Audacity (Seraph)

‘But I’m twenty-six,’ I bluster.

‘Oh, no. Nope. Don’t pull that crap with me.’ He pulls my stool, and me, even closer to him until we’re practically kneeing each other in the crotch. ‘The Athena Davenport I know would never, ever let anyone play the age card with her. You’re the smartest person I’ve ever met. How do you like that?’

My mind is racing. The kind of financial divestment I’m proposing the Sullivan family commits to making would make the foundation a business with a funding of billions of pounds worth of capital, plural.

That’s bigger than the enterprise value of some of the companies I’ve worked for and analysed.

I change tactics. ‘But this is your baby.’

‘I have every intention of being all over this project—it’s my passion. But I’m not the right person to run it, sweetheart. I just don’t have the right skillset. I can’t look at a blank piece of paper and see an opportunity the way you can. I can’t spot efficiencies and strategies, and I definitely can’t hustle the way you can.’

I think of the effortless charm he shows every time we go out on the road. ‘I disagree. You can be very persuasive.’

‘I’m best when I don’t have an agenda. You, in the nicest possible way, are ruthless.’

He’s not wrong. He presses on.

‘And that’s what this thing needs. It needs to be run intelligently and aggressively and hungrily, and you have all those attributes in spades. You may look at yourself and see a twenty-six-year-old, but I see a ferocious business brain and a go-getter.’ He peers at me with concern, brushing some stray hairs off my face. ‘I’ve never seen your self-confidence shaken before. I thought you’d jump at the chance to get your teeth into something this juicy—unless this is about the money?’

That makes me start. ‘No. God, no. I’m just trying to process it all.’

I’m telling the truth. It’s not about the money, not in the slightest. I realise he couldn’t possibly justify paying someone seven figures to run a non-profit. It would be the height of corruption. And he’s right, of course. What he’s dangling over this little pit bull’s head is less a carrot and more a big, juicy steak.

A multi-billion-pound juicy steak.

What I’m really attempting to process is this new understanding that Gabe is offering me the most extreme form of validation. He doesn’t just look at me and see my body; he sees my MBA brain, and he deems it worthy of this.

All this time, I’ve been harping on about access. 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 and fuel that comes from a funding source—and a support network—like the Sullivans. He’s suggesting 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 so much.

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. ‘Maybe shy is the wrong word. Maybe vulnerable is 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 to know this, to feel it 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.’

‘That was deliberate, you know,’ my little art scholar says, suddenly serious. ‘Making religious figures look easily relatable was common practice.’

‘Is that a fact? Well, they would have killed to paint you.’

‘What is it about Catholics and Our Lady, anyway? Why the obsession?’

Asking a Catholic priest to wax lyrical about the virtues of Our Lady is like holding up a steak to a grizzly bear. ‘How long have you got?’

She giggles. ‘Minutes, not hours. I have better things to do with my evening.’ She trails her fingertips down my neck and between my pecs. ‘But I’m genuinely interested.’

I adjust my head on my pillow and blow out a breath. ‘Well, she was an eternal virgin, so, you know, she’s a symbol of perfect purity. That’s always very appealing.’

‘Ha ha. You’re hilarious.’

‘I am, aren’t I? But seriously, let me see. First of all, she’s the personification of faith. Not everyone would have accepted God’s will to impregnate them immaculately. And she was a mother. I think a lot of the devotional focus on Our Lady stems from that. People find that comforting—she’s a maternal figure. She’s incredibly compassionate—her statues have been documented by the Church as having shed tears on numerous occasions. She understands the burden of human suffering and she’s seen as willing to advocate for her spiritual children.’

‘Advocate to God?’ she asks.

‘Yes. Well, Jesus. A lot of people feel safer going to Our Lady with their problems, believing that she has Our Lord’s ear and she’ll intercede with Him.’

‘Do you pray to Our Lady?’

‘I do. Every day.’

She frowns. ‘I think I’m jealous.’

‘I pray to you, too, every day. Don’t I? Every time I touch you, I’m praying to you.’

Her eyelids flutter gently closed, as if my confession brings her great contentment. ‘Show me how you pray to her. What are the prayers?’

I roll her gently onto her back and brace myself on my elbow so I can stare down at her. ‘Well, Ave Maria is the most famous prayer—the Hail Mary. That forms the basis of the rosary. But my favourite is Salve Regina.’

‘Hail, queen.’ She gazes up at me.

‘The English version is Hail, holy queen. Mater misericordiæ—Mother of mercy.’

I stroke back her hair. ‘Hail our life, our sweetness, and our hope. To thee do we cry,’—I bend to kiss her temple—‘poor banished children of Eve. To thee do we send up our sorrows, mourning and weeping in this valley of tears.’

I climb fully on top of her, bracing on both elbows now. ‘Turn then, most gracious advocate, thine eyes of mercy toward us, and after this our exile, show unto us the blessed fruit of thy womb, Jesus.’ Dipping my head, I whisper against her jaw. ‘O clement, O loving, O sweet Virgin Mary.’

‘It’s beautiful.’ She stretches below me, cat-like. ‘So melodic, even in English. I can see how it would bring people comfort—it’s like they have someone in their corner.’

I appreciate her saying that, given her views on organised religion. ‘It is beautiful. And that’s exactly right. There’s more, but now I have some more pressing business to attend to.’

With that, I turn my head and find her mouth.