Audacity (Seraph)

I will allow myself precisely one weekend to fall apart.

One.

And then I will assume my armour and sharpen my weapons and go forth in the world like the glittering goddess after who I’m named, and I will be as implacable and impenetrable as I’ve ever been, and woe betide anyone out there who tries to belittle me.

In the meantime, though, I have some thinking to do as I fall apart, because a call late last night from Jenny Baldwin proved eye-opening in the extreme.

When I threatened that creepy shit, Giles Harrington, it was a matter of principle. You have to learn that you don’t get to mouth off and ruin someone’s life without serious consequence, no matter how much of an entitled prick you are. In that moment, I lashed out in an attempt to make him feel a fraction of the fear, the disempowerment, he made me feel with his vicious, unnecessary words, and I absolutely intended to follow up and make him pay.

What I hadn’t bargained on, really, was that the payout itself could be significant for me.

Not until last night, that was.

‘He’s the CEO of a FTSE 100 company that’s already been dragged through the press for governance issues, and he’s a non-exec on three more FTSE 100 boards,’ Jenny pointed out with her trademark straightforwardness. ‘Believe me, he does not want this going to court. Given that his behaviour was deliberate and malicious, I expect you’re looking at seven figures, easy. Maybe as much as three million.’

I almost spat out my wine, and I’m still reeling this morning. That’s three years of a Seraph salary. If I allow myself to press pause on my plans to ascend that express lift right to the top, then that kind of money buys me time and, more importantly, freedom.

I believe in Seraph. I wouldn’t do a job like this without the protection a firm like that offers, and the team has proved its mettle over the past thirty-six hours. But, at some point, I’ll want to leave and do my own thing. I’ve always thought that would be in a C-suite somewhere, but perhaps it’s time to pull a Taylor Swift and bet on myself, to create my own C-Suite where I call the shots and I’m not beholden to the favour or discretion of any man for my success.

Of the many blessings Gabe has given me, one is that self-belief, and another is a taste of how it could feel to be at the helm of something important. To be the key decision maker.

Three million pounds would not only buy me a very long holiday, but it would make for a shitload of seed capital if I wanted to start my own venture. The only question is what kind of venture?

That such a huge payout would financially crucify Harrington makes the entire thing even sweeter.

As the day goes on, I cling to this idea Jenny has planted like a life raft. It’s the first development that’s allowed me to feel remotely empowered; it’s the only thing that stops me from curling up in a ball on the floor of my shower until the water runs cold.

Because every other thing that’s happened, from the loss of a dazzling new opportunity to the way I’ve treated the best man I’ve ever known, has me aghast and grief-stricken and hollowed out with shame.

Daytime drinking is something I should do more often. I pass the hours with the numbing effect of an excellent Meursault—drowning my sorrows in cheap wine would be an indignity too far. I forsake my usual educational documentaries in favour of The Parisian Agency, hoping in vain that the arresting combination of French house porn and French man porn will visually overwrite the image of Gabe’s devastation when I safed out and basically ran from the room after his declaration of love.

Around four o’clock, Marlowe joins me on my sofa, having dispatched Tabs to a sleepover party at a friend’s house. She has far too much on her plate right now to be worrying about me, but she’s here anyway. I don’t want to talk about any of it—I just want to watch hot French guys deal with totally contrived drama—but she stays anyway and even helps me drink.

When Sophia turns up around an hour later, looking altogether too healthy and happy and holding a massive bag of takeout from my favourite Lebanese, I’m genuinely surprised. I know for a fact she’s been in Athens this week.

‘How the hell did you get here?’ I ask her as she engulfs me in one of her signature bear hugs.

‘Camille called me yesterday morning. That fucking twat. I knew you wouldn’t reach out, you daft cow, so I thought I’d come to you. Thad gave me the jet for the weekend.’

‘She and Jenny are on the case,’ I mumble, leading her through to the main living area.

‘As they should be, but you don’t just need lawyers at a time like this. You need friends. Oh, hello.’

She stops in the doorway as she spots Marlowe.

‘Marlowe, Sophia. Soph, Marlowe. You’ve heard a lot about each other, obviously. I’m just sorry you’ve had to meet like this.’

‘Hi.’ Marlowe unfolds herself elegantly from the sofa and goes to give Sophia a hug. ‘It’s so nice to meet you finally.’

‘Likewise. She talking yet?’

‘Not really,’ Marlowe says, and I roll my eyes.

‘Thought so.’ Sophia sets the food down on my coffee table and looks around my home, taking in the trio of French doors overlooking a quiet, South Kensington garden square, the abstract art on the walls and the oversized furniture. ‘The pad’s looking great. Clearly that priest of yours is paying you far too much.’

‘Not any more.’

‘The only thing she’s been saying is that she feels like Icarus,’ my traitorous friend says, strolling over to the drinks cabinet to fetch Sophia a wine glass.

‘Oh, excellent. So we’ve reached the stage of conflating our experience with epic Greek tragedies, have we?’ Sophia asks, kneeling to unpack the Lebanese. She’s every inch the glamorous jetsetter in her clingy Skims maxi and white trainers. She looks at me pointedly. ‘“Never regret thy fall, O Icarus of the fearless flight, For the greatest tragedy of them all, Is never to feel the burning light.” Oscar Wilde, my love. Well, we think it was him. Can’t know for sure.’

I roll my eyes again. I see a lot of eye-rolling in my near future. ‘You make it so easy to forget you had a half-decent education.’

‘St Paul’s Girls and Stanford, baby. Don’t for a second think my tits are bigger than my brains.’ She cups her boobs to underscore this statement, and I catch Marlowe staring at her as if she’s some exotic yet incomprehensible creature in a zoo. ‘Anyway, the point is, you know we fly high. You know we burn bright. We’re Seraphim! That’s what we do, remember? And when we fall, we may fall hard, but we get the fuck back up again and dust ourselves off and continue on our mission of world domination.’

‘You’re right, of course,’ I say stiffly. I’m not sure I have the emotional capacity for a heart-to-heart with Sophia today. She’ll delve too deeply.

‘What’s with the stunning dress?’ she asks. I may have hung the Gossamer dress off the top of a large oil painting in the middle of my living room. It makes my heart ecstatic and devastated all at once to look at it, but I can’t bear to put it away in my wardrobe. It’s the perfect visual reminder of all I’ve lost, of quite how fleeting my triumph was.

‘That’s the dress Gabe bought her,’ Marlowe offers unhelpfully. ‘The ten grand one.’

Sophia lets out a low whistle. ‘Wowzers. It seems we may have a few more emotions going on here than a certain someone is letting on. Okay, honey.’ She gets to her feet and steers me to the sofa gently. ‘This is where you tell us everything.’

I start with the status of my legal claim, telling her what Jenny told me. She squeals and claps her hands together in glee.

‘It’s poetic, isn’t it?’ Marlowe asks.

‘That this turd went full patriarchal bullshit on her, and now his patriarchal wealth will free her from more patriarchal control? Um, yes.’

Cue eye-roll number three.

She has a point, though. They both do. In trying to entrap me, to subjugate me, Harrington may just have set me free.

‘This is important,’ Sophia continues softly. ‘It may have felt like checkmate at the time, hon, but it’s not. Women like us always have agency. There’s always a countermove. We have power, and we have allies. Don’t forget that.’

‘Thanks,’ I mutter. I’m more touched than I’d like to admit, because one of my predominant emotions since the incident has been isolation.

‘Why don’t we talk about the touchy-feely stuff?’ Sophia suggests. ‘Have a sip of wine, vomit out the stuff that hurts, and then gorge yourself on kibbeh while Aunt Sophia lectures you on all the things you don’t want to hear but absolutely have to, okay?’

‘Good luck with that,’ Marlowe tells her.

‘Oh, I don’t need luck. I’m relentless. Now, drink—and purge.’

I drink. ‘There’s not much to tell. The foundation role isn’t on the table anymore, nor is my relationship with Gabe.’ The phrase relationship with Gabe should be enough to make me giddy, but instead it cuts like a razorblade through my heart. ‘I misjudged the situation, and it cost me, so all there is to do is regroup.’

The other two share one of those looks.

‘Honestly, don’t do that or I’ll kick you both out.’

‘Has Gabe actually dumped you, and has he told you the foundation’s off the table?’ Sophia wants to know.

No, he told me he loved me and I safed out on him. ‘No to both, but I can read a room. This is his family’s legacy. You should have seen the way they looked at me—like I was some kind of satanic whore who’d tempted their lovely, golden son.’

On my other side, Marlowe snorts. ‘The same golden boy who left the priesthood and then hired someone to have sex with him at work. Like he’s the innocent party here.’

‘That’s between him and his family. I had them eating out of the palm of my hand, and now it’s all undone. They want this foundation to be high profile. There’s no way on earth they’ll put a woman like me in the seat.’

‘A woman like you. Wow.’ Sophia nudges me with her shoulder. ‘Okay, so I see what we’re dealing with now. I thought better of you, hon, I really did.’

I give her my best side-eye. ‘What do you mean?’

‘Did you know,’ she begins conversationally, ‘that shame is a social emotion? That means it’s learnt. It’s not inherent, like joy, or fear, or anger. That’s why sociopaths tend not to feel shame. It’s far harder for them to learn.’

‘I know it’s a social emotion. That’s why I’ve always been so contemptuous of it.’

‘Mmm-hmm. And do you know what else it is?’

‘I have a feeling you’re about to tell me.’

‘I am. If you’re feeling shame, then that’s because you’re internalising someone else’s shit. Close your eyes.’

I glare at her.

‘Go on, close ‘em, bish. Okay, good. Now, imagine shame is a horrible, itchy, moth-eaten sweater, but it belongs to someone else. Got it?’

I nod against my will. I’ll go along with this charade, if only to get her off my back.

‘Right, and imagine they want to get rid of it, because who wouldn’t, so they take it off and they make you put it on. But the kicker is, they’re not getting rid of their sweater—all they’ve done is duplicate it. How does it feel?’

‘The sweater?’

‘Yeah. Describe it.’

I think. ‘It’s revolting. Scratchy. I don’t know where it’s been.’ I actually roll my shoulders in disgust. ‘I don’t want to wear it.’

‘Good. So what are you going to do? Because no one is making you keep this thing on except you.’

‘I’m going to take it off.’

‘Show me.’

I mime crossing my arms over my body and tugging the imaginary sweater off over my head.

‘And what are you going to say?’

‘I don’t want it. I won’t wear it. This isn’t my sweater.’

‘Louder.’

‘I said, it’s is not my fucking sweater.’