m telling myself that if I can just get her clothes off, if I can just show her how good it will feel to be naked against my body, to have me inside her, trembling in my hands, then she will change her mind and I can keep her.

I have a momentary vision of us years down the road, still secretly fucking in this room and nothing will be ruined. No one will be hurt. We will be happy and everything will be fine. If I were still somewhat sober, I would stop myself, but I’m not—so I don’t.

With her body still trapped between mine and the wall, I begin to fumble with the button of her jeans, and she doesn’t stop me. Instead she almost seems despondent, kissing me like it would be more painful not to. When I finally have her pants undone, I drop her legs to the floor and pull them to the floor, letting her fumble with taking them off completely while I work on my own.

We are breathless and there is an eerie silence that surrounds our panting. When I hear a subtle creak in the distance, I ignore it because Cadence is standing in front of me, completely naked and ready to be mine. All mine.

Spinning her around, she lets out a whimper as I face her toward the wall and press her shoulders forward. This carnal, needy part of my brain takes over, and it wants nothing but to take, take, take.

Grabbing her hips, I pull her back toward me, and I hear her whisper my name. It sounds like a plea, and I don’t know if it’s to stop or keep going. With one hand on her hip and the other working to pull my pants down, I hear another creak.

We both freeze. I’m inches away from having her, from a place there is no going back from.

“Cadence?” a voice calls from the end of the dark hallway. Cadence and I move like lightning, breaking apart and trying to cover our bodies. We are no longer silent or graceful.

“What’s going on?” her mother calls as she steps closer. I pray it’s dark enough that she didn’t just see her daughter naked and bent over at the hands of a priest.

Bile rises in my throat. What have I done?

“I’m fine,” Cadence calls back, her voice cracking. She rushes out of view of my open door. She’s still naked, but struggling to pull her jeans up.

“Father Callum?”

I wince, swallowing down the lump in my throat.

I’ve never hated myself more than I do at this moment.

“Yes?” I try to make my voice sound deeper and more authoritative as if that makes any fucking difference at this point.

Cadence brushes past me as soon as she is mostly dressed and goes to her room, stopping at her open door. “Goodnight, Mom,” she mutters before slamming it closed.

My skin burns hot as Claire’s eyes focus on me through the dark space. She’s not angry, but there’s something sad in her expression.

“I’m sorry.” Why I say it, I don’t know. Maybe because it’s the only thing I feel at this moment. I could be saying it to Claire or to God, but it doesn’t change how strongly I feel it.

“You two drank too much tonight.”

She says it like it’s a proper excuse. It’s not, so I can’t respond.

“Goodnight, Claire.” Softly, I close the door just before I hear her walk down the stairs.

I escape out of the house early the next morning. Sticking around for breakfast doesn’t sound like the best idea, and even if it makes me feel like a coward for running off, I do actually have work to catch up on at the church.

My phone sits silently next to me on the desk, and I can’t exactly be surprised. Why would she talk to me at all today? She clearly tried to shut me down last night, and I didn’t listen. She didn’t stop anything we were about to do, but why would she? I was the one who was supposed to be showing restraint. Last night, I had none.

I’m halfway done with my proposal I’d been meaning to write for six weeks when a gentle knock on my door pulls me away from my laptop.

Claire is standing in my doorway with a pensive expression on her face. My stomach drops. This is not a conversation I want to have, not here.

“Good morning,” she says with a fake smile. “I brought you some breakfast since you left so early.”

Subtle dig.

“Thank you.” I keep my tone professional as I stand up to take the foil-wrapped plate from her hands.

“Mind if I come in?” she asks, helping herself to the chair in front of my desk. There is a bronze statuette of the Virgin Mary just behind her, and I keep my eyes on it as I close my door and take my seat across from her. I can’t look Cadence’s mother in the eye.

“Claire, I’d like to apologize—”

“Please don’t. Let me just talk for a moment. I didn’t come for your apology. If I’ve learned anything through this recovery it’s that apologies do nothing to erase or right past mistakes.”

My eyebrows spike and I lean back in my chair. How many times have I said this same thing to my congregation? How many times did I lead them into the confessional with the belief that asking for forgiveness does not erase our sins but opens our hearts to God so that we may choose better in the future?

“I wasn’t a very good mother, Father Callum. I was too harsh on my youngest and too open with my oldest. I raised Cadence like she was my friend, and I’m afraid that no one truly guided her like I should have.”

This is not how I expect her to start.

“What she got from me was a mother with too many regrets and a drinking problem. What I got was a perfect daughter who cleaned up my messes and took care of me and her sister because that’s what Cadence does. She takes care of people. She gives without asking for anything in return. She looks for love in all the wrong places and she gives her heart too easily.”

My jaw clenches and I have to swallow down the emotion building in my throat. I already know all of this, and she knows it. She knows I know that falling in love with Cadence was the worst thing I could do to her, and if she’s trying to make me feel like shit for it, she shouldn’t bother. I already do.

“I’m asking you to be careful, Father Callum. Be careful with my daughter.”

“I—”

“She’s in love with you.”

Her words stop the beating heart in my chest. “I promise it was just a drunk night, Claire. It’s not like that.”

“I know my daughter, Callum. She’s in love with you, and it’s not about what happened last night. She’ll stay here for you and wait forever if you ask her to. She’ll give you everything you want.”

I feel sweat start to bead on my forehead. Either I’ve been avoiding this acceptance that things were serious with Cadence or I’m learning it for the first time.

“Cadence and I are just friends, Claire. I regret what happened last night, but I’m forbidden from having a relationship of that nature with anyone. Cadence knows this.”

“She’s a rule breaker, Father. Are you?”

This woman has a lot of guts to ask me this stuff, but she is the woman who raised Cadence, so it only makes sense now.

“I take my vows seriously,” I answer astutely, sitting tall with my arms on the desk. Inside I’m shrinking.

“I’m sure you do,” she says as she stands up and walks toward the door. Just before she disappears down the hallway, she turns to me and adds, “The devil’s in the details, you know.”

Oh, don’t I fucking know.