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“But where are they in this house?” I ask.
“Oh, well they usually stay in their rooms until they’re needed to attend ceremonies and prayers or they gather in the common wives’ room,” he explains.
The common wives’ room? Why did I not know that exists? Maybe I should pay them a visit. See how they think.
Patrick leans in more. “I don’t know what they do there, and I don’t think I want to know.”
I snort to myself, and he winks at me.
“You’ll probably be expected to join them soon,” he says, sighing. “Which is a shame if you ask me, because that means I won’t get to hang out with you as much as I’d like to. Since the common wives’ room is forbidden to all men.”
“Hang out?” I mutter, stuffing the “forbidden to all men” part in the back of my mind for later. I’ve never heard a patriarch talk about ‘hanging out’ as if he’s regular guy at a library rather than someone who rules a whole community of people ready to fall at his feet and beg for God’s favor.
He tucks his hands into his pockets. “Yeah … I like you.”
For some reason, a blush spreads on my face, and I can’t will it away. He steps closer and places a hand on my cheek. It feels wrong, but at the same time, I don’t even care that it is. I want it to be wrong. I want to be defiant. To resist Noah’s rule, for once. And this … this gives me power. By giving in to another man, I take away his.
“I wish you weren’t his,” he mutters. “I would’ve treated you so much better.”
I lean into his palm and close my eyes. “What if Noah finds out?”
“He already knows how I am,” he says. “And you should too by now …”
When my eyes open again he’s so close I can feel his breath on my skin. “You should know better than to taunt me. Tempt me … and you get in trouble real quickly,” he muses, stepping so close that he forces me to step back until I’m backed into the bookshelves with no way out. “But you like that, don’t you? You’re a mischievous little girl who enjoys getting into trouble.” He places his hands on the shelves behind me, trapping me. “But why? It can’t be because you like me. You know what this place is. You know who brought you here. You don’t belong here, and you want to go back.”
I suck in a breath and hold it as he’s right up in my face … discovering all my dirty secrets that I wished I could’ve kept secret, but it’s as if he’s pulled them out of me with just a single look.
“I know what you’re doing, and you’re doing it so well, I’d almost fall for the trap,” he muses.
Is he talking about the … Ceremony?
When I couldn’t stop looking at him?
Patrick pushes himself off me, allowing me to breathe again. “But I’m not stupid.”
“I didn’t—”
“I know you never said that. You don’t need to. But I saw the way you looked at me in that room …” His hand balls into a fist as he stands with his back toward me, all tensed up. “You don’t know what you’ve unleashed.”
I shudder in place as the silence is deafening.
“I can’t give you what you want,” he says. “Neither can Noah. We are bound by the rules. This community is all we have.”
“You’re patriarchs. You make the rules.”
“We bow to the rules, just like anyone else here … as should you.” He looks at me over his shoulder, the judging look in his eyes making me gulp.
“The Family is everything I have. Everything we’ve ever loved. You, an outsider, don’t get to decide what’s good and what is not,” he says.
“Have you ever seen the outside world?” I ask.
He walks to the window, ignoring me completely. I follow suit and look outside at the people like he does.
“It’s a good thing men and women are separated here.”
“Why is that?” I ask.
“No one gets hurt,” he replies. “Even here, at the temple, separation keeps us from lashing out. Women do their job; men do their job. Just like down there in the huts. Everyone works hard to keep the community going. No one takes what they don’t earn, and no one is owed anything but love from their significant other. No greed. No crimes. Lust is taken care of by the ceremony that takes place each week.”
Each week.
That means I’ve already missed one.
“Men get to fuck to their heart’s desire, and women find a home to belong to. It’s perfect,” he continues.
“Perfect … except I didn’t choose this,” I say through gritted teeth.
He blinks a couple of times. “Perfection comes at a price that not everyone’s willing to pay.”
