Page 90 of Audacity

It’s so beautiful that I want to hang it on my wall and gaze at it for ever more, or eat it like a cake, or wear it every single day. It’sperfect.

‘Try it on,’ she urges. ‘We can adjust it where needed.’

I require no further encouragement. I step into the large changing area, which is softly lit and surrounded by heavy velvet curtains. Once Natalie has drawn them around us, I strip down to my thong and heels. This dress doesn’t require a bra. I slip it on with her help, and she zips up the back.

‘There.’ Her tone is soft and reverent. ‘You look like you’re going to the Oscars. I could cry—it’s as if we made it just for you.’

I gaze at my reflection in the three full-length mirrors. Even in my black heels and workday makeup, she’s not wrong.

This gown isexquisite.

It’s full-length in the palest green, and it shimmers from top to tail whenever I move. While the tiny straps and the bra cups are crafted from satin, the rest consists of tier after tier of silk tassels, impeccably cut to form chevrons. The waist is fitted, the skirt slim with a slit all the way up one side. From the knee to the floor, the chevrons ebb away into hundreds of tiny, ethereal ostrich feathers in the same shade of green that flutter and tremble.

The result, especially with my hair colour, is The Little Mermaid meets old-school, full-wattage glamour. It’s classy and sexy and impossibly expensive looking, which is pretty much my personal brand.

It was made for me.

‘It fits really well on the breasts and hips, but we can take it in a tiny bit around the waist,’ Natalie says, pinching the fabric there slightly. I can see instantly that it improves the silhouette, making it even more streamlined. ‘And if you want to buy some ivory satin heels, we can probably get them dyed to match in time for the gala.’

I nod, assessing. Analysing. She releases me, and I turn this way and that, admiring the delicate sway of the tassels and feathers as I do.

As I study myself in the mirror, I can’t help but imagine Gabe’s reaction when he sees me in this.

I hope he finds it as worthy of its price tag as I’ve been.

CHAPTER 46

Athena

The great and good of British philanthropy have gathered in the ballroom of The Dorchester Hotel on Park Lane. The agenda? Pretending to care about the future of giving while they get stuck into the twin attractions of free-flowing champagne and mutual back-slapping.

While I’m not particularly looking forward to the event, I’m very much looking forward to a night on the arm of Gabriel Sullivan, Esquire. He made his first foray into my flat tonight when he came to pick me up, resplendent in a Tom Ford tuxedo (George finally got his way on that front).

I’m just glad his aspirations don’t run to acting, because the James Bond casting team would kill for this man. This evening, he looks like Sean Connery in his heyday, his dark hair combed back off his face and the snowy white of his dress shirt as good a foil for the olive in his skin tone as it is for the black satin lapels of his dinner jacket.

It seems he was just as blown away by the sight of me as I was by him, because when he saw me in my green mermaid dress, with apricot-coloured lips and the sleekest eyeliner and huge, Hollywood curls, he went quiet, and his face went soft, and hejust stared. He stared like he was a man lost in the desert and I was an electrolyte drink.

And then he said, ‘You’re always beautiful, but this is something else entirely,’ and the reverence in his tone and on his face was almost enough to fell me.

I enter the ballroom on the arm of whom I already know to be the handsomest, most decent man in the room. In what is presumably a nod to the theme of environmental sustainability, the entire space is rich with moss-covered plinths and live trees, the latter nested in huge pots and sitting amongst the big round tables. Ivy hangs from the chandeliers, its tendrils swaying as guests waft by. The organisers have opted for table centrepieces in the form of huge silver bowls filled with living orchids and ferns.

And while the overall feel is one of timeless luxury—Edith Wharton and her contemporaries would have swooned over the plethora of ferns—there are modern touches, too. I spot a living wall behind the raised dais from which the dinner speeches will be made, and we pass a gilt-framed digital screen showing the event’s sustainability metrics in real time.

‘The new head of my foundation is easily the most beautiful woman in the room,’ Gabe murmurs in my direction as we saunter between the tables on our trip to the bar.

‘I’ll bet she’s also the easiest,’ I observe, my gaze fixed straight ahead. In my peripheral vision, I see him crease up.

‘In my book, that’s a truly excellent combination.’

If I’m thrilled to be here in my upcoming capacity as the new CEO of the Rath Mor Foundation, then I’m positively ecstatic to be here as Gabe’s romantic partner. I could burst with happiness and pride at the way that this man sees me. There’s rose-tinted, and then there’s Gabe-tinted: that hue tinged with all the goodness and faith in human nature that he possesses so intrinsically.

I will never, ever let his faith in me be in vain. While there’s no way on earth my grubby little soul is worthy of his shining one, I can only hope that, with time, even a little of his virtue rubs off on me.

Dame Sarah Blackwood, Director of the Centre for Complex Systems and Societal Change at Oxford, is a force to be reckoned with, and I love her. She wears her white hair short and, if the strong red lip she’s sporting is any indication, she’s as much of a pro with a lip pencil as she is with driving change. She’s in a beautifully cut black tuxedo, but on her feet? A to-die-for pair of Manolo Blahnik Hangisi satin pumps in royal blue satin: utterly stunning and easily a grand a pop.

Maybe philanthropists don’t have to be totally boring and worthy.

The five minutes Gabe and I spend chatting with her at the bar is more than enough to give me that intellectual boner I get when I talk to truly dynamic people—especially women. Our conversation is Seraphim-level inspiring, without any of the inappropriate subject matter. And when she lets slip that she consulted on Brooklyn’s Industry City, I positively swoon.

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