Page 59 of Priest (Priest 1)
“Did that strike a nerve?” Sterling asked, amused.
“I consider Poppy one of my flock,” I said, inclining my head in admission. Luckily, my voice betrayed nothing but mild disapprobation. “It pains me to hear any of them spoken of disrespectfully.”
“Oh, certainly,” Sterling said. “And I admire how committed you are to your story. I’m a man of appearances myself.” He pulled a manila envelope from the inside of his suit jacket and handed it to me. “However, I’m also a man of means, and so we can move past this initial posturing and right into the heart of the matter.”
I stared at him as I unwound the string at the top of the envelope and pulled out the large glossy pictures inside. Part of me worried that they would be pictures of Poppy and him, more evidence of their past to unsettle me, but no. No, it was much, much worse.
A broad-shouldered man crossing a small park at night. That same man at a darkened garden gate. A shot through a kitchen window of a man and a woman kissing.
I exhaled.
There was no nudity, thank Jesus, and nothing more sinful than a kiss, but it didn’t matter, because it was clearly my face in all of them and that was enough. In fact, they were more than enough—they were damning.
“And be reassured that I have all the digital files of these,” Sterling said cheerfully. “So feel free to keep those. As mementos.”
“You had us followed,” I said.
“I told you that I was a man of means. When Poppy kept refusing to answer my calls, even after I told her I was coming for her, I started to wonder if she’d met someone else. So I looked into it. Since she hasn’t agreed to my arrangement—yet—I wouldn’t have minded if she’d been fucking someone. But falling in love with another man…well, I know Poppy and I know what kind of obstacle that would present.”
“You had us followed,” I repeated. “Do you even hear yourself? That is insane.”
Sterling seemed baffled. “Why?”
“Because,” I said, my anger getting the better of me and making my words tight and forced, “people don’t have other people followed. Especially their ex-girlfriends. That’s stalking—that’s actually the legal definition of stalking. I don’t care that you’re wealthy and can pay for someone else to do it for you—it’s the same damn thing.”
He still looked confused. “That’s what you’re upset about? Not that I have evidence that can ruin your life? Not that I’m going to inevitably walk away from this town with Poppy at my side?”
“You are so assured of this outcome,” I said, forcing myself to move past him having Poppy followed. “But you forget, it has nothing to do with you or me—it’s her choice.”
Sterling shrugged one shoulder, as if I were being either deliberately obtuse or deliberately precious, and he didn’t have time for it any more.
“So what’s the heart of the matter?” I asked, sliding the photos back into the envelope.
“Pardon?”
“You said you wanted to move past the posturing.” I tossed the pictures on the pew next to me and stood up straight, crossing my arms. I was happy to see that Sterlin
g also straightened up, as if unhappy with the extra inch I had on him. (In height, I mean. [Although a really awful, crass part of me was ridiculously pleased to know that I was the biggest Poppy had ever had.])
“Yes. Well, here it is, Father.” He said the word father as if it had quotation marks. (I allowed myself another brief fantasy where I slammed my fist into his eye socket.) “I want Poppy to come home with me to New York. I want her to be mine.”
“Even though you’re married.”
He gave me that look again, that slightly incredulous are you an idiot look, and it would have bothered me if I didn’t have the moral high ground in this competition. Except…I couldn’t really claim any part of any moral ground now, high or low, could I? That thought depressed me immensely.
Luckily, Sterling didn’t notice and continued on. “Yes, even though I’m married. Marriage isn’t a sacrament in my family—it’s a tax write-off. And I have no intention of holding a legal arrangement above what I want out of my life. I’ve never loved my wife and she feels the same way about me.”
“But you love Poppy?”
Sterling pressed his lips together. “Love and want are essentially the same thing,” he elided. “Not that a man like you would know that.”
“I respect your honesty, at least,” I said. “You’re not lying to yourself, and I assume you won’t lie to her.”
This unexpected compliment seemed to surprise him, but he quickly recovered. “Poppy doesn’t care about that as much as she thinks she does,” he told me. “You may labor under the illusion that she won’t come back with me unless I love her, but she’s not like you. She knows numbers, sense, mortgages. I’m offering her the currency she knows—money and lust and security—and that is why I will win.”
I thought of her crying in the confessional booth, of the moment we’d stood together in the sanctuary, bathing in God’s presence. She wasn’t merely a spreadsheet with spread legs, and Sterling was an idiot if he’d grown up with her and managed to miss all the deeply spiritual, deeply emotional facets of Poppy Danforth.
“She’s so much more than that.”
