The Consequence of Secrets - Part Two: A Priest Romance Read Online Free

while I wait for them to spit it out.
    “We’ve noticed you spending a lot of time talking to Ms Williams and well, today, you seemed…close,” Deacon Salisbury explains.
    “I see,” I say. “And you’re worried I’m trying to woo a married woman?”
    “It’s been known to happen,” Father Matthew adds. “The church loses many a man to his heart and his yearnings.”
    “That’s possibly because the church needs to enter the twenty-first century and lift the celibacy vows. If an Episcopal Priest can marry then convert to Catholicism and remain married, then perhaps that loophole should apply to all of us.”
    “Are you saying there is something going on between you and Ms Williams?” Father Matthew asks, looking at my under arched eyebrows.
    I shake my head. “No. I’m not saying that at all. I’m just saying that if they changed the rules then Carol and the Deacon wouldn’t have had to marry in secret the moment they turned eighteen, and you, Father Matthew, you would have been able to pursue Molly instead of praying about it and losing her to some other guy.”
    “If that’s the way you see it, then why did you become a Catholic Priest?”
    “Because like you, I answered a calling, and I truly believe in this faith and feel that I can do a lot of good in the community and with our youth as a priest. And for your information, I wasn’t sitting in our church trying to break my vows with a married woman. In case you haven’t noticed, she hasn’t been especially well lately, and I’ve been praying for guidance on how best to help her, because unlike most of the girls who fill up my confessional time, Emma Williams really does need help. Frankly, I’m disappointed that neither of you noticed there was a problem before, or were you all just too scared of losing the money her father throws our way to say anything?”
    “What are you insinuating?” Father Matthew asks, his eyes narrowing slightly.
    I shake my head and stand from the table, taking my half eaten plate of food in my hand. “I’m not insinuating anything. I’m simply trying to follow the He is guiding me along,” I say, before thanking Carol for dinner and removing myself from the situation, knowing that from now on, I’m going to have to be very careful of how I interact with Emma. We are being watched. 

Emma
    My heart seems to lodge itself in my throat as I present Gabe with the fake test, my hands sweating, and my breathing shallow.
    “What’s this?” he asks, looking at the long box I’ve sat on the table in front him instead of his meal. I’ve gone to a lot of trouble to make this special, and around it is a pale blue ribbon, and I can see the hope in his eyes when he picks up the white cardboard and looks back at me.
    What if he doesn’t believe me?
    “Open it and you’ll find out,” I smile, standing beside him with my hands clasped together in front of me. I’m nervous as hell.
    What if he asks me to take another one?
    Smiling, he pulls the ribbon and removes the lid, and for a moment, I see a glimpse of the man I thought I was marrying – the handsome man with the boyish grin whose genuine smile could light up an entire room. “We did it?” he asks in a whisper, looking at the pregnancy test then back to me.
    “We did,” I tell him. “Although, it’s early days so we need to be careful still.”
    He looks down at the test again then back up at me before he jumps up from his seat and picks me up by the waist, twirling me around in a circle before setting me back down and dropping to his knees, his hand splayed out across my abdomen. “You’ve just made me that happiest man on the planet,” he says, looking up at me as he presses his ear where his hand was. “I just know it’s going to be a boy too. I had a feeling this would be our month.”
    Standing up, he wraps me in his arms and kisses me passionately, telling me over and over again how wonderful the news is. And for a moment, I feel intensely guilty