Should I wear underwear? Will he touch me immediately? Will he push me straight to my knees? Should I pre-empt him and just get straight on my knees anyway? After all, Athena said she went down on Gabe within minutes of arriving at his office. She totally blindsided the poor guy with some kinky priest fantasy.

I am not Athena, and I have no clue what to expect, except that anything and everything is fair game. But honestly, her concern made me laugh. I don’t have feelings for Brendan Sullivan. What I do have is many, many feelings about him, and what he represents.

Possibility.

Power.

Pleasure, it seems, judging from my slutty performance the other night.

And definitely danger. Danger that he’ll get bored, that he’ll chew me up and spit me out before I’ve assembled the funds I need, and, more than anything, that he and his heady, hedonistic existence will suck me into a whirlwind of excess and luxury and debauchery. He’s taking the morning off on Monday so he can take me to Selfridges and get me kitted out, for goodness’ sake.

Like I said, I’d do well to remember that none of it is real.

Keep your head down, Marls, and your eye on the prize.

There’s only one prize. And, no matter what every other person out there with a vagina seems to think, it is not Brendan Sullivan.

CHAPTER 15

Marlowe

‘Ihave some amazing news,’ I tell my parents, Tabs, and Daniel the Spaniel at dinner. ‘Well, two amazing pieces of news, actually.’

They—my folks and Daniel—usually pick her up from school and keep her until I’ve finished work, but I’ve been on school run duty since I got sacked, so they haven’t seen her as much. I know they miss their afternoons with their granddaughter, but God, have I loved seeing her huge smile every afternoon at the gates as she hurls her slight frame against me. I’m treasuring these brief times together, because my job at Sullivan Construction will be a whole other level of commitment and intensity.

Tabby squirms in her seat, her wide smile showing off the two huge adult front teeth making their slow descent into her mouth. I try to keep things positive around her, but we’re not exactly drowning in good news these days, so it’s no surprise she picks up on the excitement in my tone. ‘What kind of news?’ She’s not so interested that she can’t forage in the depths of her stir-fry for a piece of chicken and feed it to Daniel, who is sitting by her chair with all the wide-eyed, vibrating intensity of a hunting dog in the presence of a high-value treat.