32. Brendan
CHAPTER 32
Brendan
M y shower is quick and perfunctory.
I crank off the torrent of water and towel myself down impatiently before moving through to the dressing room that sits between my bathroom and bedroom.
I find any sort of self-processing, from showering to brushing my teeth, boring as hell and a total waste of time.
I’m pulling a t-shirt on over my still-damp torso when I hear it.
To call it merely singing would be like calling Mark just a dog .
It’s soaring and operatic and spectacular, and it’s accompanied by my piano.
Unless Katherine Jenkins has surreptitiously entered my home while I was in the shower and set up camp, this sensory heaven must be my assistant singing.
I pull on some clean running shorts and pad out of my room in as much of a trance as a kid bewitched by the Pied Piper.
If I’m honest, it feels like the music is pulling me along.
I’m a sailor, sucked in by a siren’s call.
I stand at the top of the stairs and I take in the sight, the sound, in amazement.
Marlowe is sitting at my Steinway, her back to me.
She’s pulled all of that long blonde hair out of its perky ponytail and it cascades down her back in untamed waves.
Her back is straight, but she’s swaying.
Her fingers are featherlight as they move over the piano keys.
She’s singing some version of Ave Maria —not the Schubert one, but I can’t recall which.
It’s the one my sister had performed at her wedding, I think.
Mark, wise man that he is, is lying on the floor beside her, head resting on his paws, gazing up at her in awe.
Her voice is extraordinary.
Extraordinary . Her speaking voice is lovely, sure—feminine and melodic—but her singing voice is rich and pure, with a gravitas I can’t articulate.
It packs a serious punch, filling the vast room.
As the hymn progresses and the tension builds, I find myself gripping the balustrade.
Marlowe sings the Sancta Maria part, her voice soaring, making every note sound as effortless as breathing.
Every Catholic knows the Hail Mary by heart.
It’s a hymn we’ve all recited thousands upon thousands of times, most of us without ever thinking about what the words mean.
But, even in Latin, Marlowe sounds like she’s praying.
Her voice is nothing short of beseeching, the lofty vocals of her nunc et in hora desperate, and I find my eyes pricking with tears.
It’s the weirdest feeling, but it’s like I’ve trespassed upon her as she prays hard for something she wants very, very badly.
I stand here and let the music wash over me as I watch the performer below turn my home into a concert hall.
Marlowe is an impressive woman.
Of that, there is no doubt, even if I can, in my more introspective moments, admit that I’m guilty of taking her for granted and, worse, objectifying her.
Her looks, her presence, have affected me from the first moment I laid eyes on her.
Since stepping foot in my office, she’s overachieved.
She’s an extremely capable assistant and a great lay.
But this is something else entirely.
I may not be a classical music aficionado.
I may approach evenings at the opera with the same horror as the prospect of root canal.
But I have no doubt that what I’m bearing witness to is art and alchemy and God-given talent, the splendour of which has my skin breaking out in goose bumps and my breath stalling in my lungs and my heart swelling.
There are gifts—and there’s greatness.
I let that final Amen in her flawless soprano wash over me.
I never, ever want this private performance to end.
But when her voice fades off, my need for more has me heading for the staircase.
‘Please sing it again,’ I say, practically running down the stairs.
‘Please. That was incredible.’
She turns to me, and I can tell I’ve taken her by surprise.
Her eyes are wide, like she’s forgotten where she is, and, as I approach, the tears tracking down her cheeks glimmer in the morning light.
‘Please,’ I beg her, stopping just short of the piano.
‘Sing it again. Just pretend I’m not here and don’t hold back.
’
She considers, then nods and lets her eyes drift closed, and the haunting melody starts up again.
I may have told her to pretend I wasn’t here, but I don’t take my eyes off her for a second.
The woman not only looks like an angel; she sings like an angel.
She’s also a performer.
She’s captivated me in two minutes flat.
I have no doubt she would captivate anyone who watched and listened to her sing.
It strikes me that she sings the first few lines of the hymn a little more self-consciously.
She doesn’t falter, but her voice is fainter than it was.
Then she finds her stride and goes for it.
She’s probably already forgotten I’m here.
Marlowe is beautiful every single day, but when she sings, she lights up.
Like this, in her casually sexy cycling gear, sitting at my piano with the sunlight casting a halo around her hair, she commands every ounce of my attention.
As she concludes the hymn once again with that breathtaking, transcendent Amen , I fight the urge to tell her again like a little boy who’s just watched something so cool he never wants it to stop.
She’s not a performing monkey.
She’s a very, very special person, a person whom, I suspect, I’ve repeatedly underestimated so that I can treat her as an object and a convenience.
When she opens her eyes and smiles self-consciously at me, she finds me staring at her.
‘I don’t know what to say.
That was… beautiful.
So moving.’
‘Thank you,’ she murmurs.
‘May I?’ I ask, gesturing at the wide piano stool.
‘Of course!’ She shifts to the side so I can sit beside her.
‘Please tell me you play.’
She says the words in a rush, as if she’s trying to brush off whatever awkwardness she perceives from having just performed for a man who had no clue she could sing.
A man who should have paid far more attention to her CV, because I knew she was a choral scholar at school, for Christ’s sake.
I give her a self-deprecating smile.
‘I do, but I’m not good at classical stuff.
’
She grins at me.
‘Thank God. If you owned a Steinway and couldn’t play it, I might have to strangle you.
’
‘I’m not that much of a wanker.
’ That said, I may enjoy playing my piano, but it’s guaranteed that I don’t appreciate it enough.
Not the way Marlowe so clearly just appreciated the hell out of it.
‘You can come over and play anytime,’ I tell her.
‘It’s no hardship for me to have the odd private concert.
’
‘Thank you.’ She tilts her head to one side and plays a couple of wistful one-handed chords.
‘What kind of stuff do you play?’
‘You really want to know?’
‘Absolutely.’
‘Alright then. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.
Move up.’ I nudge her over further on the stool and let my fingers attack the keys, going straight into Great Balls of Fire.
She lets out a gasp of surprise as I launch into the lyrics, channelling my inner Jerry Lee Lewis, and deliver a sweet glissando.
When I hit the chorus, she joins in.
It’s clear she doesn’t know the lyrics of the verses, so I keep going with my little one-man show, giving it all my swagger.
I hunch my shoulders; I pull back dramatically; I make my voice growl; I hit the keys so hard you’d think I was trying to punch through the keyboard.
It couldn’t be more different from her beautiful, pared back version of Ave Maria, but she asked for a Brendan Sullivan Special and I’m damned if I’m not going to deliver.
By the time I finish, she’s laughing and clapping her hands beside me.
She twists around to face me.
‘Oh my God! That was so good!’
‘It was a party piece,’ I tell her.
‘A good one, but just a bit of fun. It’s nothing like your talent.
’
She shakes her head.
‘It was amazing. When did you learn to play like that?’
‘ Top Gun,’ I confess.
‘My parents were on me to learn the piano when I was little, but I found it really boring. Trying to get a kid with undiagnosed and untreated ADHD to practise his chords? Not happening. But when I saw Goose play this on Top Gun , I was like, that’s pretty fucking cool.
I remember I marched out to the stables and told my dad that I’d learn the piano as long as I could only learn rock and roll songs.
He agreed, and here we are.
’
‘You must be great at parties,’ she says.
‘I’m great at parties, love.
’ I brush the stray locks of blonde hair off her shoulder and stare at her bare skin.
‘But what you have is a very, very special talent. So what the fuck you’re doing being my assistant and taking fucking meeting notes, I have no idea.
Why the hell didn’t you pursue a career in this?
’
I glance up at her face, but she turns her head, gazing out the window.
‘It’s not an easy career.
You’re very kind, but I had no guarantee I’d make it.
And the lifestyle is hard—long hours, travelling, really unpredictable.
Life got in the way, and my priorities changed, you know?
So now it’s just a hobby.
’ She looks down at the piano and smooths her fingers over the keys.
‘And it’s a very nice hobby when I get to play one of these.
’
‘But you love it.’ It’s not a question.
Finally, she raises her eyes to meet mine.
‘I love it,’ she whispers.
‘Do you ever sing for other people?’
‘Just my d—’ She stops abruptly and blinks, her face going instantly red.
What the fuck?
‘Your what?’
She stares at me as if she’s choking or something.
It’s weird. ‘Just my dog,’ she says finally on a big exhale.
‘Tabby.’
‘Yeah. Exactly.’
‘Lucky dog.’
We’re silent for a moment, taking each other in.
I’m no angel, but I’ve never found any woman as arresting as Marlowe.
She’s the real deal: gorgeous and smart and wonderful, with more talent in her little finger than most people could dream of possessing.
What’s growing rapidly clear is that she has depths I haven’t begun to plumb.
I let my gaze drop to her mouth.
I had plans for us to work through my diary for the rest of the month, but those will have to wait.
‘Can I kiss you?’ I ask her.
My voice sounds gruff to my ears.
‘Of course,’ she says.
She looks a little surprised that I’ve asked.
Or maybe she’s surprised that I’m considering a kiss rather than just bending her over my desk.
I suppose at work I’m a bit more presumptuous, but it would feel weird to jump on her here in my home without warning, right after we’ve been discussing her musical talent.
The rules feel different here.
She isn’t buttoned up and glamorous today.
She’s soft and supple and undone with that cascade of long, silky hair and this thin athletic gear and all that gorgeous skin on display.
Her arms are bare. Her midriff.
Her chest. It’s all good, because I feel undone like this, too.
I’m in shorts and a t-shirt, barefoot in what is honestly more of a trophy pad than a real home.
Right now I’m not the big boss man prowling through his corner office in extortionate tailoring. I’m just Brendan.