Love in Purgatory (De La Fuente #2)

by Lexi Buchanan

  Love in Purgatory

  De La Fuente Family #2

  Lexi Buchanan

  Love in Purgatory Copyright © 2015 Lexi Buchanan

  All rights reserved. With the exception of quotes used in reviews, this book may not be reproduced or used in whole or in part by any means existing without written permission from the author.

  Published by HFCA Publishing House

  http://www.lexibuchanan.net

  Image Copyright: Michael Stokes Photography

  Fitness Model: Diego Arnary

  Cover Design: Robin Harper, Wicked by Design

  Editor: Sirena Van Schaik

  Editor: Nadine Winningham

  BETA Reader: Emma Clifton, Kathrin Magyar, Lynne Garlick, Sonya Covert

  This book is a written act of fiction. The names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the writer’s imagination or have been used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, actual events, locales or organizations is entirely coincidental.

  ISBN-13: 978-0-9933238-5-0

  Author’s Note

  This work is pure fiction and although the named towns exist, any reference to a Church, Cathedral, Bishop or Priest in these towns IS PURE FICTION, and has been added for the benefit of the story.

  This novel is not intended to be a slight on the Catholic Faith, a religion in which all the author’s children are baptized.

  Content

  Prologue

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  Epilogue

  Love in Bloom #3 ~ Cover

  Sizzle, Blurb

  Seduce, Blurb

  Acknowledgment

  Other Books by Author

  Prologue

  Thanksgiving day was supposed to be a family affair with lots of laughter and happiness, but it wasn’t…at least, not this year. Instead of happiness, all Emelia felt was heartache and longing. She wanted to see him smile at her…wanted to see him laugh at something she said, but she saw nothing but his anger and turmoil when he looked at her. She was alone in a crowded room because of her love for Dante, her brother—or so everyone thought. She hated that she was the only one of the seven siblings to know the truth about their family, and it destroyed her to keep it secret.

  Emelia managed to hide her heartache until she’d snuck into the sunroom and away from the family. Then, the tears flowed from her eyes as she made her way to one of the sofas her mother liked to keep in the bright room.

  Her mind was full of Dante. There was an air of isolation about his tall figure that kept him just out of her reach. She wanted to run her hands through his black hair, which was silky straight and always gleamed in the light. His handsome face was bronzed from his love of the outdoors, and his smile would light up his face when she caught him off guard. However, it would soon dim when he realized it was her.

  As Emelia tried to mop her tears up, she heard the creak of the door opening. She didn’t want to deal with anyone but, if she had someone to talk to, she wouldn’t feel so upset. It wouldn’t change anything though, because her heart would still be broken over Dante.

  “Hey, it’s okay,” Sylvia, her brother Eric’s girlfriend, said as she entered, and sat beside her. “What has you so upset? Or should I ask whom?”

  Emelia looked up and sighed as she moved back into a corner of the sofa when realization hit, and she froze. “You know? How?”

  Sylvia shook her head. “Guessed.”

  “And doesn’t it bother you that two siblings are in love with the other and not in a sibling way?” Emelia asked while tears continued to run down her face.

  Emelia often wondered how she’d gotten to this place. The only answer that she ever received was that it was her own fault for kissing him.

  “I don’t know what to think to be honest. I’ve seen you and Dante together and it’s obvious that you’re both hurting.”

  Emelia nodded. “If Dante would listen, then we wouldn’t need to hurt.” Her Dante was damn stubborn.

  Sylvia frowned. “What do you mean?”

  “It doesn’t matter,” Emelia hiccupped, and wiped at her tears, which wouldn’t stop flowing.

  Reaching forward, Sylvia tried to sooth Emelia as she rubbed her arm. “It obviously does.”

  Emelia grabbed Sylvia’s wrist as she wrestled with her decision. On one hand, she desperately needed to talk…to tell someone, but on the other, it was hard to let go of the secret for fear of what it would do to her family. “You can’t tell anyone, not even Eric.”

  As soon as the words left her mouth, Emelia knew she shouldn’t have asked Sylvia to keep something from Eric, especially since Sylvia looked uneasy. Emelia just wished she knew the right thing to do without causing so much chaos.

  “I don’t want to start keeping secrets from Eric. It would hurt him deeply if he knew I was holding something back that concerned you and Dante.”

  Emelia snapped her eyes to Sylvia and could see it clearly written on her face...no... “He knows?” she whispered, and hoped she was wrong.

  “Yes.”

  “Oh, God! He hasn’t said anything to me. What did he say?” She could feel her throat closing, and it was getting harder to breathe.

  “Calm down, Emelia. He hasn’t said anything because he doesn’t know what to say. He loves you both and feels torn.”

  Emelia wanted to curl up and hide for the rest of her life. She wished that Eric had talked to her. Perhaps she wouldn’t feel so torn up inside if he had, but maybe, it would have made things worse. “What a mess.”

  Emelia dropped her head back against the sofa, turned to face Sylvia, and held her gaze. “It all started with a kiss,” Emelia admitted. “There was a party, here at the house, for my twenty-first birthday. Dante had always been mysterious and never around as I was growing up. I didn’t really think much of it, and he wasn’t really a part of the family. In fact, he missed a lot of family holidays when I was younger. He was the unknown brother, but then, just before my eighteenth birthday, I overheard something that I shouldn’t have. A week later, Dante showed up, and it was like I was meeting him for the first time. I fell in love with him and didn’t know what to do.”

  She sighed and stared out the window as the tears pricked her eyes. “My young heart knew who and what it wanted, but I was stupid. I thought if I went for it, showed him how I felt, he’d fall in love with me. I thought,” she felt a lump in her throat as the memory burned painfully bright in her mind, “that everything would be happily ever after, which is why, on my twenty-fi
rst birthday, I kissed him. My heart had pounded so hard in my chest as we kissed. He was shocked at first, but then he’d returned my kiss. It went on for a while, and I felt his need…I thought that was the start of something beautiful, but then he shoved me away.

  “I’d never seen him so furious in my life before that night.” She swiped at the tears…his rejection still hurt, even after all these years. “After that, things changed for me…for him…for the whole family. There will never be a chance of going back to before it happened. I’m not even sure I’d want to if given the opportunity.”

  They fell into silence, which was finally broken with Sylvia’s question, “What did you overhear?”

  “God,” Emelia wailed, “I need to tell someone because it’s a hell of a burden to carry.” And that was the truth. She’d spent years keeping everything to herself, but she couldn’t do it anymore. Maybe it all needed to be out in the open.

  “I’d gone looking for Mom after a squabble with Diego. She was arguing with Dad. I waited in the hallway as they argued, and I’m not even sure what started it, but, as they calmed down, they talked about the past. Dad told Mom how much he’d grown to love her even though they’d married at the bequest of Francesca, my father’s first wife. Mom had sighed and said it hadn’t been a bequest because Francesca had begged them both to marry.”

  Emelia hiccupped through her tears, and continued, “Then they started talking about another man and how they were both relieved he was no longer a threat because he’d died.”

  She shook her head. It had felt like a betrayal, to know that her entire life…who she thought she was, was a lie. She’d wanted to storm into the room and scream at them, but she’d been stuck, frozen to the spot. She swallowed back the hurt and continued, “It turned out that my father had never slept with my mother until long after she’d given birth to Diego and me. And when I say long after, I mean six years after. It was after they’d renewed their wedding vows…after they’d finally fallen in love with each other.

  ”So you see, all this time, I’ve been raised as a true daughter to Emiliano, when, in fact, I have no blood relation to him or his own children. I could be with Dante, but, even though my heart breaks all the time for him, I have no idea how to tell him the truth without causing heartbreak for the entire family.”

  Shock, horror, sympathy and finally, support crossed Sylvia’s face as she listened. Emelia hadn’t realized how much she’d needed the latter.

  She couldn’t stop now that she’d started, and the relief she felt that someone else finally knew helped. “He’s a priest now and I know he loves his church…and his congregation, but I want him to be selfish. I want him to love me—to be with me. I need that with him badly that being away from him is a physical pain.” Emelia sat up and gripped both of Sylvia’s arms. “Please tell me what to do because I don’t know anymore.”

  Sylvia looked surprised, and she opened her mouth to answer before she closed it again. She looked as confused as Emelia felt. Finally, she asked, “Does anyone know? Diego?”

  “No.” Emelia shook her head. “I haven’t told anyone. Only you.”

  “You haven’t asked your mom about it?”

  “I’ve tried so many times but I always chicken out. Part of me is afraid that I misheard what was said, and another part hopes to God that I heard correctly. I will always love Emiliano as my father because he raised me from birth as his own, but I need what I heard to be true because of my feelings for Dante. Does any of this make sense to you?”

  Sylvia smiled. “You make perfect sense, and I think we need to tell Eric. He loves you and, trust me, although it will be a shock to him, it will ease his mind over you both.”

  “He worries,” she smiled, “I know. I always used to go to Eric when I was small. He would tell me a story or keep me away from Kasey who used to steal my things to make me mad.”

  “Emelia?”

  They turned at the sound of Eric’s voice.

  Chapter One

  One month later…

  Nursing a whiskey in his hand, Dante sat in the dark living room. It had been a long day of trying to act as though he didn’t have a lot on his mind when his head was so full—about to explode. A bit like how his heart had felt when he saw Kasey’s truck in the ditch during the snowstorm at Thanksgiving. He’d feared for his siblings, but the relief he’d felt when Emelia came into view was nothing like it should have been for a sibling. Nothing could have stopped him from holding her in his arms…it didn’t matter how wrong it was or how others had looked at them. All that mattered was that he could touch her to make sure she was real.

  He sighed and took a long draw of his whiskey as he looked around his father and Lucia’s living room. He always felt welcome, but the house never felt like home because he’d been away from the family as a child—completely by his own choice. At first it was because of how angry he’d been with his father for marrying Lucia…recently, it had been because of their daughter.

  Emelia lived to drive him crazy and he wished she’d find a man of her own to keep her away from him. Perhaps the longing for someone who was forbidden—she was his sister after all…and he was a priest—would disappear. Deep down he knew nothing would release him from the feelings he had for her, and the jealousy of seeing her with another man would probably kill him.

  The silence would get to him one day, but, so far, the alcohol worked fine to numb his heart. At least, it did until he looked at the entrance of the living room and saw the silhouette of Emelia. She stood and observed him without making any move closer.

  He didn’t trust himself while his emotions were all over the place. Her scent was still inside him from when he found himself beneath the mistletoe with her. It had taken everything in him to only peck her cheek.

  Shaking his head, Dante placed his empty glass on the side table. He stood and moved toward her, craving her touch no matter how wrong God said it was.

  Emelia was breathtaking. Wide eyes, high cheekbones that were accentuated by the tiny, curling tendrils escaping the heavy, silken mass of black hair, and a small frame that fit against him perfectly. She looked more delicate and ethereal than ever in her leggings and fitted shirt, and he walked closer like a man caught in an enchantment.

  His heart pounded in his chest at the sight before him. She was the only one to ever tempt him to break his vow to the church, and it was wrong. So wrong.

  He clenched his fists, averted his gaze and tried to step past, but her hand on his wrist stopped him. Her touch warmed him in places that should be dead. When she wasn’t there, those places were dark and hidden—dormant until Emelia touched him. He used to be able to ignore them but now, he found them, more difficult than ever to ignore.

  “We’re under the mistletoe,” Emelia whispered.

  It was pure torture.

  “Emelia,” he groaned in a whisper of desperation.

  She moved in front of him and met his gaze. His heart stopped before it started up a frantic beat as his blood pulsed through his body. His body hummed, his hands shook as he fought the urge to touch her.

  No matter how much he knew it was wrong, he couldn’t fight it. He curved his hand over Emelia’s hip and tugged her closer, her shirt gripped in his fist.

  She reached up and cupped one side of his face, tears gathered on her beautiful long lashes.

  No one would know.

  He dipped his head, and, for the first time in over six years, he was about to sample the only woman who would ever hold his heart.

  Her scent was under his skin, and the feel of her hands as they rested against his chest made his heart pound faster with desire. He’d only ever felt heart throbbing desire once before, and that had been on her twenty-first birthday when she’d kissed him, and made him see what was right in front of him. Kissing her and craving more with her had sent him running to the church.

  But as their mouths hovered a mere inch apart, Dante couldn’t close that distance between them, even though his body burned
to taste her, and feel her against him.

  His hand trembled in her shirt with the desire he felt, but what made him cross the line was the sight of more tears on her beautiful face. He couldn’t handle her tears anymore.

  Their mouths touched in a whisper of a kiss and, with the brush of their tongues, the growl he’d held in check at the back of his throat burst forth. He dragged Emelia against him and kissed her as though he was drowning. Maybe he was and she was his lifeline.

  Shivers of desire raced through him as Emelia whimpered while his tongue explored the recesses of her mouth. No space separated them as he continued to kiss her hungrily, like a man starved.

  He couldn’t stop now that he’d started and, as his lips left hers, he nibbled at her earlobe before he seared a path down her neck before reclaiming her swollen lips.

  Emelia’s hands held his head in place while she returned his passion. Her mouth searched out his tongue, as her body moved restlessly against his, heightening his arousal.

  The thought of having her in his bed while they both writhed in pleasure as he entered the heat of her body brought him back to reality.

  He broke from the kiss and, when Emelia tried to hold him to her, he shook his head and backed away.

  “That was wrong,” he hissed between clenched teeth.

  It was wrong, but nothing had ever felt so right.

  As he gazed at her through hooded eyes, he let out a shudder of need and drew in a sharp breath. Emelia stood where he’d left her, unmoving as tears seeped out of her eyes and down her beautiful face. She’d paled since he’d stepped away, and her arms wrapped around her stomach as though to protect herself.

  He was a priest, and should feel remorse for what he’d just done with his sister, but he couldn’t get there. What he felt for her was wrong on so many levels, but Emelia was still the most beautiful woman he’d ever seen, and his love for her would always be inside him.

  But as she stood before him, looking destroyed, he had no idea what to say or do to take her heartache away. He knew that she loved him just as much as he did her, and that he was the only one who would be able to please her, but that would never be possible.