Page 38 of She's Like the Wind

But you’re going to do it, Naomi. You’re going to enjoy your time with Jonah.

Even if there isn’t a spark?

Even if I still felt the ghost of rough hands and whispered promises trailing down my spine?

CHAPTER 13

Gage

The last time I stepped foot in a church, I was eleven years old, and my mother read me the riot act for whispering during communion. Now, I’d just finished turning one into a luxury hotel and event space.

Sloane Rousseau, the proud owner of The Chapelle, took me out for dinner to celebrate, not just the end of the project but the renovation being featured inArchitectural Digestas part of theirReclaiming Old Churches in Americaedition.

I liked Sloane. She was smart without being a bitch about it; beautiful without being arrogant, and rich without being stuffy.

Was she interested in me because I was far from the kind of man she usually went out with? Who knew and who cared!

When she asked me out once the project was completed, I agreed, hoping maybe this time it would stick—perhaps this time I’d be able to live like I used to without feeling like something was missing.

Like how I used to be before Naomi.

Sloane had booked a table at Saffron when I told her my favorite cuisine, after Cajun, was Indian.

“I’m still so stoked about this.” She tapped the copy ofArchitectural Digeston the table between us. “They called the design ‘ethereal with bones of the divine.’ That’s you, Gage.”

I grunted. “Sounds like a fancy way of saying I didn’t fuck it up.”

She laughed, all elegance and business savvy. Sloane was one of those women who wore her ambition like perfume—undeniable, but never overbearing. She had vision and taste, and knew how to go after what she wanted—all things I liked in a woman.

I’d started working with Sloane two years ago when she bought, at auction for a steal, the crumbling St. Jean the Baptist Church on the edge of the Bywater, tucked just past St. Claude, half-eaten by vines and time.

The place was damn near falling in on itself.

Water-damaged murals.

A bell tower that looked like a drunk sailor.

A pipe organ that hadn’t made music since the seventies.

Now the church wasThe Chapelle, a boutique hotel and event space with twenty rooms carved out of old choir lofts and sacristies, and a reception hall that still held its vaulted ceilings and stained-glass windows. The altar had been preserved and framed with gold-trimmed drapery. The floors were original—cypress, refinished by hand.

It was sacred in how it had been preserved, but it was also contemporary when it came to comfort.

I was proud of this project.

“I love that the rectory is the restaurant and the confessional, the bar. Very irreverent.” Naomi had laughed when I’d shown her some of the photos of the work in progress.

“When it opens, I’m going to see if maybe I can book the Presidential Suite for us.” I’d been so fucking smitten that it hadn’t registered that I was making promises for something that wasn’t going to happen for months.

“Having dirty sex in a church.” Naomi smirked. “I like it.”

Damn! I needed to stop thinking about that woman while I was out with another. I didn’t need another debacle like the one I had with Barb. I’d been disgusted with myself. I had no business treating a woman, even one as irritating as the lawyer, like that and had decided to stay the hell away from women for a while.

Sloane raised her glass. “To resurrection.”

I clinked mine against hers. “Amen.”

“Oh look, it’s Jonah Lamarre,” Sloane murmured, her eyes looking past the top of my head.