Chapter 7 The Liturgy of Desire

CLAUDIA

The reception hall of the historic college seems suspended in another era.

Beneath dark, coffered ceilings, dozens of San Griselmo academics and conference speakers talk in hushed tones, reception wine in hand.

Hypocrisy hangs thick in the room, as cloying as the stale perfume of the high-society wives accompanying them.

I should be proud to be here. A few professors have already come up to congratulate me on the mention Dr. Almeda made during her keynote. But I feel like an imposter. The black knit dress that felt so elegant earlier now feels like a second skin that is suffocating me.

I scan the crowd for Mercedes.

She is at the center of a small circle, flanked by Dean Valenzuela and two men in tuxedos.

She is wearing a tailored midnight-blue velvet suit that elongates her silhouette, a discreet silver brooch pinned to her lapel.

Her pinned-up hair exposes the flawless line of her neck, where the gold cross rests against her skin once more.

She laughs politely at something the dean says, but it is a hollow, practiced sound.

Then, she turns her head. Her gray eyes—two storms held at bay—lock directly onto mine across the room.

The air leaves my lungs. A violent tug hits my stomach, a physical magnetism so real it makes my head spin.

I can't keep lying to myself, calling this "student admiration.

" It isn't her brilliant mind I am searching for with the desperate eyes of a drowning person.

I want her mouth. I want the memory of her leg pressing against mine under the table.

I need her to look at me as if I am the only person who exists in this room full of strangers.

I can feel the flush on my cheeks betraying me. Terrified by how clear the truth suddenly is, I set my untouched glass down on a tray and button up my gray wool coat. I need to get out. I need the freezing Salamanca air to clear my head before I do something reckless.

I slip out into the sandstone courtyard, and from there, fade into the shadows of the cobblestone streets surrounding the New Cathedral.

MERCEDES

"...therefore, Dr. Almeda, we trust your upcoming publication with the diocesan press will be the crowning achievement of the academic year," the dean says, taking a slow sip of his wine.

"Of course, Dean. The draft is nearly complete," I reply, though my own words sound hollow and mechanical to my ears.

I watch her navigate her way toward the exit. I saw her pulse quicken the moment our eyes met; I saw the sudden tension in her throat just before she buttoned her coat. She is fleeing. And I, who have spent my entire life running from myself, recognize that desperation instantly.

Don't go, Mercedes. Stay here. You have obligations, a reputation, a life.

But my body no longer obeys the rules of San Griselmo decorum. I excuse myself from the dean with a practiced, icy smile and set my glass on the table. My strides are firm, but my heart hammers against my ribs with a deafening violence.

I step out into the freezing night air. The Salamanca fog is rolling in, blurring the streetlamps and wrapping the golden sandstone facades in a spectral haze.

I spot her in the distance—a slender silhouette walking briskly, shoulders hunched, her dark hair tossed by the wind coming off the mountains.

I follow her. The area around the Cathedral cloister is completely deserted. The only sound is the sharp, metallic echo of my heels against the damp flagstones.

"Claudia!" I call out. My voice is raspy, cutting through the sacred silence of the night.

CLAUDIA

I stop dead. The echo of her voice sends a jolt of pure electricity down my spine. Slowly, I turn around.

Mercedes stands beneath one of the Gothic arches leading to the cathedral courtyard.

The fog swirls around her, making her look almost hallucinatory.

Her black coat is unbuttoned, revealing the deep blue of her tailored suit, and her breath blooms into small white clouds in the air.

The professor’s severe mask is gone. She is pale, her lips slightly parted, a raw vulnerability in her eyes that I have never seen before.

"Dr. Almeda..." I whisper, taking a hesitant step toward her. "I thought you were staying at the reception with the dean."

"I don't care about the reception, Claudia," she says. Her voice carries a low, heavy weight, entirely stripped of its academic armor. "Why did you run off like that? Did something in my lecture... upset you?"

I take another step. The distance between us shrinks to less than three feet in the dark corner, shielded from the world by the shadows of the ornate stonework. I can smell her perfume again—that cool orange blossom, now mingling with the scent of damp earth and night air.

"Your lecture was... incredible," I confess, my heart pounding in my throat. "But I couldn't stay in there. Not with you across the room. Not after what happened on the train, or last night..."

Mercedes swallows. Her gaze flicks to my lips for a split second before snapping back to my eyes.

"Claudia, we... I am your mentor. This is madness. A transgression."

"I don't care," I hit back, finding a streak of defiance I didn't know I possessed.

I pull off my gloves and take the final step, obliterating the space between us.

Javi is gone from my head. The thesis is gone.

The rules are gone. There is only the heat radiating from her in the dead of winter.

"You said it yourself today under the vaulted ceilings: why do we insist on calling it an error when the flesh experiences it as absolute truth? Is that just theory to you, Mercedes?"

MERCEDES

Lord, have mercy.

Claudia's proximity is a vacuum, pulling me in.

She is so close her warm breath brushes my chin.

Her gaze is so completely honest, so entirely free of the stale guilt that suffocates me, that it disarms me completely.

Her youth, her fearless ignorance of damnation, seems like the most beautiful and terrifying miracle on earth.

"I shouldn't have said that," I whisper, but my hands refuse to listen.

Involuntarily, my gloved fingers rise, trembling as they brush the edge of her wool scarf.

Claudia catches her breath, her dark eyes dilating as they lock onto mine.

I trace the pad of my finger along the curve of her jaw.

It is barely a touch, but the softness of her cool skin burns right through the leather of my glove.

"Mercedes..." she breathes, tilting her head into my palm, leaning into the contact.

Hearing her say my name like a prayer in the dead of night shatters the final defenses of my reason.

My willpower dissolves like the stone dust around us.

I yank off my right glove, using my bare fingers to cup her cheek.

The contrast between her icy skin and my burning hand draws a sharp, ragged gasp from my throat.

I lean in. The space between our lips shrinks to millimeters.

I can feel the heat of her breath, see the slight quiver of her dark red lips.

Claudia’s eyes flutter shut, surrendering entirely to the inevitability of a kiss that will alter the course of our lives forever.

Her right hand rises, brushing my chest for balance, inadvertently pressing against the rigid contour of the gold cross beneath my blouse.

The shock of the cold metal against her hand hits my brain like a whip crack.

Sin. Scandal. Ruin.

The cathedral bells begin to toll midnight—a heavy, violent chime that jolts me out of the delirium. I tear myself away as if her skin were molten fire. My breathing is erratic, my pulse hammering in my temples with a terrifying fury.

"No... this is a mistake, Claudia," I manage, my voice unrecognizable, choked with panic. "A terrible mistake. Go back to the hotel. Now."

"Mercedes, please..." She steps toward me, her eyes clouded with confusion and the sting of sudden rejection, reaching a wounded hand out into the freezing air.

"Go back to the hotel!" I command, forcing the professor’s mask back into place even as I bleed to pieces inside. "We will never speak of this again. Ever."

I turn on my heel without waiting for her reply, ignoring the silent plea left floating between the ornate columns.

I run almost blindly down the cobblestones, tears of guilt and helplessness blurring my vision.

I press my bare hand hard against my chest, feeling nothing but the freezing void of the Salamanca air and the hollow echo of my own damnation.