Audacity: Chapter 55

Rock bottom isn’t just freaking out over a kiss. Nor is it telling the man who takes your breath away that you’re working from home today and not telling him that it’s because you can’t bear to see his gorgeous, hurt, concerned face.

It’s finding yourself singing along to I Don’t Know How to Love Him on a loop with far too much feeling than is decent.

Fuck Marlowe and her obsession with musical theatre. She and Soph thought it was hilarious to put the Jesus Christ Superstar album on after a couple of bottles of wine. And when the line about Mary Magdalene claiming she wouldn’t be able to cope if Jesus declared his love, they actually fell about laughing all the while muttering Minerva.

Heartless bitches.

Still, the poignancy of her lament has hung over me since the weekend. Andrew Lloyd Webber may have taken some liberties with the plot, but damn that song hits hard. The only part I don’t relate to is that I know exactly why he moves me.

He’s not just a man.

He’s the best man I know.

Which is why I, like Mary, find him fucking terrifying.

He messaged me back with an invitation that scares and intrigues me in equal measure.

If something is hot, dirty sex in an actual sex club, then perhaps he’s right. Perhaps it would help, if only to give us both closure.

I couldn’t handle him kissing me in the unflinching daylight of his office, so maybe the answer is letting him fuck me in a corner of Alchemy so dark that the shadows hide the emotions on our faces.

There’s something almost fitting about it.

He hired me on a purely transactional basis, so ending it in a place that literally exists to facilitate transactional sex feels depressingly apt.

I pull out all the stops in my preparations. If I’m back to being the whore, I’ll damn well be at my most intoxicating. What’s left of my pride demands nothing less.

I sign in as Gabe’s guest, leaving my coat with the receptionist and sauntering down the elegant lobby of the Alchemy townhouse in Mayfair. My hair is tonged perfectly, my heels are vertiginous, and almost everything is on display, thanks to a sheer black lace maxi dress that’s little more than a body stocking, clinging to absolutely everything.

Beneath it?

Nothing but a nude lace thong.

This may be my first time here, but this is squarely my sphere. Not tonight the humiliation of walking into a gala feeling like a million dollars and leaving feeling like dirt. Here I can own my power, my sexuality.

I push open the double doors and take in the stunning bar area: expensive crystal chandeliers and polished floor and a back-lit pink onyx bar that takes up the entire far wall.

And leaning against it, his face grave, his eyes fixed only on me?

My priest.

In full clerical attire, he’s the man from the photo, and he’s every bit as arresting, as solemn, as he was then. Only now, I know what lies beneath. Now, he’s a million times more handsome than the holy man I drooled over on my laptop.

I walk towards him, suddenly conscious of my near-nakedness in the face of his austere all-black outfit and white dog collar, no bigger than a postage stamp but significant in the extreme.

Is this the first time he’s donned it since he left the priesthood?

Has he brought me here for a role play?

He’s standing alone, though the two women to his right can’t stop staring at him. As I walk across what feels like the endless expanse of floor, a guy approaches me. I put up a hand to ward him off without even looking at him, and I keep moving. Gabe is still staring at me, his eyes roving over my face and my untethered tits and everything else I’ve put on display for him tonight.

‘I didn’t know it was Vicars and Tarts Night,’ I say lamely as I reach him. ‘Good job we both dressed for it.’

He grins tiredly, sliding a hand under my hair and around my neck.

‘Is this okay?’

He’s back to asking if he can touch me.

I was his girlfriend for a few, blissful days, and now he’s back to asking.

I did that.

I nod, blinking away the moisture in my eyes. ‘Of course,’ I whisper, and then he’s tugging me into his arms and wrapping them around me, and God, I needed this. I needed to be in his arms so badly. I belong here, and I don’t deserve to belong here, and I can’t bear it.

I hug him back, and we stand there for a moment, swaying slowly together. His body heat permeates my ineffectual dress, and his scent permeates my nostrils, and every fucking thing permeates my porous, broken heart. The heart that was once so strong and fierce and which now bleeds for this man.

‘I missed you,’ he whispers against my hair.

‘I missed you.’

After a couple of moments, he releases me and turns away, regretfully, it seems, to request two glasses of champagne from the server behind the bar.

‘Non est ad astra mollis e terris via,’ he says as we clink, and I smile sadly.

‘Amen to that.’

‘I finally made a Catholic of her.’ He shakes his head.

‘You look stunning,’ he tells me as we drink. ‘Will you come downstairs with me in a minute? There’s something I want to show you.’

I nod, though I really hope it’s his dick and not his own bleeding heart, because I can’t handle that at all.

‘Before we do, I have something to tell you,’ he says. ‘I saw my family yesterday, and we had a long conversation. The foundation job is yours, just as it should be.’

I stare at him in amazement. What the actual fuck? ‘There’s no way your parents are okay with me running it now that they know what I do for a living.’

‘Did,’ he corrects. ‘And I wouldn’t say they’re thrilled, exactly, but trust me when I say they are on board.’

I only have one word. ‘How?’

He purses his lips. ‘Conversations were had around various points: your suitability for the role, which has never been in dispute, your character, to which Mairead and Brendan and I all attested, your superiority to Mum’s so-called respectable choice—Eleanor—and, let see, the double standards of them judging you and not me.’

His voice is sharper than usual. More commanding, less tolerant. He smiles, but it’s grim. ‘I reminded them that this bold new vision for the foundation came from you. And, for good measure, I threw in a reminder that I have the ultimate say as CEO.’ He shrugs. ‘I can’t do this without you, and I don’t want to. Simple as that. You and I are so opposite in our natures as to coincide perfectly. And, like I said, they came around. They even admitted that they may have judged you unnecessarily harshly, once I’d thrown a few Bible verses around to really ram the point home.’

I’m dumbfounded. This isn’t the priestly, mild-mannered Gabe we’re all used to. What he’s recounting sounds a lot like he’s just flexed his considerable power for the first time. Except, of course, that this is Gabe we’re talking about, which means that he hasn’t done it in the usual alpha-hole billionaire kind of way.

He’s done it in an inimitably Gabe way, from the sounds of it, combining that pastoral wisdom with this newfound sense of authority in a manner that’s so uniquely him.

‘And it worked? They caved?’ I ask incredulously.

This time, his smile is beatific. ‘I like to think I cemented my argument as I left with a politely-but-firmly-delivered reminder that they’d do well to stay on the good side of my future children’s mother. But yes, they rolled over eventually, and with a pleasantly surprising amount of grace.’

‘I can’t believe this,’ I murmur, rapidly shelving his comment about my bearing his children. There’s no way I’m going there. Still, my head is spinning with outcomes and possibilities. At no point over the past four days did I imagine the Sullivans would sign off on this. It sounds like Maeve and Ronan are far from my biggest fans, but whatever. Plenty of people dislike me. Plenty distrust me. The only way to win his parents over will be with results. Even if they hate me, they’ll be on board with my methods.

‘Don’t make any decisions yet,’ he urges. ‘I don’t want you feeling obligated to rush into anything. I just needed you to have all the facts before I took you downstairs.’

‘What about Eleanor? And Torty?’ I had precisely one run-in with the latter on Friday, when she came by to drop off some irrelevant folder in the hope of seeing Gabe. She said precisely nothing about the events of the previous night, but the supercilious nature of her smile left her perceived triumph in no doubt whatsoever.

I can handle people like them. I certainly don’t feel sexually threatened by a woman who’s likely oblivious that the term pearl necklace has more than one meaning. Still, I want to know what I’m dealing with here.

He smirks, and it’s decidedly unpriestly. ‘They will be in precisely zero uncertainty as to where my loyalties lie: to you, and to the foundation. If you come back, my darling, it will be in a blaze of glory. Believe me when I say I have no qualms about you being the person I want by my side through it all.’

The openly adoring look in his eyes tells me he’s not fibbing, and once again, the power of Gabriel Sullivan’s heart to heal and protect and empower hits me with full force.

Once we’ve finished our drinks, he leads me through more double doors into what he tells me is The Playroom, and holy fuck, is it hot. The place seems quiet—I suppose Monday night is not a night to party—but the sights of people naked and fucking instantly have my arousal levels ratcheting up. As he grips my hand tightly, I point at the trio of empty St Andrew’s crosses with my free hand.

‘Five months, and you’ve never brought me here? Please tell me you’re going to string me up on one of those.’

He shudders. ‘A bit above my pay grade, I think.’

I suppose if you’re a priest, crucifixion play might seem a little too taboo, now I think about it.

We pass through a door and down a staircase to a corridor of closed doors and elegant hurricane lanterns. With a cryptic grimace, Gabe opens one of the doors and gestures for me to precede him.

I stop dead just inside the door. There are thick, creamy candles galore standing on the shelves and around the edges of the room, their flames flickering softly. Red rose petals in their thousands litter the wooden floor. If that all screams romance and the large bed, covered in black satin sheets, screams sex, then I have no clue what the fucking enormous wooden confessional, its dark wood carved and gleaming, is supposed to signify. I’ve been to enough Catholic churches on my cultural pilgrimages around Italy to know that this is the real deal.

‘Holy fuck,’ I say, staring at it blankly. ‘How the hell did that thing get in here?’

He shuts and locks the door with a quiet chuckle. ‘Logistically speaking, I have no idea, but its origin story is that my mate Rafe, who’s one of the founders here, had it installed. His wife, Belle, had a pretty full-on Catholic upbringing and apparently it gave her a thing for priests.’

‘I know how she feels.’ I turn to him. His face is watchful. ‘Are we doing a scene?’

‘Kind of. Possibly not the kind you’re thinking of, though.’ He pauses. ‘I didn’t want to assume anything.’

I swear another piece of my heart rips off. ‘I’m so sorry about…’ I trail off.

‘You have nothing to apologise for. You hear me? Now, you ever been inside one of these?’

‘Absolutely not,’ I say with a shudder. ‘I can’t believe Catholics actually go to confession in these things. Isn’t it utterly terrifying?’

He laughs softly and moves around to open the far right of the three doors. ‘Why don’t you find out for yourself?’

I peer in. It’s dark, and tiny, and really foreboding, somehow. I have no clue what Gabe’s game is here, but if he’s aiming to distract me from our issues by activating low-level claustrophobia, then it’s working.

There’s a narrow seat and also a leather-covered kneeler that unhelpfully recalls the prayer room off his office where he’s fucked me so often. ‘Should I sit or kneel?’ I ask him.

‘Whichever you prefer, sweetheart.’ I’m not sure whether the endearment or the gentle smile with which he delivers it slays me more.

‘Where are you going to be?’

‘I’ll be right here, in the middle. You’ll be able to see me through the grille.’ He points. Sure enough, there’s a wooden grille through which I can see the shadows of another little box.

This is getting weirder and weirder.

‘Okay,’ I say, and I allow him to shut the door on me. I opt for kneeling—it feels more on brand for me, and it gets me closer to him.

I wait as he enters the middle chamber, and sure enough, I can see his outline as he sits down. His face is higher than mine and in profile. He doesn’t turn it to look at me when he starts to speak in a low, reassuring tone.

His priest voice.

‘Thank you for being open to this, sweetheart.’ He pauses as if searching for his words. ‘It strikes me that there’s a lot to say, and that you didn’t feel particularly comfortable discussing any of it in my office on Friday. I’ve been thinking about how to create a safe space for you to share your feelings, because I know how vulnerable my family made you feel on Thursday night, and I’m so, so sorry.’

‘They did,’ I admit, because it strikes me as unnecessarily harsh to not only wall up but then pretend I’m not hiding anything. I may want to protect myself, but I never, ever want this man to think I’m not hurting over him. Not when he’s been so intensely vulnerable and generous with me.

‘I know, and I hate that. Believe me when I say nothing could make me more outraged.’ Another pause. ‘The thing is that this whole confessional may seem seriously bizarre to you, but it’s very oddness can be a kind of comfort. My parishioners could confess things to me in here—could bare their souls in a way they certainly never could out in the open. So I wondered if you’d be open to exploring that.’

My jaw drops open, because I’ve belatedly realised what his endgame is here.

‘You want to hear my confession?’