Jesus fuck, no, Brendan!

Intimacy is not a dynamic I’ve ever, ever craved. It’s just not. Why would I want that? My sister may be happy, my brother may have fallen hard for Athena, but I’ve always wanted more. More wealth. More success. More validation. More adulation, if I’m honest. Recognition. And all the trappings that come with that. Models on my arm at events. Sports cars. Penthouses. Catamarans. I don’t want to tie myself down, for fuck’s sake.

More accurately, I don’t want to want to tie myself down. I have no desire to put limits on my success or my rewards. Because if I limit myself to one woman, no matter how incredible, it’s just a fucking waste. My FOMO will go through the roof. I want to live a big life, a fast life, a life where the pace keeps me on my toes and the prizes get more and more glittering and the steady stream of women hotter and hotter. I want to be untethered. Unencumbered.

I don’t want to be feeling sick to my stomach because my EA is taking off for two weeks on some fucking civic duty that she’s insisting on seeing through because she thinks society’s needs are more important than my needs.

I don’t want to be so thoroughly disinterested when I look at any other woman. When I even think about the parade of willing, gorgeous women I’ll take out on the town when she’s off martyring herself to our judicial system.

I want my mojo back.

I want my self-respect back, for fuck’s sake.

And I’ll get them.

I’m Brendan fucking Sullivan.

Having Marlowe is supposed to make my crazy schedule run more efficiently. I know that. But for now, I’ll just let myself lie here and inhale the honeyed scent of her hair for a few more minutes, and I’ll allow each warm exhale she makes against my chest to bleed into my heart and warm it up, and I’ll try my absolute damnedest to bottle up the way this makes me feel.

God knows, when she’s gone, I’ll need to pull myself the fuck together and get back on that damn horse.

CHAPTER 38

Marlowe

Our bags stand packed and ready in the living room of our flat. I’ve dotted every i and crossed every t of the endless paperwork I’ve had to complete for this journey Tabs and I are about to undertake. Apparently, what we’re doing is known as “medical tourism”. I’m pretty sure that term is better suited to jetting off to Turkey for some cheap boobs than travelling across the Atlantic to give my daughter her best chance of survival, but whatever.