Page 86 of Audacity

All this time, I’ve been harping on aboutaccess. I’ve been serving powerful men as a means to an end, climbing my version of the corporate ladder and working on the assumption that access is something you get by swanning into an established company at C-Suite level.

Now he’s offering me something far more rare and precious and valuable: the chance to start a business up from scratch with all the backing and stability andfuelthat comes from a funding source—and a support network—like the Sullivans. He’ssuggesting I cast aside that transactional ladder altogether and help him build something truly transformational instead.

He’s giving me a seat at the head of the table, offering me the chance to wield real power, and to wield it for good.

It’s what I always knew I wanted, manifesting in a form my mind didn’t know to imagine, and it’s come years early from a man so perfect even I could never have dreamed him up.

It may just be that he’s handing me my life’s purpose in the guise of asking for my help with his.

GABE

This day is somuch.

Athena, blowing the scope of my hopes and dreams for the foundation sky high.

Athena, admitting to me that she, too, carries feelings for me.

Athena, speechless and incredulous and, eventually, lit up at the mere suggestion that this should all be her show to run.

And, finally, Athena, naked and stripped back and in my bed.

Just as it should be.

We lie on our sides, grinning at each other in exhausted, post-orgasmic euphoria. After everything we’ve done, making love to her on the clean, crisp sheets of my own bed feels the boldest. The most intentional. She’s not here because I’m paying for the privilege. This astonishing woman is curled up facing me, a sexed-out comma the depth of whose feelings seem, miraculously, to mirror mine.

This goddess has an arsenal of weapons so deadly that no man stands a chance against her. But when she lays them down, when she lays herself bare, she is the most intoxicating version of herself.

‘Is it weird that I feel shy?’ she asks me, and I laugh.

‘Shy? You? Yep.’

‘Rude.’ She screws her face up in thought. ‘Maybeshyis the wrong word. Maybevulnerableis better.’

I study her. ‘That makes sense, I suppose,’ I admit slowly. After all, in this career she’s carved out for herself the rules of engagement are crystal clear.

This? Us? While the acts we’re performing remain similar, there are no rules, there’s no prescription—only a multitude of feelings.

It must feel for her like diving off a cliff, unsure whether the sparkling blue sea below is harbouring jagged rocks.

‘I don’t normally let men in.’

‘I know.’ I tuck a lock of glossy auburn hair behind her ear and let my hand linger on her jaw. ‘That you’re willing to let me in is the greatest honour you could give me, and I promise I won’t abuse that privilege.’

She echoes my words. ‘I know.’

‘The more you unravel yourself for me, the harder I fall.’ I want her toknowthis, tofeelit somatically in every square inch of her body. I want her to understand that her vulnerability is a gift to me, a gift I cherish.

‘Angel Gabriel.’ Her words are whispers. She scratches her fingertips lightly over my beard. ‘They don’t make many men like you, let me tell you.’

‘That helps my odds with you.’

She grins, and it’s beautiful.

‘You know,’ I continue, ‘if I’d been a Renaissance artist painting the Madonna, I would have asked you to sit for me.’

Her eye roll may be cutting, but her smile turns pleased. ‘Come off it.’

‘I’m serious. It’s very unlikely that Our Lady looked anything like you—she was Israeli, after all—but so many artists painted her with fair skin and Western European features.’

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