~ Father Romanus ~

The shrill ring of the phone slices through the room like a blade.

Calista grabs it, her face paling. “My dad.”

I flinch.

For a heartbeat, I’m not a man of God. I’m a fifty-five-year-old silver haired coward.

“Answer it,” I hiss, my voice cracking.

I scramble for my trousers.

My fingers, stiff with age and the sudden chill of reality, fumble with the zipper.

I look at the clerical collar discarded on the floor, the white tab that has defined my life for thirty years.

Now it looks like a discarded skin.

If her father walks in, I’ll be nothing but a disgraced old man...