Audacity: Chapter 43

Pledging to give away the majority of your ten-figure fortune may be a worthy sentiment, but I’m sure it’ll take some serious cajoling on Gabe’s part to even remotely get his family on board. That said, to use startup jargon, it’s the kind of Big, Hairy, Audacious Goal that’s exciting enough, inspiring enough, to give both of us a kick up the arse. Committing to giving as the starting point of his estate planning feels intentional in a way the foundation has been lacking so far, and pulling a completely fresh idea from a blank canvas is the ultimate rush.

We mainline coffee and kick ideas around for a few more hours before Gabe suggests that if we wander up Marylebone High Street in search of provisions, then he will cook us supper. I find myself agreeing readily. I have plans to see Marlowe and Tabby tomorrow—Tabs isn’t doing great—but have a free evening ahead, and for reasons that feel complicated I’m in no rush to go back to my lovely, lonely flat.

Usually, the office is our bubble, but this bubble, with Weekend Gabe in his grey cashmere sweater and jeans and easy smile, in his beautiful, palatial home, is even more sparkly and lustrous and intoxicating.

We visit a gourmet deli, the kind of place so brimming with delicacies that you can’t help but get instant decision paralysis. That probably explains how we come away with everything from fresh ravioli and a block of truffled raclette to smoked salmon mousse and far too many variations on dark chocolate. And when we’re back at Gabe’s place, I find myself perched on a bar stool with a chilled glass of Provençal rosé, watching my boss potter competently around his kitchen.

This man moves me so much.

He moves me when he speaks and when he smiles. His agile brain and his beautiful soul move me as much as his undeniable physical blessings. He is the most serene person I’ve ever met, his confidence stemming not from an inflated sense of self, but from a quiet trust that everything is unfolding as it is. His mastery of the art of surrender is Zen-like, just as his energy is intoxicating.

We dine together at the island, glasses filled and thighs brushing and this afternoon’s handiwork laid out before us in a host of neon sticky notes. I watch him eat, and he watches me eat, and I suddenly understand that silence and eye contact and proximity can be richer, more nourishing, than any conversation.

It terrifies me, and it enthrals me.

‘I bet you were an amazing priest,’ I say eventually. It’s a statement, something I know viscerally to be true.

He smiles, and it’s a little sad. ‘I wasn’t amazing by any means. But I’d like to think I was decent. I’d like to think I helped some people.’

‘And you’ll help more now. So many more.’

He’s silent before he speaks, his blue eyes fixed on the far wall. ‘I hope so.’

‘Will it be enough for you, do you think?’

I know he understands what I’m asking. I know he worries that deploying vast, unthinkable sums of money is somehow less worthy than the noble toil of a priest in his parish. I know he believes, deep down, that no matter how hard he works on this foundation, it’s some form of cop-out.

His gaze flicks back to me, and it’s raw, and it’s honest.

‘I don’t know. I understand intellectually that I don’t have to be the one ladling out bowls of soup to make a difference, that what we’re proposing is the kind of scale I would have found impossible to comprehend when I was working at the parish level. Still do, as you’ve seen. But understanding it intellectually and feeling it in my heart are two very different things.’

I nod. He hasn’t embodied this yet, hasn’t allowed himself to.

‘You could argue that Jesus had far more impact after his death than when he was on the ground hanging out with lepers and washing feet.’ Even if Christianity is a total crock of shit from where I’m standing.

That gets me a rueful smile. ‘Good point well made, Miss Davenport. Not sure I’m ready to offer myself up for martyrdom just yet, though.’

Feeling brave, I take the hand resting on his thigh and clasp it, running my thumb over his knuckles. ‘Why did you leave?’ I whisper.

‘There was no great scandal, no dark secrets. I just felt underwhelmed. Spiritually, I suppose, and in terms of my purpose. It was a gradual process—I tried hard for so bloody long, but I tried because I felt obliged, rather than because I had this spiritual zeal in my belly, you know? God, it’s so hard to explain.

‘I loved the theological side—maybe too much. Sometimes I felt like I was more interested in winning theological arguments than helping people find God.’

I smile. ‘I can relate. We’re the same like that.’

He squeezes my hand. ‘It’s all well and good, but the imposter syndrome got worse and worse. I felt like I was behind this curtain, observing and not living. I’d be counselling a couple on marriage and think “what the fuck do I know?” I felt like I was trying so fucking hard but I was just going through the motions.

‘Some priests have this natural grace—you can see it literally flowing through them, like God has touched them with His grace—but I just felt nothing. I was getting nothing from Him, and I was constantly in my head about it. I was always trying to prove to myself that I deserved it, and that’s not how a true vocation should feel.’

‘Of all the things you’ve said to me about your faith,’ I say quietly, ‘what you said about grace at The Wolseley resonated the most. You told me you believe we don’t need to earn it—that it just flows.’

He smiles sadly. ‘I truly believe that. I just couldn’t feel it in my own heart. Something was missing for me, so when Dad started making more and more noise about retiring, I threw in the towel. I just couldn’t bear that hurt every day of knowing that I was going through the motions and trying my damnedest to serve and to pray and to have faith and simply not cutting it.’

It’s so unfair. It’s so bloody unfair that a man this good should feel like that, that he should hold himself to such superhuman standards. I bring our conjoined hands to my lips and kiss his knuckles. ‘You are the best man I’ve ever met, and I hope you find whatever’s been missing for you. I really, really do.’

When he gazes at me, his eyes are so blue and pure and heartbreaking. ‘I think I already have.’

I stiffen, tears springing from absolutely nowhere as I take in his words and his tone and his gaze. He twists on his stool so he’s facing me properly and slides his leg between mine.

‘Sweetheart.’ He pauses as if trying to find the right words. ‘The things I feel for you are things no man has any business feeling for his employee, no matter what he’s paying her for.’

I swallow. I can’t speak. Can’t move. He pushes gamely on.

‘I didn’t leave the priesthood so I could get laid, and I certainly didn’t employ you with any agenda beyond what we so clearly outlined, I promise you that. But I have fallen so hard and so fast, and—you are the most spectacular woman I have ever, ever met.’ He pauses, and the searing honesty in his eyes nearly kills me. ‘And I wonder if you feel the same way—or if I’m deluding myself here.’

I feel so many things, things I never expected to feel, never wanted to feel, things I’ve fought and denied and dismissed. But regardless of how loath I am to admit them to myself, there’s no way in hell I’d ever leave this beautiful man hanging when he’s baring his wonderful, wonderful soul.

‘I feel the same way.’ I can barely hear the admission. Tears are trembling on my lower lids, poised to break free, but I push on. ‘And I’m scared.’

His face crumples with compassion as he slides his free hand around my neck. ‘Oh my darling. Why are you scared?’

Because my entire plan for my entire career rests precariously on a very specific set of boundaries and behaviours and rules and advancement strategies involving other bosses, and falling for my current boss is not on the cards. At all.

I don’t quite go with that line. Gabe deserves better.

‘Because feelings weren’t supposed to come into this,’ I stammer, ‘and I have absolutely no idea how to marry that with my being the woman you pay to fuck me at work. I don’t know how the hell we’re supposed to even consider a relationship within that dynamic.’

He blanches at my bluntness, then recovers. ‘You are far, far more to me than that. And, in the hope that this doesn’t freak you out too much, I think we’ve both been in a relationship for some time.’

I stare at him, horrified. ‘What do you mean?’

‘Well, you’re very, very good at your job—at all the parts of it. But I’d very much like to believe that when you practically fight George to be the one to get my lunch, or when I give you a foot rub just because I can, or when we’re lying together in bed in Claridges and it feels like we could lie there quite happily all day—I’d like to think those things are because we’re falling for each other and not just because you’re a committed assistant and I’m a considerate boss. Because they’re also the kinds of things that boyfriends and girlfriends do for each other, you know.’

I’m either going to laugh or cry at that little insight, so I laugh. ‘And what the fuck do either of us know about having a boyfriend or girlfriend? The priest and the prostitute? Neither of us are exactly relationship experts.’

He doesn’t look like he finds that funny. ‘Very little, clearly. Saying that, I know enough about humankind to know that the way you and I look after each other is what most people would consider very loving. Caring.’

He says the final two words carefully, as if they’re grenades that might explode upon impact. In reality, their power lies in their accuracy, because I know he’s right. If I look at how I approached my working relationships with my previous bosses, it was work and sex. Rinse and repeat. It was transactional. By contrast, Gabe and I have been devoted to each other, consumed by each other, since alarmingly early in my tenure with him, and it would do both of us a huge disservice if I wasn’t woman enough to admit that.

‘You’re right. We’ve blurred every line going, and I’ve loved every second of it. And I wasn’t totally ignorant of it—I just figured that as long as we let it all happen within the confines of our working relationship, we could fudge it.’

‘Yeah.’ He screws up his face. ‘I get that, and it was enough for a while, because it was so much more than I could ever have dreamed of. But I got greedy, and it’s not enough anymore. I want you in my bed every night. I want to walk down the street with my arm around you and shout from the fucking rooftops that the most incredible woman I know is with me. I want my family to know, and passing you off as my assistant is just bullshit. I want a proper, honest-to-god relationship with you.’

I want to be in his bed, tonight and every night after.

I want his arm around me in public.

I want to claim this man and be by his side and celebrate him and wallow in the miracle of his existence every day. The mere thought of it has a huge smile breaking out on my face, and I drop my forehead to his. ‘Oh my God. I want that too.’

‘Good.’

‘But how the hell do we make it work with my—with the Seraph stuff?’ My mind is reeling. I can’t date him and let him pay me for sex. Nor can I date him and move firms and let someone else pay me for sex. But⁠—

He’s gone silent. I lift my head to see him grimacing. ‘What?’

He clears his throat. ‘I’m finding it surprisingly difficult to propose to the woman of my dreams that she take a ninety percent pay cut.’

‘What the fuck?’

‘Hear me out.’ He’s grinning now, and I’m powerless against it. I’m jelly. ‘I’m not suggesting this because you and I might be taking this in a new direction, but…’

‘But you’re going to suggest you should get to fuck me for free.’

His laugh is bright and boyish and gorgeous. ‘Ha! You’ve got me. I’m definitely not so keen on money changing hands going forward.’ His face grows more serious. ‘I want to know that when we’re together, when we’re doing all the amazing things we do, it’s because you want to, not because I’m paying you to.’

I nod, blinking back those pesky tears. If I’m honest with myself, I’ve done an excellent job these past few weeks of ignoring the transactional nature of our relationship at every turn. Everything I do with him is real. Everything we do is because we both want it. ‘I understand. Please proceed.’

‘Here’s the thing. You’re obviously ridiculously overqualified to be my assistant. I mean, it’s crazy. You’re running the show in there.’

‘If you want to fire Eleanor and give me her job, I’m game,’ I deadpan. In my more self-indulgent moments, I’ve definitely thought about it. God, I could get my teeth into the Chief of Staff role and then some.

‘You’re getting warmer than you know. I have to talk to my family about all of this foundation stuff, especially in light of our revelations earlier today, but’—he pauses—‘what today did bring home is that not only is yours the most impressive strategic brain I know but that you have my back more than anyone else. You understand my vision, you elevate my vision at every turn, you drive me to dream bigger, aim higher, and you care that I achieve it more than anyone else.’

I smile at him adoringly as I lap up his words of praise and appreciation, so much so that I almost miss his next utterance.

‘That’s why I’d like to propose you to run the foundation.’