Audacity: Chapter 47

‘Evening, all,’ my boyfriend says. He squeezes my hand before letting it go, much to my dismay.

‘Look at the two of you!’ Maeve exclaims. She looks to be well-oiled already. ‘Aren’t you just the most gorgeous couple! Aren’t they, Ro?’

I force myself to smile tightly at her. ‘Good evening. It’s so nice to be here.’ But my gaze locks back on Giles Harrington as if magnetised, and I see the exact moment he recognises me. His jaw hangs slackly open before his mouth stretches into what can only be called a smirk. I stand there, utterly frozen, as Gabe starts speaking beside me.

‘I think, Athena, you know everybody, except for Mairead’s husband Peter, and one of Brendan’s NEDs, Giles Harrington. Giles, Peter, this is my girlfriend, Athena.’

I should be basking in the warmth of my brand, spanking new boyfriend’s pride and acknowledgment just now, but instead I am Marie Antoinette, my neck pressed to the rough wood of the guillotine, waiting for the blade to fall.

So that odious dickhead Harrington, who runs a multinational industrial machinery company, is one of Sullivan Construction’s non-executive directors. Who in the world could make this shit up?

He sets down his drink and straightens up in his chair, and I brace myself, turning my head towards Gabe for a single second, silently beseeching him to help me run for the hills or at least press rewind on this evening’s progress.

This was supposed to be my night of triumph.

I’m wearing a five-figure dress.

I’m here as the girlfriend of the best man I know.

The role of a lifetime is within reach. More than that—it’s mine.

But as I watch Harrington open his mouth, I can already feel it all fading, as though it was never anything more than the cruellest of mirages.

‘Actually, Athena and I know each other, don’t we, Athena?’ he says, his pompous voice dripping with condescension. ‘She interviewed with me once, didn’t you, darling?’

Gabe stiffens next to me, and I know he’s clicked. He’s a gazelle, standing stock-still in the face of a lion making its presence known.

‘I did.’ I say nothing more. My only agency lies in how I react in this moment, and I’ll be damned if I give a man like him any oxygen at all.

I don’t remark on having walked away after the initial, work-focused interview because the mere thought of him getting his hands on me made my skin crawl.

I don’t give him an inch, even if I suspect my presence is an unpleasant reminder of the stinging rejection insecure guys like him struggle to shrug off.

‘What a small world,’ Brendan observes, but he says it lazily, like his interest level in our acquaintance is close to zero.

‘Athena’s your assistant, is she?’ Harrington asks Gabe. When he answers, I can hear the guardedness in his usually open and friendly voice. He takes my hand again and I squeeze it gratefully.

‘She was, but she’s going to run our foundation for us going forward, and we’re all very excited. Anyway, moving on, let’s⁠—’

Harrington leans forward, the heavy thud of his forearms on the table telling me he’s already had too much of the free-flowing champagne. ‘Athena is supposed to be very good at what she does. She’s pricey, but I bet she’s worth every penny.’ He leans over and addresses Gabe’s mother directly. ‘Did you know, Maeve, that Athena offers a very “full” range of services that go far beyond the usual? I wonder if your son was making use of all of them, but⁠—’

‘That’s enough,’ Gabe snaps, but Maeve is looking at Harrington with confusion. I can see her trying very hard to piece together what he’s insinuating.

‘What do you mean, exactly?’ she asks him, squinting in concentration.

Please no please no please no.

‘This lovely young lady’—he imbues the word lady with all of the contempt he can muster—‘is a very discreet, very expensive whore, and you can bet that if Gabriel here has her on his payroll then she’s been making sure the good priest sees heaven every single day of the week. Monday to Friday, anyway.’

He’s done it.

He’s outed me, just days after I lowered my walls and peeled myself open and laid myself raw for Gabe, days after I decided that vulnerability was a better look than implacability, after choosing to believe that audacity was a good thing, a brave thing that the universe rewarded with dream jobs and good men and legitimacy.

If I wasn’t the person upon whose forehead Harrington had just branded with a scarlet A, I’d be tempted to laugh at the collective gasp around the table, which is Bridgerton level of scandalised.

Ronan looks utterly winded. I’d say Maeve, whose face is turning bright red, is in serious danger of some kind of cardiac episode. Eleanor is staring at me as if I might infect her with syphilis if I so much as pass her the butter dish, while Torty has the triumphant gleam in her eye of someone who’s just been passed the winning hand. I have no idea why she looks so pleased with herself. Surely, if I’m a pro, she must suspect that my moves are even more elite than she thought them?

Brendan sits back in his chair with a thump, his tickled expression that of a man who realises his virtuous brother is actually a force to be reckoned with.

‘It’s not true, is it, son?’ Ronan asks, the bewilderment in his voice heartbreakingly evident.

So I do the only thing you can do when you’re Icarus, and the wax is melting, dripping, and the beautifully crafted wings that bore you so high into that sun-drenched expanse of possibility and false hope are failing you.

I go to take my leave. To step out of the sun’s heat and seek safety in the darkness. I can’t stay here, and I can’t listen to Gabe trying to defend me. Us.

‘I’m afraid you’ll all have to excuse me,’ I say, willing my voice to stay steady as I tug my hand from Gabe’s tight grip, drawing on every ounce of training I’ve had in the cultural and diplomatic circles of Europe to hold myself together. ‘I hope you have a lovely evening.’

Before I go, I fix my gaze on Harrington, and only then do I unleash the full force of my freezing cold fury. ‘And you are in breach of an NDA. I hope you have a good lawyer.’