Page 28 of Audacity

I say that with love, but it’s true.

Case in point: the wink he gives the young woman who’s handing around the canapés. She can’t be more than nineteen or twenty, and my brother’s winks are lascivious enough to knock a girl up. I shake my head at him. It’s a good-natured shake, but still. I’m sure it delivers a message.

‘Loosen the fuck up, Angel Gabriel,’ he says, slamming the Bollinger down on a side table. ‘It’s Christmas Day, for fuck’s sake. Jesus Christ.’

‘Language, Bren,’ Mum says, tutting.

‘Our Brendan has women coming out of his ears,’ Dad tells his cronies proudly. ‘What happened with that blonde you met at the two-thirty last Saturday? She was pure class.’

‘A gentleman never tells,’ my brother says with a grin that suggests neither he nor the blonde he picked up at the races behaved in a remotely classy way. ‘But what about Gabe? I hear you’ve got a smoking hot new assistant, mate.’ He accompanies this tidbit by shaking his fingers out and pretending to blow on them.

Bloody Gladys. She met Athena briefly last week when the latter came in to pick up some paperwork. Apparently, readingannual reports over Christmas is my new EA’s idea of a good time. Anyway, I assume Gladys blabbed.

‘She’s extremely highly qualified and I think she’ll be a great fit,’ I say with all the moral outrage of a man who absolutely doesnotknow just how lovely a “fit” his employee’s pretty pink cunt is for him.

‘And she’s hot,’my dickhead brother pushes.

I frown at him. I’m a former priest, for heaven’s sake. I can keep up the self-righteousness all day long. ‘She’s attractive, yes. But that’s not why I hired her.’

‘Nobody’d blame you, son,’ Dad says. ‘God knows, no one would begrudge you a pretty face to look at after all those years of keeping your dick dry.’

Mum, whose face is turning gradually redder with every champagne top up my brother provides, looks like she might actually fall down dead from the shame of it. It’s bad enough, in her eyes, having a former priest in the family, without one’s spouse bringing it up in front of all the neighbours. ‘Ronan Sullivan, that’s a shocking, sinful thing to say. You know Gabriel only left to take over the reins so you could sit on your arse all day and gamble.’

‘Ay, thanks, son,’ Dad says, not remotely bothered. ‘You’re doing a grand job. I’m very proud of both my boys. But your Mammy and I wouldn’t mind some more grandchildren before we die of old age. Unless you want us to leave everything to Elsie.’

Elsie, my sister Mairead’s eldest, is a holy terror.

‘Better get Bren on the case. I’m still getting used to being allowed to date,’ I say weakly, earning a dirty cackle from my brother, who knows all about my little Alchemy habit. He’s asked me to put him forward for membership, and I’ve refused point blank. The last thing I want is to bump into my degeneratebrother stark naked and slap bang in the middle of an orgy on a random Thursday night.

Although, if things work out well with Athena, I won’t need my membership much… unless I want to take her there and have some playtime with her. Her CV did say she was into group fun, after all.

Now there’s a thought.

One thing’s for sure, though. I have no intention of letting my brother anywhere near Athena or the little secret she and I are hiding.

Mum’s saying something.

‘Hmm?’

‘Try and stay sober till we sit down for lunch, will you?’ she mutters in my ear. ‘I’d like you to say Grace.’

This time last year, I was saying Mass.

Now, I’m demoted to saying Grace for a bunch of rich pissheads, and I have no one to blame but myself.

I pat the sparkly lavender tweed covering her arm. ‘Of course,’ I say absently.

It might be the only thirty seconds of contemplation I get today.

CHAPTER 13

Athena

Tonight is New Year’s Eve. We’re planning on ringing in the new year by eating nachos and listening to Madison Beer and Olivia Rodrigo and Gracie Abrams, because when one of you is eight years old, you’re not letting anyone else dictate the playlist.

I was supposed to be hosting, but instead we’re hanging at my best friend Marlowe’s tiny flat. Her daughter Tabby is usually the first to accept an invitation for a sleepover at mine, but not this Christmas.

The reason: last week, Father Christmas delivered the most spectacularly girly tent mankind has ever seen to Marlowe’s living room, and there’s no way Tabby is leaving it, even for one night.

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