Page 89 of Priestly Sins

“What?”

“What do you need to know you’re not ‘at my mercy’?”

“I don’t get it.”

“What makes you equal? What makes you safe?”

“Money and freedom.”

I nod.

But my heart breaks.

I’m losing her, or I’ve already lost her, and I have no clue how to make it right.

“Give me a few days—”

“No way. I—”

“Give me a few days to do more research. I need to know you’ll be safe. You need to know you’ll be safe. You can have all the money you want. And”—I swallow tightly so my voice won’t break— “and you can be free of me, since that’s what you want. I won’t stop you.”

That last part was a lie; the only one I’ve ever told her. She’s mine and I’m not letting her go. Clara is my daughter, legally, if not biologically. They are my family.

They are mine to protect.

Mine to love.

Sirona will forgive me. I just have to find a reason for her to trust me again. I don’t know what that looks like but it’s my new mission starting today.

I turn and stride down the hall as I hear the door close and a muffled sob from behind it.

“Clara Bell? Fifteen minutes until we go searching for mermaids,” I call.

That should give me enough time to find my man card and stop this emotional shit.

* * *

Two days later,little has changed. Sirona is still icy, but she moves around the house. Her bravado enters the room ahead of her. She knows she has me by the balls and that, at any time, she can pull the rug out from under my world.

I get a call from an attorney’s office in Athlone about finalizing Clara’s adoption papers. I thought that was all done, but with Bobby’s death, I guess we missed something.

The paperwork is still coming in from his firm and it seems to never end.

I’ll go tomorrow to Athlone and it’ll be done.

I avoid telling Sirona. I won’t fight her for custody.

It will break me if she takes that ray of sunshine from my life. Can’t believe how much I love that little girl. But, legally, if anything were ever to happen to Sirona, Clara needs the safety net. She will always be my little girl and, seeing her or not, I want the best for her, today and forever.

I’m angry and sad, frustrated and despondent, clueless and miserable. I waver between putting my fist through a wall and wanting to scream.

And loving Sirona and losing her? Unthinkable.

I run and think.

I have no clue how to fix this.

I keep trying.