Lahat ng Kabanata ng Sacred Obsession : Kabanata 61 - Kabanata 69

(Matteo's POV)I found out by accident, which somehow made the relief feel even more dangerous.Father Anthonio knocked lightly against my office door late Tuesday afternoon while I sat pretending to review parish financial reports I hadn't actually read in nearly twenty minutes. "You look terrible," he observed immediately upon entering.I exhaled quietly. "Thank you."He ignored the sarcasm, closing the door behind him before handing me a thin envelope. "The Diocese sent updated placement decisions."My stomach tightened instantly. Transfer,, the word alone had become enough to alter my breathing lately, and suddenly Elena's face flashed through my mind with brutal clarity: the fear, the exhaustion, that quiet panic she kept trying to hide whenever the possibility of losing me surfaced between us. I stared at the envelope without opening it.Father Anthonio noticed. "You've been expecting bad news." I forced myself to finally take the letter from him."It's nothing." A lie. The enve

(Matteo's POV)I woke up disoriented, which wasn't unusual lately; What was unusual was the warmth beside me, the weight of Elena asleep against my chest, her leg tangled loosely with mine beneath the sheets, her breathing slow and soft against my throat. For one dangerous second, peace replaced thought entirely. Then reality returned all at once: the rectory, morning light, Mass in less than an hour, and Elena still in my bed."Shit." The word escaped before I could stop it.Elena stirred immediately, eyes blinking open slowly beneath tangled dark hair. "What?""We overslept." That woke her instantly, and panic transformed the room in seconds, not dramatic screaming, not chaos, but something worse. Controlled fear, the kind sharpened by real risk.Elena sat upright too quickly, grabbing for her discarded sweater from the floor while my pulse hammered violently against my ribs. "What time is it?""Six forty." Her face drained immediately. Morning staff started arriving around seven, a

(Elena's POV)I knew there had been someone before me, that wasn't surprising. Matteo had lived thirty-four years before I ever walked into this story. What surprised me was how rarely he spoke about that part of his life. Paris existed like a closed door: mentioned occasionally, never opened. And after our conversation in the courtyard, I couldn't stop thinking about it. About her. Claire, the woman whose name had slipped into existence without ever fully arriving, the woman he had loved before he became Father Matteo Romano, the woman he had left behind.It was raining when I finally asked. Matteo and I sat beneath the covered terrace of an old café near the edge of the town hidden enough to avoid parishioners; far enough, though nothing was truly safe anymore. For a while we spoke about ordinary things: the parish fundraiser, my father, a book I'd been reading. The conversation felt normal, comfortable, almost easy. Then silence settled between us, and I decided not to postpone it

(Matteo's POV)Elena was sitting alone in the last pew near the back of the church, long after evening Mass had ended. The church was nearly empty, candles flickering softly near the sanctuary, the cleaning volunteers already gone, and still she sat there, motionless and thinking, which was never a good sign. I approached slowly, not because I was afraid of her, but because lately every difficult conversation seemed to arrive quietly, without warning and without preparation."You've been sitting here for twenty minutes." My voice echoed softly through the empty church. Elena looked up, and a faint smile appeared that didn't reach her eyes."There you are." The words sounded almost absentminded, like she had been expecting me eventually. Something tightened inside my chest. "What happened?" I sat beside her, careful, far enough apart to satisfy appearances, close enough to hear her breathe. She looked toward the altar instead of answering."My mother confronted me today."Immediately

(Matteo's POV)Three days after our conversation about Sister Lucia, Elena called me, not late at night, not in secret, but in broad daylight, which immediately told me something was wrong."We need rules." No greeting, no introduction, straight to the point. I closed my office door, already exhausted, already knowing where this conversation was heading."Rules.""Yes."I rubbed a hand across my face. "Elena—""No." Her voice remained firm. "If we're going to survive this, we need boundaries." Survive!! not stop, not end, not walk away. Survive. The distinction wasn't lost on either of us."What kind of boundaries?" I asked quietly. Silence, and then: "No more meeting alone during the week." Reasonable. "No more sleeping together." Painful. "No texting constantly." Nearly impossible. "And no finding excuses to see each other every day." That one hurt most, because she wasn't wrong. Lately we had become part of each other's routines, morning messages, afternoon conversations, evening