Page 30 of Duplicity

Tabby isn’t systemically ill.

Dr Elliott’s words stay with me for a long time after our call. He’s right, of course. It’s just that thecrucial piece of equipmentshe’s missing is so fucking critical to her survival that it’s always been hard to think beyond that.

But now I begin to allow myself to do just that. After our call finishes, I collapse on the sofa, and I dream about a version of my little girl with rosy cheeks and boundless energy.

I see her turn cartwheel after cartwheel across the grassy area in our local park.

I imagine myself picking up a flushed, sweaty, overexcited little thing from ballet or street dance or whatever dance classes she decides she wants to do. She loves to dance so much—I bet she’ll want to do them all.

I shut my eyes and visualise her heart beating and her beautiful new valve pumping all that glorious blood into her lungs for oxygenation.

And I know, somewhere somatic and visceral, deep inside or even beyond my body, that my brave, beautiful daughter will get her life force energy back. That she’ll have everything she needs to live a full and magnificent life.

Putting into place these tentative, terrifying, exhilarating plans for our US trip is one of my top priorities during this week off before I start my unique role at Sullivan Construction next Monday. The twenty-five grand Brendan paid for my audition facilitated this call with Dr Elliott. The operation itself will require a horrifyingly large deposit, but I get a hundred grand sign-on bonus next week, so that will cover it.

I’m still reeling from how easy things become when you have money to throw at them. A consultation with one of the top surgeons in the world when it comes to my daughter’s condition.No problem.Scheduling an operation for the surgery that will change her life with the minimum of invasion.Done.

Is this how it is? Is this how Brendan feels every single day? That doors open and everyone says yes and the road rises up to meet you on every fucking thing? God knows, it’s heady and it’s addictive and it feels so, so wrong.

I have fought for months and months for a grant that would fund this exact trip. I have spent so many evenings after work doing research and writing out applications and lobbying every relevant individual, from MPs to doctors to governors of Great Ormond Street, and peanuts.Peanuts.

But I spread my legs for a filthy-rich guy and immediately it’s open sesame.The money rolls in. The hospitals roll over. And I get what I’ve wanted for Tabby all along.

A few short weeks ago, taking a job with Seraph felt like the hardest thing I could do, the highest hilltop on which to sacrifice myself for my daughter.

Now it feels like the easiest.

It wasn’t even awful! That’s what I can’t get my head around. I’m supposed to be making the ultimate sacrifice for the ultimate cause, and instead the orgasms are flowing as abundantly as the money, and I can’t get my head around it. I’m under no illusion that Brendan will go easy on me, but I had a fantastic nightwith a hot, generous and disgracefully skilled lover, and for some reason, I feel more guilty than relieved.

And don’t get me started on the money.

My very pleasant chat just now concluded with Dr Elliott’s assurance that one of the hospital concierges will be in touch to help me with everything from getting travel clearance from GOSH and liaising with Duke’s international patient services department to organising medical visas and supplemental oxygen on our flight should Tabby need it.

Like I said. Open sesame.

I sold my body and instantly jumped all sorts of queues, and I’d do it a million times over, because it got me exactly what I needed. But I can’t let myself get used to it.

This money—and this job—goes away as soon as I’ve paid for this trip and stashed away some savings so Tabby’s ongoing medical care isn’t purely dependent on the overstretched folks at Great Ormond Street. The empowerment it’s giving me is temporary, as is my ability to book business-class flights, and the decadent workwear shopping trip Brendan has insisted on for my first day, and any orgasms he sees fit to throw my way.

None of it’s real. None of it’s permanent. The life that people like Brendan live is not for me, and it will serve me to keep that in mind as he dazzles me with this tantalising glimpse of a parallel universe.

What’s real is Tabby securing a new “piece of equipment” in the safest possible way so that she can live a normal, active life.

And who knows, the orgasms may not even be a thing. He made it very clear that he was pitching me.

He pitched me.

He closed me.

Just like he said he would.

It’s entirely likely that, from here on in, he’ll just use me and reward me very handsomely for the privilege.

Maybe it’s a good thing. I’ve always thought (or hoped, rather) that I was the kind of person who didn’t believe in the end justifying the means. It turns out I amsothat person it’s not even funny. But at the very least, it seems indecent that I should enjoy the means any more than I have to.

Brendan Sullivan is a means to an end for me, and I am for him the latest in what sounds like a long list of endless acquisitions: the newest and shiniest toy to which he’s treated himself. He told me he has ADHD, just like he told me he’d bought himself a fuckingcatamaran.How long until I lose my lustre?

I’m sure I’ll be a fun novelty for him the first few times, a new gimmick to stave off the boredom of his dreaded Zoom calls. But I know from Athena and from the gossip columns that this guy has a different woman in his bed every night. He probably enjoys the hunt as much as its spoils. I’m not convinced he’s thought through how quickly it’ll get monotonous for him to have the same willing dead cert lined up for him every single day at the office.

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