Vivacity (Seraph #3)

Chapter 1

Ethan

From afar, she is entirely perfect.

Plenty of things are, in fairness.

People.

Relationships.

Lives.

Not much stands up to close scrutiny, though. Most things that look flawless from a distance are, in fact, ugly, stained, with flaws so deep they act like gangrene. Like rot.

And even if she is perfect, she’s deep in animated conversation with my former executive assistant, Talia, who’s probably telling her at this moment that I am like gangrene, so there’s that.

‘What do you think?’ asks the woman by my side, who has undoubtedly earned every penny of her commission from me recently.

Having had three executive assistants walk out on me this past year, I’ve tasked Camille with finding me a fourth.

I’m sure she’d cheerfully wring my neck if she wasn’t so consummately professional.

‘I’d like to meet her.’

I won’t give Camille any more than that. In her role as CEO of the elite agency Seraph, she’s as skilled at finding the perfect candidate as any MI5 recruiter, so she doesn’t need me to spoon-feed her.

She doesn’t need to know that there’s one word I’d ascribe to the woman I’m watching across the roof terrace, or that that word is lush.

She is lush. She’s a fucking rainforest, all curves and hair and eyes, in a way that’s unapologetic to the point of being almost indecent.

She’s not sleek and lean like Talia, or Talia’s two predecessors, or my ex-wife, come to that.

She’s abundant, and perhaps that’s what I need.

Perhaps I need someone so all-consuming that they drown out the emptiness simply by virtue of their presence. Their sheer, glorious physicality.

‘That can be arranged,’ Camille murmurs. She lays a hand lightly, fleetingly on the sleeve of my jacket. ‘Give me a moment.’

I watch her walk across the buzzing roof terrace of my hotel towards the woman who’s captured my attention.

Sophia.

It’s a lyrical, exotic name, and it strikes me as perfect for that little temptress. I already know she’s thirty-two years old, Greek, a member of the prominent Petrakis family, and that she’s been working for another Greek shipping tycoon for the past few years, Thaddeus Karavitis.

While the sensitive nature of the Seraph EAs’ roles usually necessitates NDAs—these beautiful, highly educated women are paid handsomely to fuck us on demand as well as run our corporate lives—Sophia and Karavitis have been unashamedly public.

Never mind that he’s well into his sixties and in possession of a wife and four grown-up children.

It’s just lucky for me that he’s apparently retiring from both shipping and philandering.

Also lucky for me is that, while Talia or any of my other former Seraph EAs will likely provide Sophia with the most devastating character assassination of me as a boss, they can’t in good conscience complain that I short-changed them on the other key element of our relationships.

Because I am very, very good at fucking.

I sip my champagne as Camille kisses the other two women on both cheeks.

There’s a discreet incline of her dark head in my direction that has Sophia locking eyes with me across the crowded space.

Talia’s probably looking, too, but I have no time for her anymore.

I don’t know Sophia, but, given the shit Talia’s presumably talking about me, I would have expected her look to convey something ranging from wariness to open hostility.

I spot neither.

Instead, her mouth twists.

She’s amused, possibly triumphant, at my having summoned her.

I’m not sure, although I am sure that it’s precisely the kind of look that would get her a resounding slap on that lovely round bottom if she was in my employ.

While I find a lack of respect distasteful, restoring that respect is very much to my taste.

I stand, impassive, as she and Camille make their way over to me.

She’s in an electric blue body-con dress that I know from past experience is Hervé Léger.

While my ex-wife had them in every shade of beige and used them, as far as I could see, to make herself as small and appropriate and invisible as possible, Sophia appears to be aiming for the exact opposite.

Objective smashed.

Tits. Hips. Legs. Her cleavage is a sumptuous ravine men likely don’t survive, though there would be worse ways to go, surely.

She doesn’t walk so much as sashay, and I swear my fellow guests part for her.

She’s a goddess. It’s as if the Aegean Sea took one look at Sophia Vergara, said oh, please, and spat out its very own bombshell upon its shores.

Her eyes stay fixed on mine as she approaches, and I’m oblivious to Camille’s chic austerity beside her. That same smile, private yet triumphant, is playing on her brightly painted mouth, and I have the uncomfortable impression of having played right into her hands by summoning her over.

Truly, I’d rather she thought I was monstrous than the remotest bit predictable. It’s that revelation that has me pushing back my shoulders and widening my stance.

This is my fucking hotel, and I’m no one’s foregone conclusion.

The two women stop in front of me, and I feign impassiveness as Sophia openly checks me out. I’m not sure why that irks me—after all, if I’m assessing her for her carnal potential, then it makes sense that she’d want to assess me, too.

Perhaps it’s that I prefer more awe and less cockiness on a woman’s face when she does.

‘Mr Kingsley, meet Sophia Petrakis,’ Camille murmurs.

I don’t tear my eyes away from Sophia. ‘Thanks. I’ll take it from here.’

As she slinks off, no doubt to broker another lucrative deal between one of my business associates and one of her seraphim, Sophia extends her hand.

‘Charmed, Mr Kingsley.’ Her accent is cut glass, but there’s a sarcastic inflection I don’t much care for.

I take her hand—slim, warm, soft—and shake. ‘It’s Ethan. How do you do.’

Observing her from less than a metre away is quite the experience, and it serves to underscore my first impression: that this woman is indeed lush.

Her skin is tanned an even olive; her coral-coloured mouth is ripe; her brown eyes are huge and thick-lashed and half-hidden under a very long, very feathery fringe, the effect of which is alluring and coquettish and all sorts of other things that randomly chopped segments of hair have no business being.

At least it’s keeping my gaze off her tits.

For now.

‘Beautiful hotel, Ethan,’ she says, breaking eye contact to glance at the stunning roof terrace with its waterfalls and ancient potted olive trees and panoramic views sweeping from the Houses of Parliament to the London Eye and beyond.

‘Thank you.’

‘I hear you’ve been on quite the tear with assistants this year,’ she muses, toying with the cocktail stick in her martini.

She holds it up to her lovely mouth and sucks an olive off the end, looking back up at me through those eyelashes and that hair.

She’s watching for my reaction—though whether that’s to her provocative comment or her little oral teaser, I’m unclear.

‘It’s unfortunate.’ I slide my free hand into my pocket. ‘None of them were the right fit.’ I linger on the double entendre of that final word.

There’s a flash of something in her dark eyes as she swallows the olive. She strikes me as the type of woman who takes everything as a challenge. ‘Is that a fact?’

‘None of them had what it took to succeed as my EA.’

‘Which is… what, exactly? Masochistic tendencies? A teflon coating? Wait—a degradation kink?’

So Talia has dished the dirt. ‘Resilience. Backbone.’

‘Right. Of course. I’m sure it was they who were lacking.’

If there’s a happy medium between the seraphim who behave like a wet ladies’ blouse at the slightest sign of pressure and those who are snarky little smart arses, then Camille hasn’t done me the courtesy of serving those Goldilocks candidates up to me yet.

It’s only my dentist’s voice in my head that stops me from grinding my teeth in frustration.

‘I need someone who’s unbreakable. Anything else is a spectacular waste of my time.’

This woman is not destined to play poker in her lifetime. The distaste on her face is palpable.

‘Funny. From what I’ve heard, I’d have thought you’d enjoy breaking people. Or at least breaking them in.’

‘I enjoy showing them who’s boss. But I need them whole and fully functional for my purposes.’

‘No time for broken things,’ she muses. ‘Got it. You know, you really should be more careful what you wish for.’

I narrow my eyes at her. What the fuck is that supposed to mean?