Temptation

By Connie Furnari

Bellshill, Scotland 1974. Eve is just eighteen, the face of a child and a marked tendency to rebellion, since her father left the family, living her alone with an alcoholic mother and a meager scholarship to support her until graduation.

She attends St. John Academy, a religious institution in which corporal punishment is still in force, and because of her impulsive nature, she very often wears the marks of lashes on her back.

On a rainy morning, while going to her classes, Eve meets Adam. They get instantly attracted to one another until, at school, she discovers that this so fascinating young man is a priest, Father Mac Gregor, her new teacher.

Just like a real temptress Eve, she tries more than once to seduce him, using more and more careless techniques, being rejected every time, although he lets himself go to instinctive moments of passion and tenderness.

Adam becomes an obsession for Eve.

This forbidden relationship, nourished by the fire of temptation, will awake several demons from the past of both of them, forcing them to drastic choices.

An intense and dramatic love story, between the sound of bagpipes and the emerald green of the vast highlands of Scotland. “Temptation” is a seductive story that drags in a whirlwind of conflicting emotions, narrated in first person by the passionate voice of the main character.

After tasting so forbidden a fruit, is it really possible to know the difference between right and wrong?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Connie Furnari
• Release date: Nov 2, 2016
• ISBN: 9781507126219

Book preview

Connie Furnari

TEMPTATION

Original Title: Temptation

Copyright © 2014 Connie Furnari

All Rights Reserved

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and events come from the immagination of the writer. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, places or events existing is to be considered purely coincidental.

This book contains copyrighted material and can not be copied, reproduced, transferred, distributed, hired, licensed or broadcasted in public, or used in any other way except what specifically authorized by the author, by the terms and conditions under which is purchased or as expressly required by applicable law (Italian Law 633/1941).

1st Edition November 2014

http://www.conniefurnari.blogspot.it/

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Bellshill, Scotland 1974. Eve is just eighteen, the face of a child and a marked tendency to rebellion, since her father left the family, living her alone with an alcoholic mother and a meagre scholarship to support her until graduation.

She attends St. John Academy, a religious institution in which corporal punishment is still in force, and because of her impulsive nature, she very often wears the marks of lashes on her back.

On a rainy morning, while going to her classes, Eve meets Adam. They get instantly attracted to one another until, at school, she discovers that this so fascinating young man is a priest, Father Mac Gregor, her new teacher.

Just like a real temptress Eve, she tries more than once to seduce him, using more and more careless techniques, being rejected every time, although he lets himself go to instinctive moments of passion and tenderness.

Adam becomes an obsession for Eve.

This forbidden relationship, nourished by the fire of temptation, will awake several demons from the past of both of them, forcing them to drastic choices.

An intense and dramatic love story, between the sound of bagpipes and the emerald green of the vast highlands of Scotland. Temptation is a seductive story that drags in a whirlwind of conflicting emotions, narrated in first person by the passionate voice of the main character.

After tasting so forbidden a fruit, is it really possible to know the difference between right and wrong?

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The Author

Connie Furnari was born in Catania in 1976. She has a degree in literature, a passion for cinema, painting and cartoons. She has published in numerous anthologies and won several literary awards.

She prefers writing fantasy and paranormal stories, but she’s also addressed to romance novels and fairy tales.

All author's works are easily available on Amazon.

She collaborates with many literary web magazines, lives among hundreds of books and dvds; she loves reading, drawing mangas and painting oil paintings while listening to classical music.

Her blog www.conniefurnari.blogspot.it offers excerpts of her works and free eBooks, literary contests, affiliations and promotions of new works and editors, a section dedicated to new writers and to publishing houses, editing services and much more.

Her official email address is [e-mail]

TEMPTATION

Consequently, the woman saw that the tree was good for food and that it was something desirable to the eyes, yes, the tree was pleasing to look at. So she began taking of its fruit and eating it. Afterward, she also gave some to her husband when he was with her, and he began eating it. Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they realized that they were naked. So they sewed fig leaves together and made loin coverings for themselves.

Genesis 3, 6-7

Chapter 1

The Angel Tempter

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I stretched in my bed, drowsily. I looked at the messy bedroom and yawned: the sheet were tangled on the floor, my bare feet icy cold.

Raindrops were streaming down the windowpanes. I couldn’t see the road. November was a damp and gloomy month.

Scotland’s plateau were glistening emerald green, the sky glowed silver: oak trees rustled due to strong winds, the fields were overgrown with ferns.

Even that night, my sleep had been haunted by nightmares: I was running in the darkness, in a swamp, struggling, the muddy water almost at my knees.

As usual, in my dream, I could see the silhouette of a man that, from afar, looked without helping me until he turned his back vanishing in the fog. I don’t know if that shadowy figure was my father: he went away when I was just five years old and I never understood why.

I reached for the nightstand. Took a cigarette from the packet of Pall Mall and lighted one up, smoking nervously.

I dragged myself out of bed and, with the cigarette between my lips, took the school uniform out of the closet: the pleated skirt and vest showed the tartan colours of my school, green and blue, the emerald dark jacket showed the emblem pinned on the front pocket.

Bellshill was a quiet town, everyone knew each other: the men in pubs, the women at the supermarket. To tell the truth, it was all quite monotonous.

That year, 1974, I would have finished high school. After graduation, I had the intention of going to Glasgow to look for a job because the money of my scholarship, that would have allowed me to continue paying school fees wouldn’t have lasted long enough.

Attending college was out of the question. My father had left just the house: an old double-decker country cottage. The walls were made of rough bricks and the roof tiles were the colour of terracotta. The second floor had been obtained from the attic: the master bedroom, my bedroom and the bathroom.

The first floor consisted of a single dining room, with a stove under the windows, a table with four chairs and a sofa in front of the television.

After wearing the uniform I tied my hair, caramel brown like my mother, in a ponytail and went down the stairs.

Just entered into the kitchen, I stopped nauseated.

Karl was having breakfast wearing only a t-shirt and boxers. The fact that he felt entitled to walk around the house half naked, only because he had been living here for six months, and only because he was my mother’s new boyfriend got on my nerves. He was a pig. I never liked the way he looked at me, thinking I didn’t notice.

«Mum, I’m going.» I took the longest way to go, not wanting to touch Karl, and he did not move, watching me with a suggestive smile while drinking coffee.

From the sofa, I felt a moan in response.

I hurried to my mother: she was lying under a blanket, holding her head. «Mum, are you ok?» On the floor there was a bottle of whiskey. Empty.

«Damn, mum! Did you drink last night?»

«Hey, leave her alone. We celebrated my new job at the steel mill» intervened Karl, bored.

I glare at him. «I asked you not to let her drink. You know how she feels after that...» That man really was a brainless beast: I had asked him many times to help my mother stay away from alcohol. Whiskey got her really depressed.

Instead he seemed to be doing it on purpose, to put her down on that damn couch and have the house all for himself, just to wander around in his underwear scratching his ass. I didn’t think he would have kept his job at the steel mill: Karl usually got fired after two weeks because he was always fighting with colleagues.

«Chloe, get your ass up!» he told her. «Show her that everything’s okay.»

«I’m fine Eve, go to school» she mumbled, looking a bit better.

After my father had left she had been in a constant state of total apathy. There were days in which she never left the couch and remained sunk beneath the blanket, staring blankly at the TV.

I jumped up and reached for the door, slamming it behind me. I hated that house and I hated my life.

***

The rain kept on beating, insistent. I opened my umbrella. The garden surrounding the cottage was neglected and overgrown with weed, the enclosing wall declined. I opened the wrought iron gate and let it squeak loudly.

There were black clouds in the sky: it would have probably kept raining for the whole day. Some days, like this, the sky looked vast and oppressive.

Like every time I had to see my mother like that: she had chosen to live with a stranger an occasional love affair, instead of taking her life in her own hands. Karl brought home a few pounds and she could continue laying in a coma on the couch, stuffed with tranquilizers, avoiding to think. 

I felt the urge to cry, without succeeding. Pain had left place only for rage since I was five years old.

I cried for days when my father went away, then I understood things wouldn’t have changed: he never would have come back.

Since then I avoided letting me go, in times of distress. I took the packet of cigarettes and a lighter from my backpack’s pocket. I inhaled the first puff of smoke, pressing my lips nervously as I walked.

Bellshill looked like a fairytale place, perpetually sleepy, clouded by a soft and pure fog. All houses were alike, apart from the façades painted with different colors: tiled roofs, flower pots on every windowsill, smoking chimneys.

Streets were very clean, narrow, crossed like spider webs.

There were just a few people at the bus stop. Two old women conversing quietly, three students, a middle aged man. People I knew, living in my neighbourhood.

Glancing around, I saw something different than usual: a young man I had never seen. He was trying to hide from the rain under a small tree near the sidewalk, one of those fenced to prevent dogs from doing their businesses.

Clumsily, he held his briefcase behind his legs, to keep it from dirt.

When we crossed our gazes, he smiled.

«Is everything ok?» he asked me warmly.

Obviously my angry face left little room for doubt.

«Yes.» I dropped the ash from my cigarette. «Why are you asking me?» My pride prevailed: I hated more than anything else people feeling sorry for me.

He shrugged regretfully and hugged himself in his gray coat that reached to his knees, revealing black pants. «I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to intrude. I just had the impression you were crying.»

I shook my head, offended. «You’re wrong. I never cry.»

«It must hurt a lot ... to never cry» he commented unexpectedly.

Pissed, but also intrigued, I stepped close to him. It was the first time I heard a man saying something like that.

Watching more closely, I noticed he was much younger than he looked. He didn’t look older than twenty-five, so surely he must have been a college student. He had black, curly hair, just a bit long, that hung on his forehead and from his neck, wet from the rain. His eyes were clear, green moss.

He kept on seeking shelter under the tree.

«Do you