Audacity: Part 3 – Chapter 49

I have one day of work to get through before I can permit myself to shatter and regroup over the weekend.

Eight to six.

Ten hours.

I can do this.

The worst part won’t even be facing Eleanor and Torty. They can go fuck themselves, for all I care.

No, the worst part will be having to spend the day with the man I’ve fallen so hard for and know that he will very probably not be strong enough to do what needs to be done. If I know Gabe, he wants to bleed his heart out and fall on his sword and be my saviour. He wants to hope and, let’s be honest, pray, for the impossible.

I’ll have to be strong for both of us.

I’ll have to be the one to pull the plug on all the enchanting things he’s promised me for the future and made me want so very badly.

I texted George last night on my way home, alerting him to what had gone down. His reply was every bit as righteously indignant as I could have hoped, and I know he’ll do what he can to make today as tolerable as possible.

I also texted Gabe last night. I didn’t want to, but I needed to know what I would be dealing with this morning.

I reacted to that one with a heart but left it unanswered. There was nothing to say, really.

The only call I placed was to Camille, who reacted exactly how I knew she would and how I needed her to: with a brisk promise to enlist the immediate assistance of Seraph’s General Counsel, the inimitable Jenny Baldwin, who would quote-unquote take that man to the cleaners and make him rue the day he crossed you.

Despite my shitty night’s sleep, I look good. I haven’t cried, which is one positive. I haven’t allowed myself to.

Tomorrow, I’ll fall apart.

Today is about survival.

Thus, my hair is sleek and my makeup perfect and my tailored black shift dress beyond reproach. I’m so refreshed, I look like I spent the evening in a spa. I’m ready to do battle, and I shall emerge victorious as long as I can keep Gabe and his baby blues at arm’s length. That man’s warm hearted saviour complex is his greatest strength and his greatest weakness, which makes it my biggest headache right now.

I’m sitting at my desk when George appears, holding a small to-go cup that I’m hoping is a double espresso from the heavenly Italian place down the road.

‘Liquid courage.’ He places it next to this week’s beautiful floral arrangement.

‘Angel.’

‘How are you doing? I hate this for you. Though I love that you are physically embodying I Can Do It With a Broken Heart vibes.’

That, I realise, is exactly what I’m embodying, and it makes me feel the tiniest bit better. I’m in good company with this over-functioning martyrdom I’ve adopted.

‘I’m as well as can be expected.’

‘You look fabulous. How do you look so fabulous?’

‘Under-eye patches this morning. A lot of concealer, then light-reflecting highlighter.’

He nods his approval. ‘You’ve got this, missy. Now, do we think the Angel Gabriel is going to float in here and try to save you?’

‘Absolutely. And, of course, you and I both know that what he really needs is to be saved from himself.’

‘Ain’t that the truth. Buzz me if you need me.’

I blow him a kiss and get down to work. Happily, I have a heavy workload to keep me busy. Only a week remains until I’m due to take my leave as Gabe’s EA. The plan has been that I would segue slowly into my new role, with a temporary (non-Seraph) replacement starting after that and my handing the EA work over to him or her gradually. My current plan, formed during the sleepless hours of this morning, is to hand over gradually and remotely once he or she starts. I have no intention of leaving Gabe, or Rath Mor, in the lurch.

I’m deep in a document outlining my workflows, espresso sadly long gone, when the man himself appears in the outer doorway to our office. He most markedly has not been employing refreshing under-eye patches this morning. He looks like shit, and my heart cracks in two so violently that I swear I can almost hear a ripping sound.

Our eyes stay locked as he pushes the door shut behind him and comes to stand in front of my desk.

‘Hi, sweetheart,’ is all he can manage. His eyes rove over me, and I know he’s trying to understand how I’m really doing.

‘Hi.’

‘Can we talk?’ He jerks his head to his office, and I rise, smoothing down my dress. ‘Of course.’ I pick up my notebook.

‘You don’t need your notebook,’ he says with an exhale that sounds downright exasperated.

Fine.

I set it down on my desk and walk through to his office, perching myself on his sofa. I hope to God he goes for the armchair, but he doesn’t, of course. He plumps himself right down next to me, the weight of his stare so loaded that I can feel it in my bones. I force myself to meet his eyes.

Oh, shit. Big mistake.

‘How are you?’ He slides a warm hand over my jaw, and I employ every fibre of willpower in my body not to rub my face against it.

Fine won’t cut it here. I’m better off giving him just enough to reassure him that I’m telling the truth.

‘I’ve been better, but nobody’s dying. I’ll survive.’

I can tell from his frown that he doesn’t like that. Not one bit.

‘You’re allowed to feel furious and let down, you know.’

‘Oh, believe me,’ I say, ‘ I feel furious and let down.’

‘Bren and I kicked Harrington out right after you left. I reiterated what you’d said about the NDA. I’ll get our lawyers on it today.’

‘Already in motion through Seraph’s General Counsel.’ There’s a stab of something small and warm at the knowledge that his brother has my back—or Gabe’s back. That’s something, at least.

He nods, impressed. ‘That’s my girl.’

‘What’s the score with your family? Did the speech go well, all things considered?’ This I can do: participate in a dispassionate post-mortem of the event and help Gabe to draw up action points.

‘I didn’t really see them. I basically went back to the table, got rid of Harrington, told everyone else that they’d better keep their traps shut, and locked myself in an empty room to pray until the speech, which was absolutely fine.’ He shrugs, and it’s forlorn and defeated and boyish, and I feel like I’m bleeding through my skin for this man.

This is why we were so good together. He’s too decent for this world, and I’m a merciless little go-getter, but I’m his go-getter, and I needed him to save my blackened soul just as he needed me to ensure that the world didn’t take advantage of his soul of purest sparkling white. We were an unlikely team, but a perfect one.

‘Okay,’ I say, focusing on the positives. ‘As long as everyone agrees to stay quiet, I can manage this.’

My brain is flipping through potential outcomes at the speed of light. As long as my cover hasn’t been blown and Gabe and I don’t find ourselves on the front pages of the tabloids this weekend, my future at Seraph is secure. I can go back there and take up another position easily. The thought makes me feel sick to my stomach, but it’s a solid Plan B to have in my back pocket, especially since my Plan A has fallen apart quite so spectacularly.

‘Seraph can help you with some talking points,’ I tell him now. My eyes are darting all over his face and I realise I’m trying to drink in every last, perfect detail of him. ‘For your family, I mean. They can help you spin it with them. It’s not the first time a client has got caught with his proverbial pants down, and it won’t be the last.’

‘Sweetheart.’ He releases my jaw so he can clasp both my hands on my lap. ‘No one is spinning anything. I’ll handle my family. At the end of the day, it’s not the first time I’ve morally failed them. It’s none of their business what I do on my own dime. Give them time and they’ll come around—to our relationship and to the foundation stuff. I just need to let them vent a little. I promise, my darling.’

‘Gabe. They’re not going to come around to either. I’m telling you now, that plan is dead in the water. There’s no point in you wasting any time or energy on it. I can help you find a new candidate, if you like. Someone who’s really strategic.’

‘No.’ He shakes his head vehemently. ‘Don’t think like that. I promise you I’ll sort it.’

One thing I’ve learnt in business is that when the shit hits the fan, the absolute worst things you can do are double down or indulge in any denial. You need to face the problem head-on, rip off that Band-Aid, and do what needs to be done. There’s no time to grieve what could have been: you pivot, and you act.

Gabe is approaching this like a priest, not a businessman. I know, even if he hasn’t uttered them yet, that concepts like grace and redemption and forgiveness are floating around inside that big, gooey heart of his.

I could tell him now that his family certainly isn’t embodying any of those words. Gabe’s excess of emotional intelligence is, in this instance, a blinker, not a benefit.

These are the big leagues. He’s running a ten-figure business here. The stakes are sky fucking high, and I’m now dead wood: worse, I’m a liability. I’m blood flowing out of a gaping wound, and he needs to stem that loss now, no matter how brutal or painful it is, no matter how anathema to his natural compassion.

But I don’t have the chance to explain any of this to him, because he does precisely the worst thing he could do in this moment.

He closes the gap between our faces and kisses me.

I forget for a second—I really do. His lips are so soft and perfect, and his hands, as they come up to cradle my head, are so loving, and my entire nervous system is spilling forth safety cues. He has me, it’s shouting. He’s your safe place. Just relax and collapse and let him be your person.

I open for him. His tongue is gentle and warm as he seeks to show me with his mouth what he knows I’m choosing not to hear in his words. For a moment, I allow it. I allow myself this brief, perfect fragment of time where it’s just me and him and nothing is more important than the way his mouth feels against mine.

As I do, I can feel how badly my defences want to fall by the roadside. The dams of my eyelids, which have been valiantly fighting for the past twelve or thirteen hours to hold in the weight of my tears, are close to bursting. I recall Gabe speaking that line from his favourite prayer:

To thee do we send up our sorrows, mourning and weeping in this valley of tears.

I could do it. I could let him take it all; I could let someone else in to look after me, and it could feel amazing…

Until it doesn’t.

Until his family forces his hand, and I’m out on my ear, having dared to dream outside of this career path I’ve so meticulously forged for myself, a path that until recently felt like the express lift to the top and whose walls are now closing in around me.

I jerk my head back and wrench myself away from our kiss. We both speak at once, and I hear his words right as I say my piece.

‘I love you,’ he whispers, looking at me with a world of pain and joy and adoration in his blue eyes.

But it’s too late. The word is already spilling from my lips.

‘Minerva.’

His face collapses in disbelief. Grief. That’s the only way I can describe it.

This man has watched me get dicked down by a roomful of guys and not utter a word of complaint.

And now I’ve safed out over a kiss from the only human being who’s ever really seen me as more than a pretty face and a useful brain. The only human who believes my soul may be just as worthy of veneration as my looks and my mind.

The reason?

The raw vulnerability I feel in this moment is more life-threateningly terrifying than I have ever felt in any sexual encounter.

If this isn’t rock bottom, I don’t know what is.