Audacity: Chapter 42

‘Your home is far nicer than I expected,’ Athena tells me, staring at my enormous open-plan kitchen. ‘I thought it would be far more priestly. It’s really stunning.’

‘I have George to thank for that.’ I open the enormous fridge and pull out a bottle of sparkling water. ‘He found me this interior designer who seemed to understand me better than I understand myself. She definitely had a knack for knowing what I wanted before I did.’

It’s true. While I understood the urgency of departing from what George cuttingly called my parents’ “carriage-clock chic” upon taking over this house, I had no real clue what vibe I actually wanted for my home or how to go about achieving it. Laura, the designer he contracted, steered me from a starting point of terms such as quiet luxury and solidity and tranquility to the place I call home today, and the fruits of her labour are astounding.

My home is an unlikely oasis in Central London, masculine and warm. Its lack of gratuitous furnishings feels intentional, the palette of sages and caramels and tans and taupes serene without veering remotely into coldness. It’s a sanctuary in the same way my church used to be a sanctuary, but with none of the austerity that came with being an under-funded parish.

Instead, Laura created sensory appeal through layered textures—thick rugs, and reeded oak details, and chunky slabs of marble scored with thick black veins. The lack of clutter allows these details to sing, and the result is that my home provides the space I need to breathe, to think, while cosseting me in the lap of luxury.

It’s a Saturday, and Athena has come over to work with me on pulling together the final proposed structure for our foundation. I’m hoping that taking the discussion out of the office will allow us room to be inspired.

I’m also hoping that my chimp brain will move on from the sight of Athena in skin-tight yoga pants and a loose, off-the-shoulder sweater and focus on something more altruistic, though I don’t like my chances.

Not when her russet waves are gathered up in a big, messy bun with loose tendrils framing her face.

And certainly not when it’s been business as usual over the past week, since I watched a roomful of other guys fuck her before enjoying our blissful non-date-date at the Lanesborough spa.

Athena may think that her actions at work, whether greeting me with a blow job, or anticipating every piece of analysis I need, or acting as my personal pit bull whenever anyone wants a piece of me, are borne out of her desire to excel in this unique hybrid role. But while every aspect of her professional performance is beyond reproach, a small, quiet, hopeful part of me believes that she, too, has caught feelings, even if her cognitive brain isn’t yet aware of them.

In any case, she may be here to do overtime as our deadline for firming up the foundation’s structure approaches, but she’s absolutely not on the clock today for sex, and I absolutely will keep my hands to myself, and I absolutely will not think about how fucking amazing it would be to cup her arse through those lethal yoga pants while I kiss her rosebud mouth.

Unless she initiates something, of course, in which case, I’ll be a lost man.

It’s a testament to the infectiousness of this woman’s energy that I do manage to look beyond her arse. Soon, she has the entire kitchen island covered in a mass of sticky notes clustered in three columns of yellow, pink and green to reflect our three proposed foundation pillars: Urban Community Development, Cultural Heritage, and Environmental Sustainability.

I cast my eye down the notes, letting the headings in Athena’s neat handwriting jump out at me. Affordable Housing Initiatives. Local History Projects. Urban Farming Projects. So far, so in line with everything we’ve discussed as a family. The delineation of our focus areas is logical and tidy, and it feels actionable. This is our chance to make an incredible mark on an entire swathe of London.

So why do I feel underwhelmed?

We’ve been populating and casting our eyes over these for the better part of an hour now. She’s watching me, hands on her hips, pacing up and down the length of the island. She glances down at the sticky notes. ‘Talk out loud. Tell me what you’re thinking.’

‘I’m not sure—it’s all fine.’

She stops and huffs. The energy coming off her is like crack. ‘Well I’ve sure as hell never aimed for fine, and I’m not about to start now. Fine is positively offensive in my book. What adjectives would you like it to be?’

I scratch my beard. ‘Let’s see. Bold. Radical. Meaningful.’

‘Good.’

‘Transformative. Um, profound. Sincere. Borderline insane.’

‘Good!’ She slaps her hand on the marble. ‘Don’t filter. Just talk. Tell me more about what borderline insane means for you.’

I sigh. ‘I suppose it means that other philanthropists look at it and think those Sullivans are smoking crack.’

She throws back her head and laughs, delighted. ‘I love it! Why would they think you were smoking crack? Because of how much you’re giving or what you’re doing or the scale of the scope?’

I grin at her. Can’t help it. ‘All three. Because of the sheer audacity of it, I suppose. I want all those parochial naysayers out there to clutch their pearls and shake their heads and say, “The audacity of it!” when they see our proposal. “Who do those Sullivans think they are?”’

She gasps theatrically. ‘Oh my God. Audacity! I love it. I love it so much. Yes, yes, yes.’ Then she claps her hand to her mouth and stares at me, wide-eyed, and I marvel at how I could ever have found this woman implacable. These days, she allows me a front-row seat to every emotion that plays out on her beautiful face.

She hinges forward, resting her elbows on the island and drumming her fingers on it. I wait, knowing that something incredible is percolating in that terrifying brain of hers. It’s not until she slowly straightens up that she speaks. When she does, it’s as if she can’t believe her own words.

‘Fuck, Gabe. You want audacious? What if we’ve been looking at it all wrong?’

I stiffen in anticipation, watching as she begins to pace again. I swear, this woman could command the entire United Nations and have every delegate eating out of the palm of her hand. ‘Go on.’

‘The foundation might be looking good, but it’s still an afterthought. The entire Rath Mor model is built around managing your wealth, right? It’s all very safe, very passive. Preserve the pot first, then give second.’

I nod my agreement. ‘Keep talking.’

‘What if you completely decimated that? I mean, who the fuck needs eight billion pounds? Not a former priest, that’s for sure. Not your parents, not Brendan or Mairead. What if you flipped the entire thing on its head and put the giving first, and everything else comes from that?’

I sit up straighter, the quickening of my heart rate a clue to the excitement that her words are sparking. ‘Like an endowment?’

‘If you like.’ She nods impatiently, as if now is not the time for semantics. ‘Rather than it all being about the stewardship of your money, make it about using the money to transform. Every extra pound you guys grow gets funnelled into this insane, audacious pot that you pledge to give away. The end goal goes from being the size of the pot to the power of what that pot can do.’

Fucking hell, she’s right. My mind is racing as quickly as my heart. ‘We could set a target. Give away, what, seventy-five percent?’

‘Whatever you like. Or do it backwards. Say you want to keep two billion for the family. That’s more than you or all your heirs could ever need, and you could live off the interest, too. You have eight billion now, give or take. So you ring-fence two billion to manage like you’re doing now, for the preservation of wealth, but you commit to giving away everything else, no matter how much it grows, over the next decade. Two decades. However you want to play it.’

Without thinking, I close in on her, my arms going around her waist as I tug her against my body. If it’s inappropriate, she doesn’t seem to notice. She lays her hands on my biceps and looks up at me, her face shining. ‘Give the whole fucking thing away. Old Jim will have a heart attack—we live in hope. And people will say you’re crazy. But what do you say?’

I know Athena would rather die than admit to any kind of altruism. In fact, I suspect she sees it as a weakness. I also know that she’s fully aware of my need to be altruistic. She sees it as a point of honour to deliver that for me in a far bigger, bolder version than I could ever dare to dream of.

She elevates me.

She dreams big for both of us.

She’s audacious enough for both of us.

Since Athena has entered my life, not a single instance of her behaviour has been meek or fearful or apologetic. Whether she’s carving out her own take on the career ladder, or standing naked in a room with five aroused men, or proving that women are allowed to be both fiercely intellectual and fiercely sexual, she has been nothing but audacious.

I smile down at the life force visible on her face. She’s aglow with it. ‘I’m tempted to say I can’t believe I didn’t think of this before, but I can believe it. I just used the term parochial disparagingly, but honestly, I could say the same for my own approach. It is quite literally parochial—how apt. Everything I’ve done has been at such a small-scale, grass-roots level. It seems my brain is incapable of thinking as big as yours is. It’s incredible.’

‘Everything about this has you written all over it,’ she insists. ‘This is you, and that grass-roots approach is exactly how it needs to be. All I’ve done is taken your pastoral instincts and scaled them up—pretty dramatically. You’ve got these amazing, ancient values that are so intrinsic to who you are as a man, and I’ve got a decent high-level understanding of how modern finance can serve those values in a way that actually works.’ She grins cheekily. ‘Together, we’re unstoppable.’

It may be a quip, but I can’t help but think she’s spot on.

Bottom up and top down.

Grass roots and high finance.

I ground her, and she elevates me.

I understand people, and she understands business.

I tell her I want to use my wealth to effect real change, and she transforms that mission beyond all belief.

We are the perfect partners. She understands innately the things that drive me at my most profound level, but it feels as though she sees my purpose more clearly than I do.

Non est ad astra mollis e terris via.

There is no easy way from the earth to the stars.

Maybe there is.

Maybe there fucking is.