Page 4 of Duplicity

‘No. Over your goddaughter’s dead body.’

Even Athena, the chronic under-reactor, flinches at that. ‘That’s unnecessary. And overly dramatic.’

‘I’m serious. If you distil this situation to its barest bones, Tabby’s best chance of survival is an operation as soon as possible, especially if it avoids open-heart surgery. You know it and I know it.’

We were discharged from the hospital a couple of hours ago, thank God. It’s only eight o’clock, but Tabby fell asleep after a couple of lullabies, her tiny body exhausted from the day’s events. She insisted on sleeping in her sleeping bag inside the stunning (and ludicrously expensive) tent she got a few months ago when Athena insisted on playing Father Christmas. It came from Harrods and isn’t something I could ever, ever have afforded, but Athena suggested that Tabby treat it as her safe space between “battles”. So tonight, another battle bravely fought and won, my little warrior princess slumbers in her magical refuge.

Athena responded to my text messages like the goddess she is, by showing up at my flat with wine, chocolate, and yummy Whole Foods microwave meals, even though I told her not to and even though she has a huge new job and a disgustingly handsome, disgustingly rich, and disgustingly adoring boss-slash-boyfriend waiting for her to get home and warm up his bed, because that’s the kind of human being she is. Our deal isthat she always brings the wine. She refuses to drink the “cheap shit” that’s within my budget.

I take her in and marvel, like I always do. Not only is she stunningly beautiful, with her huge hazel eyes and auburn tresses, but she’s put together in a way I can’t even dream of being. She’s in some sparkly tweed dress with big diamanté buttons that I suspect is Chanel and she could not look less at home among my IKEA furniture.

She’s also the singularly most fearsome and most impressive individual I’ve ever, ever met. I couldn’t ask for a better person to have in my corner.

‘I agree,’ she says in response to my assessment of Tabs’s health status. ‘And we both know this goes away tomorrow if you let me pay for it.’

‘Categorically not.’ I don’t need to expand on my argument. She knows my views. I’m not taking money she’s earned in such a brutal way. Especially not as she’s just taken a hefty pay cut. She’s no longer her boss, Gabe’s EA with benefits but his official girlfriend and the new CEO of his multi-billion-pound foundation.

The Audacity Foundation.

She told me he named it after her, his audacious girlfriend.

I can’t even.

With Athena, you have to be direct. It’s what she values and understands. So I set down my delicious box of sesame salmon and I lean forward so I can look her in the eye.

‘Babes. I appreciate your offer more than you will ever, ever know. But it has to be me. If I have the option to save my own daughter, then I have to do it. Do you understand?’

She nods once, matter-of-factly, displeasure written all over her face.

‘In theory, I could do this. Right? I mean, I have an MBA and I’m hopefully not entirely unfuckable.’ It’s been so long sinceI’ve put myself out there that I can’t quite be sure on that front, but men are pretty basic creatures, aren’t they? Hopefully one of them will find the clueless born-again virgin vibe hot.

And while Athena’s friend Sophia told me that Seraph usually hires candidates with MBAs from the top schools—the Whartons and INSEADs and Sorbonnes of this world—the Open University one that I completed remotely while working for the Royal Academy gives me the only three letters I need after my name to make me technically eligible.

Technically.

She snorts at that. ‘You’re one of the most exquisite creatures I’ve ever had the pleasure of knowing, and those dirty bastards would be queuing around the block for you. But that’s not the issue, and you know it.’

I scrunch up my face as I pick up my salmon and wild rice. ‘You could refresh me on how to give a blow job. We could put condoms on courgettes and practise.’ I wasn’t half bad at blow jobs, back in the day. Joe, my professor and Tabby’s biological father, was always beside himself when I used my mouth on him. Surely it’s just like riding a bike?

‘Stop being disingenuous. Of course you could handle a blow job. They’re not exactly rocket science. The issue is that you’ve been celibate for most of your adult life, and you’re making a case for becoming a whore and letting a random guy for whom you have no feelings do whatever the fuck he wants to your body, day after day after day.’

She glares at me, and a wave of nausea swirls through my stomach. I set the salmon down next to me again.

‘When they’re paying out this kind of money, they don’t fuck around. You think they’re going to pay out close to a hundred grand a month to kiss you and play with your tits every now and again? Whoever hires you will work you hard as fuck, and you are not cut out for it. It would be entirely too overwhelmingfor your nervous system. I can’t even imagine the toll it would take on your mental health. What good will it do Tabby if her sole caregiver has a nervous breakdown because she’s so traumatised?’

I stare at her in horror. Her tone is cold, and her words have their desired effect because I know she’s right. When it comes to a normal, healthy sex life, I haven’t even been playing in the paddling pool in recent years. What I’m proposing would be the equivalent of cliff-diving into treacherous, shark-filled waters.

I’d be so out of my depth it would be laughable if it weren’t so utterly terrifying.

Except that I’m all out of options, and if prostituting myself is the sole remaining solution left to me, then I’m sure as hell going to take it. And every time I have to put out, I’ll close my eyes and think of my daughter’s right ventricle pumping lots and lots of juicy blood into her little lungs to get beautifully oxygenated.

‘I understand what you’re saying,’ I tell my best friend. ‘But you’re the smartest person I know and the most practical. This has to happen. For God’s sake, tell me how we do it in the least painful way possible.’

There’s silence as we glare at each other, and I see the moment she accepts that I’m not backing down. Her breath leaves her body with a loud, defeated whoosh, and she stands. She’s still in sky-high ivory-coloured heels and glossy nude stockings, and it strikes me that I’d have to seriously up my work attire game from the floaty, cheap sundresses I’ve favoured while working at the Royal Academy.

‘Getting you in would be the first hurdle,’ she muses aloud, strumming her fingers on the top of my TV. ‘But I could speak to Camille and try to pave the way. She won’t like it, but if I assure her that you can handle it, I suspect she’ll do it as a favour to me.’

Camille runs the Seraph team and is responsible for the hiring. From everything Athena’s told me about her over theyears, she sounds both fair and sensible. I nod. ‘Okay. Good. I suppose you’ll have to tell her about Tabs, but I wouldn’t want any of the guys knowing.’

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