Chapter 2
Sophia
My toxic trait is that I psychoanalyse everyone I meet.
Before someone has finished shaking my hand, I’ve mapped them on a mega-matrix of Enneagram-meets-IFS-meets-Meyers-Briggs-meets-Clifton-Strengths-meets-attachment-style-meets-dominant-nervous-system-state.
It’s annoying and presumptuous and, God help me, I fucking love my psychoanalytical crack.
I suspect it’s more a product of my personality than my psychology degree.
The upshot of my private party piece is that it gives me, I think, more insight and therefore more compassion than your average Joe when it comes to my fellow humans.
I fervently believe that the majority of us are trudging through life buried under the weight of two core fears:
I am not enough.
This situation is not safe.
In fact, I’d go so far as to say that these two can explain ninety-nine percent of human behaviour. I didn’t say they excuse it, but they definitely help me to look beyond most jackassery and see the scared child beneath it.
But.
But.
Sometimes it’s really, really hard to believe that someone isn’t just a raging arsehole.
Case in point: Mr Ethan Kingsley, to be henceforth known as Eight.
Because my instincts tell me this guy is an Enneagram Eight; I’d put money on it.
If Pixar decided to put an Enneagram spin on Inside Out next time, he’d make a fantastic Eight: The Protector, which is a more constructive take on the effective but harmful control freak concept.
An internet search might suggest he’s a Three—The Achiever—but having met the man, I now know that’s not true.
I suspect this position as CEO of Kingsley Hotels, the empire his father famously built from one corporate hotel in Canary Wharf, is less about external validation for him and more about control.
When I complimented this roof terrace a moment ago, there wasn’t a hint of pleasure in his thanks.
If anything, it was an awkward acknowledgement of the truth—that this place is objectively gorgeous.
We’re all here tonight to celebrate the opening of his fifth London hotel. The party is filled with celebrities and supermodels and high rollers, and I’m getting zero “basking” vibes from him. Whatever this guy gets off on, he’s most definitely not high on achievement right now.
I consider him as I return his verbal shot across the net with an easy backhand.
My brain is mapping him on an enormous mental whiteboard right as my eyes—and other body parts—are indulging in a leisurely perusal of the fan-fucking-tastic physical package shielding what is presumably a walking ball of unresolved trauma.
His light brown hair is perfectly styled and raked off his face.
He’s broad in the shoulders and lean everywhere—face, body—and wears his immaculate custom suit far too well.
My friend Marlowe, who enjoyed a threesome with him and her now-boyfriend this summer, wasn’t lying about the hotness factor.
But it’s the pale grey eyes that are the most arresting. They’re intense, insightful, and cold as fuck. I wonder what they do when he’s close to coming. I wonder if they burn, or if they become mere opalescent rings, swallowed up by a ravenous void of pupil.
I wouldn’t mind finding out.
His overall leanness may remind me of a predator—a panther, maybe—and his tightly wound energy is totally giving hyper-function. I bet this dude needs a truckload of orgasms to numb him out of his default nervous system state of sympathetic.
And it would definitely be a case of sex as anaesthesia for him. A quick fuck over his desk to momentarily obliterate the fear, the noise. No co-regulation through intimacy for this guy.
It’s confirmed. This lovely specimen is my toxic trait’s wet dream and possibly my lady parts’ wet dream too, both of which point to encouraging silver linings given the dominant raging arsehole factor we’re dealing with here.
So he wants full control, and he wants his assistants—and everyone else—to know exactly who’s boss at all times, but what I’m hearing is if someone can’t hack his Eight-ness at full-throttle then he’ll ditch them, because broken people are far too real and vulnerable and confronting for him to handle.
What a keeper.
He broke Talia. He broke the two Seraph assistants who came before her. He probably broke his ex-wife. And, once he’d ruined them, he didn’t want his broken toys anymore.
I’m pretty sure Taylor Swift wrote a song about that.
But he should heed my warning just now.
He really should be careful what he wishes for, because I am so emotionally healthy, so wonderfully robust, that I can take anything this controlling dickhead throws at me and then some.
The problem with him seeking out someone unbreakable, someone who’s done the work on herself and is secure within, is that she’ll take none of his dominant bullshit in the workplace.
And I’m not sure this guy is ready for how it feels when someone pushes back.
My only consolations are that he looks like that and that, in the bedroom at least, our needs will be compatible.
He can dominate me all night long. He can dominate me until the cows come home and all his burdened, exhausted, controlling bodyguard parts can breathe a sated sigh of relief and lay down their weary heads. Because I am a whore for that shit.
Literally.
I am literally a whore for that shit.
It’s the best part of the job.
‘No time for broken things,’ I muse now. ‘Got it. You know, you really should be more careful what you wish for.’
He narrows his eyes at me. ‘Meaning?’
‘Meaning that most people don’t enjoy being treated like shit. Unless they’re an actual sub, which is probably the route you should go down if you want a rewarding relationship with someone who’ll actually, willingly, submit to you with no issues.’
‘I’m not a dom.’
I roll my eyes. ‘Of course you aren’t. Look.
Talia didn’t exactly paint a rosy picture of you.
Not that it scared me off, but if you think you have tonnes of options among the seraphim right now, you’re wrong.
I’m willing to sit down with you properly and interview if you want me to.
I’m seriously good at what I do—all parts of it—and I know I can deliver.
‘But I don’t take any shit from my bosses, and I’m not prepared to suffer because you don’t understand or won’t accept what particular kind of power dynamic you need outside of the bedroom.
I won’t play the stupid fucking power games you indulged in with Talia or any of the others to get—to feel in control. Do I make myself clear?’
I stumbled there at the end. I was going to say to get your kicks, but I have enough knowledge of the crazy, miraculous universe that is the human nervous system to understand that control for him is likely to be less about his kicks—or kinks—and more about his need for safety.
When he’s in control, he feels safe. When he’s not, he probably feels existentially endangered.
However complex Talia tells me he is, it’s probably as simple as that.
Still, it’s not like I minced my words. He deserves the caveat emptor speech if he’s thinking of dipping his toe into the warm waters of the Sophia Petrakis ocean.
Maybe I’m mixing my metaphors. Maybe that speech was a shark warning.
He opens his mouth to reply. It’s a lovely mouth, plushly at odds with the austere, repressed vibe that the rest of him is rocking, and I can’t help but imagine how soft and supple it would feel between my legs. Mmm.
Except whatever retort he’s about to serve up is interrupted by a server approaching us with a tray of what looks like delicious chicken satay mini skewers.
I grab one, but Ethan stiffens and fixes him with a glare whose icy blast could freeze hell over.
‘No used sticks on the tray,’ he snaps. ‘This is basic stuff.’
I observe this micro-interaction with the same fascination David Attenborough would glean from watching two ants shagging (if ants do, indeed, shag).
One of the subtypes of all Enneagrams is the Social subtype, and I have a feeling our Ethan is not a Social Eight.
His Type Eight may be known as The Protector, but this dude is not leading for connection or communal responsibility.
Nope. I suspect he’s leading purely for control.
Which means if one skewer-shaped cog in his predictable, seamless machine malfunctions, then Ethan, god bless him, believes that chaos will reign.
His form of management is probably fantastic if you’re a hotel guest. Not a single patron will suffer from misplaced skewers or missing mini-shampoos or a lack of hospital corners on his beds. Every detail in a Kingsley hotel will be just so.
It’s just probably less conducive to healthy functioning, you know, as a human being.
When the poor server has scurried away, tail between his legs, Ethan turns back to me. I’m wondering how he’s going to respond to the little preemptive bollocking I just gave him when he surprises me.
‘Come downstairs with me after my speech and we can make sure we’re compatible in the bedroom first. You can help me take one of our new suites for a test run.’
So that’s what he took away. Oh boy. I smile sweetly at him. ‘It’s adorable that you think I’d give the goods away for free. Nobody likes a tight-arse, Ethan.’
His eyes drift to my cleavage, which is in fighting form tonight. I could probably have smuggled a full-size revolver or a household pet in here between my boobs and no one would have been the wiser.
‘On the contrary.’ He drags his gaze back up to my face with apparent difficulty. ‘I very much enjoy a tight arse.’
I reward his nerdy little anal pun with a genuine smile, and his face softens a little at the sight of it. He really is very fucking fine.
‘You’d have to pay for that, too.’ My voice has gone all husky, dammit.
I know far too many women who’ve had the pleasure of being fucked by this man, which is to say I’m under no illusion that this part of the job would be anything other than a total fiesta.
‘Look, if you want to do this, we do it by the book, okay? Give Camille a call. I’m in Greece next week for my leaving bash, then I’m back in London and we can set something up.
Thank you for a lovely party.’ I go to turn away and find Talia for a juicy post-mortem, but he takes a hurried step forward.
‘Wait.’ He grabs my wrist, his warm fingers encircling it in a grip that’s obnoxiously entitled, and I’m pretty sure my thong grows a little damp spot. ‘I want first dibs on you.’
My face heats—not, unfortunately, with anger. ‘I’m not an auction prize, Ethan.’
‘No. But you are a prize.’
I swallow. I don’t even know why he’s pursuing this, unless it’s to prove a point.
It’s not like we’d be a good fit, personality-wise.
‘It’s not a case of first come, first served.
I’ve been in the same role for four years.
I’m going to take my time evaluating my options. You’ll have to sell the job to me.’
He stands perfectly still, perfectly firm. The man has gravitas seeping out of his pores. He radiates quiet authority, which is by far the sexiest kind.
‘Believe me,’ he murmurs, ‘I’ll sell the job to you. Just you wait.’