The Paradise Prophecy Read Online Free

privacy. Especially after a performance. And Alejandro knew that the hordes of ravenous fans, the paparazzi, and all the trappings of superstardom sometimes got to be too much for her. So he had assumed, along with everyone else in Gabriela’s entourage, that this was why she had quietly disappeared.
    He had only turned away for a moment, to make another phone call. One minute she was walking alongside him, the next she was gone. A trick she had perfected after several months of practice.
    Alejandro couldn’t count the number of times he had patiently explained to her that she was not only a public figure, but a controversial one as well, and that she must stay with her bodyguards at all times.
    But Gabriela rarely listened. She may not have been a prima donna, but she definitely had a mind of her own.
    This was the last night of her Glory Revealed World Tour, and Gabriela had always liked to end with a show here in São Paulo. Had once said to Alejandro, back in the days when she had shared his bed, that home was the only place she truly felt safe.
    “This is where God chose to put me on this earth,” she’d said as she snuggled up close, pressing a warm breast against his arm. “Where his angel watches over me.”
    Alejandro had loved the feel of her skin against his. The rise and fall of her chest as she breathed into his ear. Missed it even now, all these months later.
    They had both known that their affair was a sin, but had succumbed to temptation more than once—seventeen glorious times, to be precise—until the guilt had finally driven Gabriela to break it off.
    “How can I preach chastity to young girls when I’m not chaste myself?”
    It was a fair question. One that Alejandro couldn’t argue with.
    But when he had broached the subject of marriage, Gabriela had scoffed. She had no time for such things. Not with the ministry finally taking off, not with all the work that had to be done.
    She would only allow herself to be committed to the Lord and no one else. And she must serve as an example of purity in a world polluted by mankind’s weaknesses—especially now, when that world was quickly headed toward the oblivion of hell, when economies were failing and the streets were filled with so much anger and hate.
    She had never seen such unrest, she’d told Alejandro. Several months ago, at a concert in Greece, a near riot had broken out for no other reason than someone mistakenly sat in the wrong seat. It had taken a plea from Gabriela herself to calm the crowd.
    Shortly after that night, she had broken it off with Alejandro. She had somehow gotten it into her head that her growing lack of attention to her own faith had rubbed off on others, and the only way she could fight against the chaos was to renew her vow to the Father.
    It was bad enough, she said, that she was forced to get up on that stage and shake her hips. Some in the church were appalled by her overtly sexual performances, but they couldn’t complain about the results. Gabriela had brought young people from all over the globe into the fold, and she considered a few pelvic thrusts a small compromise, as long as they never overshadowed the larger message in her music:
    God is good.
    God is great.
    God is the light in a world of darkness.
    Besides, who ever said children of the Lord couldn’t be sexual? Hadn’t He given them these urges for a reason? And maybe, just maybe, He approved.
    But Gabriela had eventually drawn the line at continuing to sleep with Alejandro. As much as she’d loved their nights together—or so she had claimed—she could no longer allow herself to sin.
    “So this is it,” she had said as she climbed atop him and guided him inside her for the very last time. “Tomorrow is a new beginning. Tomorrow I give myself to God and no one else.”
    God is a lucky man, Alejandro had thought.
    Then he’d closed his eyes and reveled in the feel of that thrusting pelvis against his, in the knowledge that he had tasted the