The Angel

“I’d tell him to mind his own goddamn business. Then I’d have Kingsley freeze his credit cards and bank accounts for the week just for fun.”

Søren raised his eyebrow.

“Okay. Point taken,” she said.

“I need to able to deal with this situation without worrying about you. But the most important reason is Michael. He needs you.”

“Needs me for what?”

“What you are best at,” Søren said simply.

“You expect me to train Michael?” Nora asked, aghast. “I was a pay-for-play dominatrix, remember? Training wasn’t my area. Surely there’s someone else—”

“There’s no one else I trust. And no one else Michael trusts. He starts college in the fall. This summer is our last chance to help him.”

Nora heard something underneath Søren’s words, and a shiver of worry rippled through her. She hadn’t really talked to Michael since their one night together, but she still cared about the kid.

“Help him? The last time I helped him it was because you were afraid he was going to try to kill himself again. What’s wrong with Michael?”

“Nothing I can tell you, I’m afraid.”

Sighing, Nora stood up and wandered over to the stained-glass window that adorned the back wall of Søren’s office. Unlike the stained-glass windows in the sanctuary, this window depicted no saints or biblical scenes but instead a bursting bloodred rose. Nora traced one of the cool metal spokes of the beautiful window with the tip of her finger.

“Søren, we’ve only been back together for a year,” she reminded him, reluctant to leave him for a day much less the entire summer.

“I know, Eleanor.” Søren stepped behind her and wrapped his arms around her stomach. “But you have to trust me, trust that I know what I’m doing. I need you to help Michael. I need you to help me.”

I need you…. The infamous underground community they belonged to universally considered Søren its top dominant. Søren had even earned the nickname the Alpha and Omega Male. But those words—I need you—had escaped his lips more times than most who thought they knew him would believe. During their five years apart, Nora would sometimes be awoken early in the morning by a phone call and those three words from Søren. Although she had left him, she never told him no on those rare occasions that he called. Sometimes even he could not rein in his own dark desires. I need you, he would say, and Nora would leave her bed and answer simply, Okay. Tell me where and when.

“Okay.” She answered that need now. “Where and when?”

“As soon as possible, I’m afraid. And I’ll leave the where to you. I would only suggest you go far enough away that no one would attempt to follow you.”

“England?” she asked. “Zach and Grace are trying to get pregnant. This is something I can help them with. Or at least, you know, watch.”

“Out of the question,” Søren said. “I know how you behave in other countries. That you still are allowed a passport is one of the universe’s great mysteries.”

“That was not my fault,” she reminded him. “The consulate cleared me.”

“Eleanor …”

“Fine. We’ll go to Griffin’s,” she said. “He inherited his grandparents’ old horse farm, and he’s been bugging me for months to visit. How’s that?”

Søren heaved a labored sigh. “Griffin …”

Nora bit back a laugh. “Come on, Griffin’s okay. He’s one of my best friends.”

“He’s spoiled, juvenile and a coward.”

He was also rich, gorgeous and great in bed, but she decided not to remind Søren of those facts.

“You always call him a coward. Care to tell me why?” She turned around in his arms.

“No. But I suppose even Griffin deserves a second chance.”

Although curious what Søren meant by a second chance, Nora knew better than to ask. For a moment Søren stood in silence. He tapped his chin as he always did when plotting something.

“I’ll allow you to spend the summer with Griffin,” Søren finally said. “But he is not to touch Michael, or I will revoke both his key to The 8th Circle and you from his life completely. Understood?”

Nora blanched. Serious threats indeed. “Yes, sir.”

“Where is his grandparents’ farm?”

“Way upstate,” she said. “Near Guilford.”

Søren looked at her sharply and his mouth twitched in suppressed mirth.

“That area is rather close to where your mother is, isn’t it?” he asked. “Perhaps you could take a day and visit her.”

“Don’t even think about it,” she said, horrified by the prospect of Søren ordering her to visit her mother. “I’d rather go jogging in hell. Wearing stilettos on a hot day in Aug—”

“Eleanor.”

“Yes, sir?”

“Your cleavage is chirping.”

Nora swallowed and pulled her cell phone from her bra where she’d tucked it before Mass.

“Sorry. Forgot to turn it off.” Nora silenced the ringer.

Søren stared at her. Nora stared back. As usual, Søren won the staring contest.

“It’s Wes,” she confessed, not even having to look at the number. Sunday afternoon—always Wesley.

Søren studied her. This time she couldn’t meet his eyes.

“Does Wesley call you often?”

Nora nodded. “Once a week,” she admitted. “Every Sunday after church.”

“And why is this the first time I’ve heard about this?”

“Doesn’t matter. I never answer.”

“Why don’t you answer the phone when Wesley calls?” Søren asked her in the same tone he used in the confessional booth—lightly curious, not at all condemning, and completely and utterly infuriating.

“Because you haven’t given me permission to.”