Page 88 of Vivacity
‘Brendan Sullivan, family man. I never thought I’d see the day. No wonder you’re so pleased with yourself.’
He crosses one ankle over the other knee and picks up the scotch I have waiting for him, saluting me with it. ‘She has to say yes first. But that’s not why I’m pleased as fuck. I had a very interesting day in Nottingham today.’
I frown. ‘What were you doing in Nottingham?’ As far as I know, Sullivan Construction’s business interests are solely focused on London.
‘You may well ask.’ He leans forward conspiratorially. ‘Marlowe has no clue about this, by the way. I’m not sure how she’d react. But get this. Tabby’s biological father was Marlowe’s music professor when she was at uni. The pathetic fuck seduced her and then showed her the door when she told him she was pregnant. Tried to strong-arm her into getting an abortion.’
I grimace. ‘Jesus. What a prick.’ Brendan has filled me in on his girlfriend’s daughter’s health issues, and the fact that he dropped everything to go to the US and be with them when the little girl had a heart valve replacement. Sounds like Marlowe, who seems to be a lovely woman, has had a shitty run of things.
‘Yeah. He was married at the time. Fed Marls a load of bullshit about how he was unhappy in his marriage, but when push came to shove, he was just a fucking predator. Clearly he was scared shitless that he’d get busted, because Marls told me he moved to a different uni that summer. But she wouldn’t tell me which one.’
A slow smile spreads over my face. ‘Let me guess. Nottingham?’
‘Got it.’
‘How did you find out?’
He snorts. ‘Hired a private investigator. It wasn’t exactly difficult for him to find this twat, but I wanted some extra leverage from him too, shall we say.’
‘So you’ve gone full vigilante, basically?’
‘Yep. Paid him a little visit today in his faculty.’ He screws up his face. ‘God, what a worthless piece of shit he is. How the fuck you walk away from a woman like Marls, I don’t know. But his intense stupidity is my gain.’
‘What did you say to him?’ I’m enjoying this yarn immensely. It’s such a Brendan thing to do: the stubborn side of his default golden retriever mode. His lack of impulse control has caused him problems in the past—there’s no doubt about that—but I find his cavalier,fuck itattitude far more refreshing than I would if I’d spent more of the past decade cultivating realness in my relationships.
‘We had a little chat.’ He grins at the memory. ‘Reminded him of his spectacularly poor life choices. Told him that he’d donated sperm to the most amazing, resilient little girl to everwalk this earth. Told him he wasn’t worthy of scraping the shit off her shoes, or her mother’s. He seemed pretty affronted until I pulled out my trump cards.’
He pauses, smiling broadly as he nurses his scotch. His Irish genes have made him a highly entertaining storyteller, so I’ll allow him this pause for effect as he spins his yarn.
‘First, I put down a photo of the PhD student he’s currently fucking.’ He shakes his head. ‘Randy old fucker. He must be pushing fifty. But thepièce de résistancewas when I showed him a piece of paper with his wife’s name, mobile number and email address on it.’
I bark out a shocked laugh that has the people at the next table looking over in alarm. ‘Holyfuck. Remind me never to cross you.’
He starts to laugh, his shoulders shaking. ‘Genuinely one of the most satisfying moments of my life. I let him know that Marlowe was now in my care, and that I was one of the wealthiest and most influential people in the British Isles. I told him I wasthisclose to making a donation to the University of Nottingham’s Music Department, the only condition of which would be the immediate termination of his contract and an investigation into his abuses of power so thorough that he’d never work again.’
‘Jesus Christ. Weren’t you tempted to just crack on and do it?’
He shrugs. ‘Nah. He has a wife and two kids. The poor fuckers have enough on their plates dealing with that gobshite without being on the breadline, too. But I told him if he doesn’t cease all romantic relationships with his studentsfor good, then I’ll know about it, and the axe will fall swiftly.’
With that ominous pronunciation, he sits back and takes a swig of his scotch. Here’s the thing about Bren: he’s larger than life and so full of bluster. He definitely isn’t known for thinkingthrough consequences before acting on his impulses. But he also has a heart of gold. Sparing that jackass for the sake of his family is classic Brendan. I give him an approving nod.
‘Classy. That was the right way to go, I suppose.’
‘Yeah.’ He stretches and yawns. ‘Shame. Would have been fun to destroy the useless cunt. I did get Marlowe’s old boss from the Royal Academy fired last week, though. He fired her when she left early too often to take Tabs to A&E. Pathetic tosser. So I pulled some strings and had him axed. Probably the second and last time our family’s patronage of the RA has actually served any useful purpose—my first meeting with Marls there aside.’
I chuckle. Despite an elite education, Bren hasn’t a cultured bone in his body, and he’s not afraid to admit it.
‘But enough about me.’ He pours us each a generous slosh from the bottle of Macallan I had the server leave on our table. ‘I’m dying to know how it’s going with the lovely Sophia.’
The discomfort is instant. Obviously, things between me and the lovely Sophia are going very fucking well. Mustique was, undeniably, a kind of turning point, even if I’m unsure yetwhatkind. All I know is that there is, for want of a better word, an intimacy between us now that goes beyond mere chemistry.
And if I’m not ready to analyse any of it too closely, except to say that I feel lighter, more contented, than I’d expect given the immense work headaches I’ve got going on, then I’mcertainlynot ready to analyse any of it with Brendan.
Deflection it is.
‘Have you met her?’
‘Once. Briefly, last month. Marls had her and Athena over for a girls’ night when I was out at a dinner, but I caught them before they left. They were pretty hammered.’ He grins knowingly. ‘She’s very entertaining andveryhot.’
