Takeover: The Complete Series

by Lana Grayson

“You can’t, my angel.”

  “Because you won’t let me in.”

  He didn’t answer. I knew he wouldn’t. Somehow we could strip each other bare, kiss, touch, take each other in the most animalistic and primal ways, and yet we couldn’t trust each other with the truth aching our hearts.

  He hadn’t moved, and I reached for him, brushing my fingers along the hard line of his jaw.

  Lower.

  To his collar.

  He stiffened in more ways than one as I touched it.

  “Why did you become a priest, Rafe?”

  The words pulled from him, reluctantly. Heavy.

  “I was looking for reason in the world. A way to heal. Some hope.”

  “Did you find it?”

  “Now I did.”

  My chest tightened as he kissed my hand. But he released me almost as soon as his lips graced my skin. It wasn’t fair. Every beat of my heart separated me from him.

  “What are you afraid of?” I asked.

  “Things that have already happened.”

  “What things?”

  He shook his head. “Too many to count. The world is a vicious, repetitive cycle, Honor. And it’s claimed you because of me. I fear too much what I’ve done to you.”

  “And I’m blessed that it happened.” I leaned forward, hoping for a kiss. Praying that he’d just listen to me. “I’m blessed that I found you, Rafe.”

  He stood. It was the first time he pushed me away. The first time he ran. He didn’t trust his pride, his faith, or his ability to deny me.

  “I’m not the right man for you.”

  “What if you’re the one I need? What if I’m the one—”

  He silenced me with a glance. “There is a temptation greater than lust, my angel. And I would not challenge it. Not now. Not ever.”

  “Why?”

  “Because I’m not strong enough to fight it.” He shook his head. “And I’m not the man who can explore it with you.”

  The broken parts of me ached. He looked away, his expression drawn in the same remorse and somber pain that beat in my chest.

  “I should go,” he said.

  “Don’t.”

  “Honor.”

  “Please. Can you stay? Just for a little longer?” Was it selfish to admit this weakness? “I don’t want to be alone.”

  Not now.

  Not ever again.

  But even I wasn’t foolish enough to dream of the possibilities of what I asked.

  I lost my innocence to a priest. I lost my state of grace in the wicked games we played and desires we tempted.

  But I also lost my heart to him.

  And that was the one gift I couldn’t reclaim. No confessions would heal it. No prayers would save it. And no love would warm it.

  Father Raphael hesitated at the door. After a long moment, he nodded.

  He returned to the couch and welcomed me into his arms as I cradled against the warmth of his body and strength of his chest.

  And he held me there. Protected. Safe.

  Honored.

  I never should have asked for such a wonderful and beautiful moment, but it was mine, and it was all I would ever have of us.

  We didn’t kiss. We didn’t make love.

  But still I sinned. I dared to hope for a man who didn’t belong to me, and I imagined a life he couldn’t offer.

  But I slept in his arms, safe and comforted.

  And loving him became my greatest sin.

  20

  Raphael

  Benjamin’s funeral was a joyous event, celebrated ten days after his death.

  Priests from our area and the adjoining dioceses helped to honor him. We traveled to the cathedral in the city where the pews packed were with those he’ d helped during his ministry. Standing room only. Benjamin had blessed so many, and the faithful came to welcome him into the arms of the Lord.

  But I couldn’t pray with them. I couldn’t speak any words. Forty of my brother priests circled his casket and the altar, and I’d never felt more alone.

  I suffered a new and terrible type of pain. I’d surrounded myself in the church. I’d given my life to help the thriving community. And when I preached, I spoke the same prayers which had graced the lips of men for centuries. And yet loneliness chained me to the same altar at which I worshiped.

  Prayer for the soul was good and just. Prayer for the touch of a woman was forbidden. I was meant to imagine a life of eternity and glory when I died, but first I had to suffer through long nights of still silences, alone in an empty house.

  We laid Benjamin to rest, and he was surrounded by hundreds of his faithful friends.

  But at the moment he died, when he took his final breath? I hadn’t been there to hold his hand.

  I’d never forgive myself.

  I declined invitations to join my fellow priests for a dinner to honor our friend. But I didn’t want to remember Benjamin. Didn’t want to think of the day he welcomed me into his home.

  Or I’d remember what came before.

  And I fought every day, every night, every beat of my heart, and my every cursed breath to forget my life before Benjamin saved me.

  I went home and sat in the dark. At midnight, she knocked on the back door.

  I knew it was her. No one else would visit so late.

  The door opened, but Honor stilled as she looked at me. No cassock. No collar. Just a t-shirt and sweats over an aching body. The parish could survive without me for a time. I took the funeral and the next day off and planned to sleep away my misery.

  Honor clutched a cake carrier. She stepped inside but handed it to me with an averted glance.

  “Pineapple upside-down cake.” She prevented me from popping the lid. “Maybe…wait until I’m gone.”

  Prudent.

  I set the cake on the kitchen counter, but Honor didn’t follow. She twisted her fingers in the folds of her dress. Concert black. She hadn’t changed from the funeral. St. Cecilia’s choir sang for the Mass.

  I didn’t remember hearing a word.

  “I found something in the church,” she said. “Took a picture.”

  She offered me her cell, but I knew what she had found. I didn’t bother with the picture on her phone, not when I had the real one in my living room. I grabbed the frame resting on the end table and handed it to her.

  The photo was of me at age fourteen—one of the first pictures I had taken of me where I actually smiled. I stood next to Benjamin, posing with him in his new robes, bishop purple instead of priest black.

  We both had copies of the photo. The women’s group must have made a collage of his life to put in the church. They included this moment. Smart. It was one of the greatest days in both our lives.

  “Bishop Polito?” Honor stroked the photograph. Her finger drew slowly over the image of me. “You said he was your mentor.”

  I wasn’t ready for this conversation. I took the frame and sat on the couch.

  “He meant more than that.”

  I gave her nothing else, but how long could I deny this confession? Honor approached, gently sitting on the edge of the coffee table to face me. Relentless woman.

  She shrugged. “In the homily…”

  Honor waited to for me to speak. I didn’t. The bishop presiding over the Mass said many beautiful things about Benjamin. None of it personal, just words and empty platitudes about his commitment to god, his ministry, the accomplishments in his life. Nothing about his kindness. Nothing about his patience. His insight. How he could take a boy, broken and lost, and prove to the unlovable that good people did exist. That not everyone would hurt him. That life was more than suffering and pain.

  But Honor already knew that. She heard enough from the homily to slip through my mind, my soul.

  What did it matter now? She was already in my heart.

  “Bishop Polito took on a ward fifteen or so years ago,” she said. “They said he raised the boy on his own. Put him through minor seminary high school. Helped him to take his Holy
Orders and become a priest.”

  I nodded. “It’s true.”

  “It was you.”

  “Yes.”

  “But you said you had a family.” She frowned at me. Did she think I lied, or did the truth frighten her more? “You were the youngest of eight?”

  “I was, but that was a different part of my life. That was where I came from. Benjamin was my real family. He took me in. Helped me, though God only knows how he did it. Without him…” My voice faded. “I don’t know where I’d be or what I’d have become. I doubt I’d even be alive.”

  My gentle angel listened with glistening eyes. She had questions. Many of them. But this wasn’t a conversation for her. I’d taken enough of her innocence. I couldn’t corrupt her with my past.

  “He died the night Mom was in the hospital,” she said.

  “Yes.”

  “And you stayed with me. Until morning.”

  A sleepless night I’d never forget. We hadn’t kissed. Didn’t have sex. Just rested in each other’s arms. Those few hours meant more to me than any of the breathless, passionate moments when I had moved inside her.

  It was a warning, a sign, which wouldn’t go unheeded.

  Honor shook her head. “Why didn’t you tell me your friend—your father—had died?”

  “Your mother was sick.”

  “And he…”

  “I wanted to help you that night. That’s what Ben taught me to do. Help others. Care for them. Show them the kindness the world hadn’t shown me. He would have wanted me to comfort you rather than mourn him.”

  “Did he know…what happened between us?”

  “No.” The pain struck too close. “We ran out of time.”

  The lie hurt. More than the mournful realization of his death. More than any of the times I’d visited in the hospice and watched him waste away.

  Ten days had passed since he died, and my heart hadn’t healed. I couldn’t even speak his name without suffering the hollowness in my chest. I knew why.

  I deceived myself and dishonored his memory.

  “That’s not true.” I bowed my head. “I told myself—again and again—that I would confess to him. I had the opportunities, and he realized something weighed on me. I could have confessed...I didn’t.”

  “Why?”

  The words choked. I forced them out.

  “I didn’t want him to see what I’d become.”

  Honor leaned close. Her sweet voice comforted and quieted the shame that welled within me.

  “Father Rafe…you are not a monster. You haven’t hurt me.” Her words gentled. She drew the pain from me as if she pulled poison from a bite. “But someone hurt you.”

  I stayed silent, content to let the dark quiet suffocate me. It was better than admitting the truth.

  Better than suffering from those memories.

  Better than becoming what I feared.

  Honor sighed, mourning me instead of the dead. “What happened to you? Something hurt you. Something changed you. Please let me in.”

  “What if you don’t like what you find?”

  “And what if I can help you?”

  She couldn’t. No one could. Nothing helped. Not prayer or fasting, blessings or ordinations, a busy life in the church or all the responsibilities and souls that came with it.

  The only way to survive was to hide it. I knocked her hand away. It offended her, and her pain hurt me more than I realized.

  Honor’s voice was a whisper. “You fear intimacy.”

  Close. So close.

  The words sickened me. “No. I fear more abuse.”

  It had been fifteen years since I’d admitted what happened to me. Only one man knew besides God, and it took two years after Benjamin adopted me in before I could reveal it to him. I said it once, and then I never spoke of it again.

  Maybe I should have confronted it, but Benjamin gave me a new life of safety, comfort, and love. Why would I have reopened my wounds after they finally stopped bleeding?

  But I hadn’t healed. I scarred. The cuts were too deep, and every nerve was still exposed.

  Benjamin was gone.

  The memories returned.

  And I couldn’t fight both my desires and my past.

  I don’t know why I spoke, but I wrenched the truth from my soul.

  “My father hurt me,” I said. “It started when I was young and ended the day I ran away.”

  Honor held her breath, like she feared to make a sound in case it’d silence me. But the filth rose to the surface now. I couldn’t hide it. I couldn’t avoid it.

  “Emotional abuse. Physical. Sexual.” I shuddered. “My father was as cruel as he was perverted. My brothers and sisters suffered too, but not as badly as I did. One night, I didn’t know if he wanted to beat me or just…” I couldn’t say the word. “He did both. It wasn’t the first time, but it was the worst. I thought he was going to kill me. I hoped he would.”

  “Rafe…”

  “That was the night I knew I had to get away. I couldn’t let him do those things to me. I couldn’t stay and hope to be saved. I didn’t wait for my bones to heal or the bruises to fade. As soon as I could roll out of my bed, I escaped.” I gritted my teeth. “And I never looked back.”

  Honor dropped from the coffee table to kneel at my feet. She took my hands, squeezing and warming them. It was all she could do, and it was all I needed, but I shook her away.

  “The church welcomed me. Ben helped me…recover. I wasn’t a healthy teenager. I suffered. I self-harmed. I had…very destructive behaviors. He took me in at thirteen, knowing I was lost, and he saved me. The church saved me. Here, I felt what real love was. I joined the communities and experienced a real family. It was a blessing. I studied to become a priest because…it was the only good thing I ever saw in life. I wanted to help others. I wanted to show them the safety and kindness I found in the church.”

  I could have stopped then. Honor was satisfied and my soul unburdened. But it wasn’t enough to admit my sins. If I wanted the pain to stop, I had to examine why. The cause of the sin, not just the action.

  Even if it destroyed me.

  My voice hardened. I’d never voiced the truth, not even to Benjamin.

  “I became a priest because I wanted to live a celibate life. I thought…it’d protect me.”

  Honor lowered her eyes. The guilt dulled her spirit, and I wouldn’t tolerate it. She’d done nothing wrong.

  “I don’t regret our nights together,” I said. “I just wanted to protect you from…me. I always thought sex was something vulgar, destructive, and sadistic. What we did, I did to you.”

  She looked up, her voice soft and steady. “And was it as vile as you had thought it’d be?”

  No.

  Not in the least.

  Her body, her soul, her touch had been a glorious, tender blessing.

  “Did I hurt you?” I whispered. “Honestly, Honor. I need to know.”

  “You’ve never once hurt me.”

  I ached to believe her, but it was the first time I feared hope would be a sin.

  “Honor, I’ve wanted you from the moment I met you. I imagined you beneath me. Impaled on me. Serving me.”

  Her smile was too warm. “And I imagined you above me. Within me. I wanted to serve you…that was my pleasure.”

  No. No, no, no. She didn’t understand.

  “You’re twisting my words,” I said.

  “I’m not. You think you’re corrupted.” She shrugged. “It’s not a sin to want someone. To want that connection with another person.”

  “But I had such dark and terrible urges. I had to fight them.”

  “Were they dark? Did you honestly want to hurt me?”

  “Never. No.” The thought revolted me, but so did my desires. “But the things I’d have done to your body…”

  “I wanted you to do that to me. I wanted to experience it with you.”

  It couldn’t be right. I didn’t look at her, fearing the images I’d see. The memor
y of her naked body was almost as frightening as the kindness of her smile.

  “Father.” How was her voice so comforting? “You told me we had to deny temptation so we could fight our sins and test our faith. But you weren’t battling temptation, were you? You were hating yourself. You desired me, and you thought that meant you’d abuse me…just like you’d been hurt.”

  I gritted my teeth.

  Hell was guilt. Hell was shame.

  Hell was admitting a truth no man should have uttered.

  “I wanted to prove that I was stronger than my father,” I said. “That I could be tempted, but that I had the strength to walk away. I wanted to know that it was possible to desire and lust, but not become a monster like him. I had to know I could deny myself those perversions…and, in the end, I couldn’t.”

  Honor touched my cheek. Why didn’t I push her away? “That’s because what we have isn’t a perversion. It’s not pain or abuse. It hasn’t shamed me or hurt me or ruined me.”

  “What was it?”

  “Amazing.” She leaned in close. “Perfect. Something that was always meant to happen.”

  Her lips met mine. Soft. Tender.

  Loving.

  “Have you forgiven him?” she asked.

  Such a simple question which was only answered in a lifetime of hatred. Benjamin had asked the same question. I had no answer for him then. I couldn’t imagine the truth now.

  I clenched my jaw. “No. He molded me into something I hate. He does not leave the guilty unpunished; he punishes the children for the sin of the parents to the third and fourth generation. I fear my father’s sins as much as I fear my own.”

  “Why?”

  I closed my eyes. “Because I don’t want to hurt you.”

  “You haven’t hurt me.”

  “Yet.”

  Honor’s hand wove through my hair. A touch so intimate and warm I was amazed at how much she healed in the grace of her fingers.

  “You can’t fear your desires.”

  “And I can’t trust them.”

  “Why?”

  “Because I only want you, my angel. My body, my blood, my soul wants you. That is my true confession, Honor. I would whisper a thousand prayers for a chance to experience the miracle of your kiss.”

  “It’s no miracle.” She stared at me, so beautiful and honest. “It’d be a sin to deny what we feel. What we are together.”