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Remember, you’re no longer in charge.
No matter who you are and who you love.
Chapter 1
Alessia
The small card sits on the desk in the corner of my bedroom. I can’t stop staring at it. The nuns told me there had been family news. Family. I wanted to laugh, to spit on the name, but I didn’t. Instead, I waited until they delivered the blow.
Sadness mixed with a sense of relief flows through me as I stare at the cream-colored envelope sitting on the wooden surface. It’s calling to me in ways that have been forbidden for so long I no longer feel safe touching it, let alone opening it.
Tomorrow is the day they let me out of this place. I want to call it godforsaken, but I can’t since it’s a convent. I was sent here to purify myself. My mother believed I was the devil’s child for what I did; my father, he loved me, wanted me to be his little girl, but deep down he knew if I stayed, everything would’ve fallen apart. More than it already had.
The sun is just about setting on the horizon, and the sky is turning a soft orange, with deep reds closer to the edge of the forest. Soon, the blackness will take over, just like it’s stolen my soul, saturated in all the forbidden desires that have plagued my body since the moment I understood what they were.
Sadness and depression overtook me when I arrived. Losing everything I had to be hidden in the dark corners of Italy with nothing more than a farewell, I had fallen so far down the hole I no longer cared about what I’d done. I wanted more. I hungered for it. So, I spent my nights in the small, single bed, on the hard mattress, remembering what my body had felt.
I needed it.
My addiction led to my capture. It led me here, to the house of the Lord to cure my sickness, but it hasn’t. Nothing could cure love.
Rising from the desk, I finally pluck up the courage to pick up the envelope, ripping it open and pulling out the rectangular card. The family crest sits on the front, a raven mid-flight with a shield behind it. All my life I’d hated it, but now, I can’t help smiling because I know who it’s from.
When I flip it open, I recognize the perfect scrawl of his hand immediately. The dark ink, the rigid penmanship, and the words. Oh, those words that used to stutter my heart when he’d murmur them.
An invitation.
A promise.
He tells me it’s time to come home. But is that a good idea? My heart leaps wildly in my chest, like a kitten wanting to break free of its cage. Clawing and tearing at the bars that hold it in, it’s ready for a new life.
But that new life will bring responsibilities that cannot be forsaken. It brings a vow that cannot be undone until I take my final breath. I read the note, again and again, and I picture him sitting at the ornate desk in the office furnished as if it belongs in the eighteenth century, and I smile.
His name is signed at the end. The letters curling over each other, touching, just like I want him to touch me. Like I still ache for him to trail his fingertips over my flesh. And I whisper my answer to no one, to the empty room.
“I’m coming home.”
Setting the card on my bed, I rise and go to the closet that sits against the one wall of my bedroom. The doors are ajar, and I take the suitcase I’d brought here so many moons ago, and start filling it with the clothes I’d been bought over the time I’ve been in here.
All black.
With long sleeves, dresses that button up to the neck, skirts down to my ankles.
No woman should entice a man with her flesh.
That’s what I was told when I’d arrived in my knee-length, short-sleeved, bright-red dress.
But it didn’t matter how much I begged to go home; I was refused. I was told that dirty girls were locked away until they were cleansed. They don’t realize lust is something no man, or woman, could deny. We all felt it. We all fell for it.
Once my suitcase is filled, I shut it easily. As night falls outside, I slide into bed and close my eyes. I’ll see them soon. I’ll be home in a matter of hours, and the truth will finally allow us to be free.
Chapter 2
Adrien
I knew the moment she walked into the bar it was her. It was also at that same moment I knew I shouldn’t go up to her, talk to her. I should let her walk out thinking the invitation was a lie, that she’s not wanted back at the house, but I’ve never listened to my moral compass. No, I stood, tied the button on my suit jacket, and sauntered over to her.
Draped in an exquisite champagne-colored silk dress that hung to the floor, she settled herself on the seat. The barman stared at her for a while before asking for her ID. I didn’t blame him. She looked young, far too young to be sitting alone at the bar in a five-star hotel. Yet, there she was.
