Page 98 of Always Alchemy

I lean in to study the image. He’s arresting and grave, this man of the cloth, and he is hotas fuck. So hot, in fact, that the little frisson of pleasure I’ve felt at speaking to Anton is instantly forgotten.

How does a man go fromthat—a sense of vocation so strong that he’s willing to subjugate his most primal desires in favour of a life of service—to paying up for sex on tap?

And what type of enigma does that make him? Do his former sacrificesexplainhis interest in the kind of solution only Seraph can provide, or do they render it whollyinexplicable?

Presumably, he once believed in the sanctity of the vows he took. In their ability to hold him and cleanse him and behallow him.

Presumably, that covenant promised him a celestial array of eternal, exalted rewards in exchange for renouncing any earthly worship of money and sex .

Yet he now wants to use his unlimited supply of the former to pay for an unlimited supply of the latter.

There’s lapsing.

There’s pivoting, even, in one’s belief system. One’s moral code.

But this guy’s one-eighty must be giving him whiplash.

‘You’ve gone awfully quiet,’ Anton drawls. ‘Like what you see?’

‘Hang on.’ I stare at the unsmiling eyes of the man in thephoto. ‘Are you honestly suggesting you want me to fuck a guy who used to be apriest?’

‘Used to bebeing the operative words. He’s a layman now, and you’d better believe he needs some stress relief. We signed him up to Alchemy, but the poor fucker’s too exhausted for all those late nights. One of the cleaners stumbled across him at four in the morning the other day—he was out cold in one of the private rooms. I don’t know who was more traumatised. Anyway, he needs more of a full-service solution.’

I’m silent, weighing my options. On the one hand, I don’t like to turn over my employers too often. It doesn’t look good on one’s CV. On the other, my agency Seraph, a discreet outfit owned by Anton and specialising in employees like me, could place me at a dozen different places tomorrow if I wanted to. CV optics aren’t really a priority.

‘Come on,’ he says in a wheedling tone. ‘Just meet with him. If you’re happy with Woodall, then fine, but I’d like to see you have your cakeandeat it. You’re my OG Seraph girl, you know you are.’

‘I’m youronlySeraph girl,’ I point out. Anton may have founded Seraph, but he didn’t make his first hire—me—until after he’d extricated himself from Marriage Number Three, and he met his wife only a few months after I started. ‘And don’t try to use words likeOG. You’re far too old. It doesn’t work.’

‘I’ve got teenage kids,’ he retorts good-naturedly. ‘I’m cool.’

‘You’re really not.’

He really is. For his age, anyway.

‘What do you say?’ he persists. ‘If the tall, dark and handsome billionaire doesn’t float your boat, you can scurryback to Steve and his godforsaken offices in—where is it? Swindon?’

‘Reading.’ In a retail park, no less. It’s godawful.

He laughs. ‘You don’t belong in fucking Reading, sweetheart. Say the word and you could be back in Mayfair where you belong, with a disgustingly handsome man fucking you senseless every day of the week. The guy was celibate for a decade, God love him. Imagine how much lost time he’s got to make up for.’

I chew the inside of my cheek.

Imagine, indeed.