Duplicity (Seraph)

by Elodie Hart

but she didn’t hold back on slagging off his bedroom behaviour (“demanding bordering on aggressive”) or his maturity levels (“a spoilt five-year-old on a good day”). A bratty kid by day and a wannabe porn star by night? Fucking excellent.

Being the woman whom men want to conquer, to claim, is a liability. I learned that the hard way. But it’s dawning on me that sometimes, in the right circumstances, it’s a breathtakingly powerful currency.

‘I think I’m loving High Class Hooker Barbie even more than Sexy Secretary Barbie,’

I suspect that’s what he is: a big, sexy brute in a beautiful suit.

‘The way you fucking milk me,’ he rasps. ‘Jesus fuck, it should be fucking illegal. I can feel every fucking tremor.’

Even if I feel like a little boy who agreed to share his toy and regrets it instantly. I want to stomp my feet. He’s playing with my toy and I want it back. Her back, I mean.

Right now I’m not the big boss man prowling through his corner office in extortionate tailoring. I’m just Brendan.

‘I’ve never been so blown away by a woman’s beauty as much as I was that time I first saw you. Never.’ And every time I’ve seen you since.

‘Look at me,’ he orders, and I open them. ‘If I’m giving this to you, I get to see it break you. Understand?’

Everything about her is objectively a knockout. But the strangest thing happens—my instant reaction is that she’s WRONG WRONG WRONG. Just like that. It’s like my body is screaming at me: No! This isn’t what you want! You only like Marlowe’s body, remember? Wrong woman!

He slides his hands around her waist and gazes at her like she’s the living embodiment of Our Lady, who was definitely his favourite woman before Athena came along. It’s the way Marlowe deserves to have me look at her. It’s the way I should have looked at her this entire time, except that I’ve been a big, hairy coward.

The thing is, I trust this version of Brendan. I trust most versions of him.

He drowns out everything else: the exhaustion, the worry, the isolation, the noise.

‘I got scared, which sounds even more pathetic when I say it out loud. God. I felt us growing closer, and it freaked me the hell out, so I thought I’d put some distance between us. I was livid that you were buggering off on jury duty, because I knew I’d miss you, and it made me act out. I told myself I should put up some boundaries and remember what our relationship was supposed to be.’ He pauses. ‘Rather than what it was actually becoming, which was something real.’

I wish I could run my fingers through her still-damp hair and tell her what I’ve grown to accept over the past twenty-four hours—that she is my whole world, and it terrifies me. That I will move heaven and earth to make her happy and to keep her daughter safe. That she holds all the power, every last drop of it, and I never stood a chance with her, only I was too scaredy-cat to admit it to myself.

‘I’m not going to tell you how I feel just yet, because I’ve done such a shitty job of showing you so far. But remember how it was in my bed after we played the piano?’ I nod wordlessly. ‘That’s how I feel. But you don’t have enough datapoints yet, you just have a few moments of me not behaving like an absolute dick. So I’m going to give you more, a lot more, because I want a future with you, love. And with your permission, I’d like to spend time with Tabs too when we get back. I want to get to know her better and prove to you that I’m worthy of giving you both the future you deserve.’

‘Please don’t say anything,’ he begs. ‘Don’t write me off before I’ve had a chance to prove it to the two of you. There are no shortcuts here, I know that. But I promise I’ll put the work in, because it won’t even feel like work. It’ll feel like a privilege. I know how I feel about you, love, but I know you’d never let a man in if you weren’t completely convinced that he’d make a good father figure to Tabs. And quite right, too. ‘But I know what I want, and what I want is to give the two of you everything you deserve. Forever. So please, just give me a chance.’

He’ll probably be telling himself that he wants to be your knight in shining armour, to swoop in and save you both. But don’t be fooled for a moment, because I’m quite certain it’ll be you two who save him.’

‘Listen to me,’ he whispers, his fingers playing through my hair. ‘The only way I’m going anywhere is if you tell me to. In case you haven’t noticed, I’m all in. I know I messed up really, really badly and treated you like—well, like you never should have been treated, and I’m so fucking sorry. I’ll never stop being sorry. But I need you to know that the only thing I care about in life is your wellbeing and Tabby’s, and I want to stick around. I want to be there for you at times like this, and at happy times too. The whole shebang.’ He pauses, his face beseeching. ‘Because I am stupid levels of in love with you. Stupid levels.’

‘I love you,’ I whisper. ‘I trust you. I know that if I tell you to stop, you will always, always stop. But you promised me once that if I begged you not to stop, you wouldn’t. So please, don’t stop, because I need you.’

‘I’m good for absolutely nothing in this life but making you happy. Nothing. So let me do that for you. Because I’m yours.’

Brendan Sullivan may adore his construction firm and his LEGO room, but it seems building a fairytale life for the two women he loves is his new favourite passion project. And he’s good at it. He’s really, really good at it.