The resignation in her voice kills me. I can’t tell if she’s right, can’t think back to the Brendan I was before I met her. I don’t even know who I was before yesterday. I hate that she could be correct, that her problems would have meant nothing to me except for potential inconvenience or disruption to me.

‘I’d like to think I’d have taken a chance on you anyway,’ I say. It’s the most truth I can feasibly give her. ‘I was pretty obsessed before you even interviewed, remember?’

‘But I couldn’t take a chance on you knowing,’ she says. ‘Seraph was the only way I could get my hands on that kind of money. And I was so, so terrified of the prospect of selling myself to some arsehole. I was petrified. So when Athena suggested we approach you, I did everything in my power to sell the dream. Telling you I was doing it for a gravely ill child was definitely not part of the plan. You were the only one I could trust, Bren. I couldn’t jeopardise that. I’m so sorry.’

That’s the thing that kills me. She went into this whole Seraph thing terrified, and she trusted me to handle her with care. I was the one guy she felt confident enough working for in this fucked-up dynamic, and I certainly did not handle her with care. I didn’t treat her with the respect, the decency, that I should have. On the contrary, I treated her like a fucking blow-up doll and not much more.

Dressing her up.

Ordering her about.

Wheeling her out to show her off to my mates.

But after everything I’ve done, she’s the one who keeps saying sorry.

And I can’t bear it.

CHAPTER 47

Marlowe

When I’m all clean, Brendan leads me out of the shower and dries me off with brisk movements. I notice that he keeps his eyes off my body as much as he can, even if he’s still impressively hard. It’s a considerate gentlemanly gesture, and I appreciate it. It couldn’t be more of a departure from how he treated me last week.

He holds up a fluffy robe and I thread my arms through it. Only after he’s tied it tightly around me does he manage eye contact. ‘You got a hairbrush on you?’

‘In my bag, but I can⁠—’

‘Nope.’ He takes my shoulders and walks me through to the bedroom. ‘You’re not doing a bloody thing.’

I have to work on stifling my smile as I sit at the fancy dressing table and surreptitiously watch this big, hot guy, wearing nothing but a white towel fastened around his waist, brushing my hair as carefully as if it’s made of spun gold. He really can be very sweet when he wants to be.