Page 31 of Audacity

‘Babes, it’s not impossible. Please.’

When she glances up at me, her blue eyes are limpid with tears. ‘It is impossible.’

Itis a glossy brochure for the paediatric cardiology services at Duke Children’s Hospital in North Carolina, one of the best hospitals in the world at treating conditions like Tabby’s and, as it’s becoming alarmingly clear, her greatest hope right now. Far greater than the wonderful but limited capabilities of our National Health Service, anyhow.

‘I can pay,’ I insist. ‘We’ve been over this.’

‘A single operation would costa hundred grand,’ she hisses. ‘It’s not an option! The doctors at Great Ormond Street have told us they’re doing their best to put her forward as a research case. That’s honestly all we can hope for.’

But it’s not enough.

‘It’s not,’ I say evenly, ‘because I can pay. Jesus Christ, babes, what the fuck else is a better use of my money than my goddaughter’s life?’

Tabby, who was born with a congenital heart defect called Tetralogy of Fallot, has already survived two open heart surgeries in her short life: one at birth and one when she was three. Unfortunately, she’s on the brink of outgrowing the valve inserted during her last surgery, and her medical team at Great Ormond Street—London’s preeminent children’s hospital—has recently grown concerned that her heart function is deteriorating more quickly than they would have expected.

Long story short, it’s a fucking nightmare—a ticking time bomb, more like—and one we could get in front of if Marlowe would set aside her fucking pride and let me help.

‘You earn that money with yourbody,’ she says with gritted teeth, tears sparkling on her lashes. ‘You let men do unthinkable things to you, and honestly? I admire the hell out of you for doing it. But you earn every penny of that money, and there’s no way I’m taking any of it.

‘We both know US medical expenses are a black hole, honey, especially for the kind of surgery Tabs needs. It wouldn’t just be one surgery, you know that. It would be a bottomless pit. There’s got to be another way, we just have to find it.’

I shoot her a glare to communicate that this conversation isn’t over, but she looks away to stuff the brochure back into the envelope.

There will be another way.

There always is.

Marlowe might just have to stop thinking like the good, rule-playing girl she is and assume Athena Davenport levels of Machiavellian strategising to pull this particular rabbit out of a hat.

PART TWO

Offertorium (Offering)

CHAPTER 14

Gabe

This time, I’m waiting for her at reception when she steps out of the lift on the third floor. I greet her with what I hope is a warm smile and a firm handshake, and I send up a fleeting prayer, the tiniest plume of celestial smoke, that my delight that the moment has finally arrived isn’t written too clearly on my face.

When we walk through to my office, Gladys’ former desk in the antechamber is clear except for a monitor and keyboard and an oversized vase bearing the most decadent array of flowers, their greenery tumbling wantonly down the sides and their heady, musky scent filling the air. My personal assistant, the achingly competent George, has aced his mandate to ensure Athena’s floral arrangement packs a punch.

‘Welcome to Rath Mor,’ I say with a feeble gesture at the flowers.

‘Thank you. They’re beautiful.’

‘Come on through, why don’t you, and have a seat while you tell me how your Christmas has been.’

She perches on the cream sofa, knees and ankles pressed daintily together, and I take the compact armchair opposite her, allowing me a good look at my new prize. Because if someonewho looks likethat, who is as intelligent as that, and whose job description now includes letting me use her whenever I want isn’t the most dazzling prize, I don’t know who or what is.

Her dress is a silk shirt-waister, ivory coloured with a delicate print of semi-furled ferns. Despite the fabric-covered buttons that run the gamut from her breastbone to a few inches above her hem, it’s beyond reproach. The fabric, which moved like water as I led her through to my office, now falls modestly from her knees almost to her ankles. There are pearls at her throat and in her ears, and her auburn hair is glossily, perfectly coiffed. The overall look is perfectly demure—at least it would be on anyone who didn’t look like Athena, because this woman could be dressed for Antartica and she’d still scream sex to anyone who looked at her.

Rather, she’d screamyou want me but you can’t have me, because I am legions and galaxies out of your league.

Unless your pockets are deep enough.

I love it, though. I love that everything about her is exclusive and elevated and extortionate. I rejoice in the certain knowledge that the Athena who sits before me, poised and intoxicating, is a different creature from the one I’ve had the good fortune to unravel, twice now. That when you stroke her and lick her and fuck her and whisper filthy words to her, she’s every bit as wanton in that moment as she is buttoned up in this.

A man would do terrible things for a glimpse of that woman beneath the ice queen facade. Those glimpses are the most delicious forms of foreshadowing. Of foreplay, even. So when she leans forward after a few minutes of small talk, my entire adrenal system marshals itself.

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