Chapter 10 Sophia
Sophia
My new workplace may be soulless, but I have to admit it has a certain stark beauty: the benefit of joining a hotel empire known for its sleek, minimalist aesthetics.
The secret to successful minimalism, of course, lies in the quality of the fixtures and furnishings.
Take that lovely, obliging slab of marble upon which my new boss railed me last week.
I suspect no expense was spared in procuring that.
I suspect a thousand slabs of Italian marble were inspected before Ethan’s designer pronounced that one just right for her exacting client.
It’s the same with everything else in this cavernous office suite.
My office is next to Ethan’s with a convenient interconnecting door.
The white bookshelves are empty, something I intend to change quickly, and the sculptural glass-topped desk has been buffed to an inch of its life.
No grimy fingerprints here. It’s empty aside from a sleek monitor, wireless keyboard, and phone console: all top of the range.
Everything is perfectly tasteful, frightfully expensive, and utterly bland. The only flash of interest, of colour, in this place will come from moi.
No problems there.
It makes me all the gladder that I’ve chosen to wear my new Roksanda dress. It’s a ruthlessly tailored confection of candy pink with a red-lined cape thingy. Never let it be said that I’m a believer in understatement.
My day is off to a good start. I nailed Connections on the Tube with zero errors and smugly sent my results through to Athena, my Connections nemesis.
That she made an error—it looks like she fell for the red herring—has made my morning all the sweeter.
We may be besties, but we’re disgustingly competitive with each other on an intellectual front, and I wouldn’t have it any other way.
In any case, it’s a nice win with which to start my first day on the job, and it feels auspicious.
When I sashay through the connecting door to greet my new lord and master, he looks every inch the king of the underworld.
Hades himself had more flair than this guy.
Today he’s in a palest grey shirt and dark grey trousers.
Not a speck of colour. Not a hair out of place.
And, much as it pains me to admit it, he pulls off the exact same design rule as his office does: when everything is this high calibre, there’s no need for details or distractions.
Because he’s fucking perfect, even if he’s positively vibrating with stress.
‘Good. You’re here. Shut the door so we can get the most important thing out of the way first.’
Fun fact. When Camille polled the seraphim recently, she found that every single one of us had some sort of sexual encounter with our new bosses before lunch on the first day of our employment. These billionaires are as hungry for sex as they are for money and power, it seems.
And I’m so up for it. I’m so up for being his sexy stress ball.
He strides towards me, hands in his pockets, gaze fixed longingly on my mouth, and I allow myself to drink in his austere beauty.
He’s all eyes and jaw and cheekbones, hair combed carefully off his face and his shirt collar, with its single undone button, the perfect frame for his Adam’s apple and the hollow below.
His shirt is tailored so perfectly to his torso that it makes me think this guy never allows his weight to deviate by so much as a pound.
He probably monitors it with the laser focus of a jockey or a boxer.
The certain knowledge that getting naked with him is in my near future is an anticipatory pleasure so great it takes my breath away.
I’m smiling at him when he stops abruptly in front of me and gestures at the seat in front of his desk—the one he occupied as he watched me strip.
‘Have a seat.’
It’s definitely not a request. Okay then. Even by his standards, he seems extra pissy this morning, and I wonder what’s crawled up his arse over the weekend.
I head over and sink into the chair, crossing my legs alluringly. Ethan doesn’t go around to his side, instead standing next to me and turning the huge monitor so I have a clear view of it. There’s a Zoom call live with several suits, all at their desks.
What the fuck? I didn’t have Ethan down as an exhibitionist, but if he wants to fuck me over his desk while his pals watch, I’m game.
Ethan unmutes us and hinges forward, planting his palms on the marble. ‘Thanks for holding. I’m with my new executive assistant, Sophia Petrakis. Sophia, these gentlemen are from our banking team at Loeb. We’re in the early stages of a large transaction, and I need to get you wall-crossed asap.’
My years in investment banking have familiarised me with the intricacies of M&A and of the wall-crossing process.
With any merger or acquisition or other material transaction, especially one involving companies whose stocks are publicly traded, strict Chinese walls must exist to separate those with the knowledge of market-sensitive information from those who buy and sell stocks.
So when someone is brought over the wall—i.e.
given access to this private information—it has to be rigorously documented.
Even as my pussy mourns this delay of sexy times, my business brain kicks into gear at the promise of being let in on a juicy secret. Was this the “work crisis” he alluded to last week in our interview?
I lean forward and address the guys on the screens. I swear one of them is staring straight at my tits. ‘So what’s the transaction?’
Ethan answers for them, and I crane my neck to look up at him. So near and yet so far… from being railed. ‘Last week, we proposed a friendly takeover to the board of The Montague Group following its recent share price weakness.’
My eyebrows shoot up in surprise. I haven’t seen Theo or his brother since I’ve been back, but the devastating planning setbacks they’re suffering have been all over the financial press. ‘Got it.’
He continues curtly. ‘They spent this weekend holed up in talks, and they let us know late last night that they’ve rejected our proposal outright… so now we go full hostile.’
I sit back in my chair.
Holy shit.
Miles Montague must be spitting fire. The Montagues do not hold the Kingsleys in high regard.
‘But you won’t announce it yet,’ I hazard as I process this information. ‘Not until you hit the threshold.’
The UK’s financial regulator, the FCA, allows companies to build a stake in another company of up to three percent before triggering the requirement to disclose this publicly.
The second the market gets wind of an acquisition, hedge funds and risk arbitrage funds will go crazy, shovelling up the target’s stock as a bet that the buyer will have to pay an even higher price and they’ll lock in a profit.
So it stands to reason that the more stock the Kingsleys can accumulate on the quiet before that happens, the better—and cheaper—for them.
He nods curtly. ‘Precisely.’
‘We’re already at nought-point-four percent as of the close on Friday,’ one of the bankers announces with a self-satisfied smirk. ‘And our traders will continue to maintain a decent share of the trading volume over the next couple of days, so—’
‘Hang on.’ Ethan’s voice is quiet, but, beside me, his entire body has gone ominously still. Stiff. ‘Who authorised them to start buying?’
‘Richard sent through the instructions on Thursday,’ the banker says, the smirk instantly replaced with a nervous frown.
‘Of course. Keep me posted as you buy. I want updates twice a day. Now, let’s get this wall-crossing submitted.’
I turn my attention to the iPad lying on the desk in front of me and sign the document electronically. Loeb’s Compliance department now has a record of when I gained access to this privileged and highly sensitive information.
As soon as the call concludes, Ethan pushes off the desk and rounds it, sinking into his own chair. He hits a button on his console. ‘Topher. Ask my father to come in right away, would you?’
I survey him from across the desk. He’s grabbed the arms of his chair and is white-knuckling them, his jaw working.
‘There’d be a lot of cost efficiencies to come out of a deal like that,’ I muse aloud, not taking my eyes off him.
‘One of the many reasons they’ve rejected our advances, I’ll warrant,’ he says shortly. It makes sense. The Montagues have a widespread reputation in the industry for treating their people like family. They can’t possibly want the Kingsleys wading in and giving thousands of employees the axe.
‘Do you think the rejection was a knee-jerk reaction? Because no matter how much they hate the idea of you acquiring them, it would make a lot of sense.’
His tone is even. ‘If it is, then they’re guilty of putting their own interests above their shareholders. But no matter. We approached them in good faith, and they’ve insisted on doing things the hard way. Now the market gets to decide.’
I screw up my face, trying to remember the Montague ownership structure. ‘How much does the family still own?’
‘Thirty-eight percent.’
‘Yikes.’ Yikes is right. Shares equal votes. If the family only controls around a third of the voting rights, then the Montagues have no power over whether the Kingsleys can acquire them. Like Ethan says, every shareholder will get to decide for himself or herself.
Obviously, when you give up your majority stake in what was once a family-owned company, you also give up your autonomy in exchange for the money your new shareholders give you, but it must still rankle badly.
For the Montagues, that is. Something tells me that acquiring them isn’t a new idea for the Kingsleys.
Ethan doesn’t comment. Instead, his eyes flicker to the door and his stress levels appear to ramp up a notch, if that’s possible.
On instinct, I turn around in my seat and am confronted with the Sexy Daddy Ghost of Christmas Future.
Oh sirree—these Kingsley men age well. Richard Kingsley is a total SILF (Senior I’d Like to Fuck).
He’s probably pushing seventy, but boy, has he still got it.
While I think about it, the ageing-well proof is yet another silver lining around the cloud of Ethan’s Raging Arsehole factor that seemed so indisputable when I first met him.
‘And who is this?’ Ethan Senior positively purrs, advancing into the room.
On second thoughts, he looks entirely too self-satisfied.
And is a three-piece suit really necessary?
Nobody in this country wears three-piece suits anymore unless they’re at a wedding—or Ascot.
And even then, it’s morning suits all the way.
A three-piece pinstripe suit in one’s place of work seems gratuitous. Aggressively so.
‘This is Sophia Petrakis, my new EA. Sophia—my father, Richard Kingsley.’ Ethan grunts out the introduction reluctantly.
I sense he resents having social niceties interrupt the beef he clearly has with Daddy Dearest, who’s apparently been moving the hostile bid along without notifying his son, who’s the fucking CEO. Tut, tut.
‘Charmed, dear.’ Richard stops in front of me and holds out his hand as I stand and shake it. I don’t miss the naked appreciation of my appearance in his eyes.
‘How do you do.’ I don’t give him more. I’ll take my cues from my boss, and right now I see no reason to pander to Richard.
‘She’s wall-crossed. And you’ve been buying stock. Since Thursday.’
I sink back into my chair, angling it for a full view of both men as Ethan glares daggers at his father across his desk.
‘Someone had to get in front of this, and it was clear you weren’t going to.’ Richard slides his hands into the pockets of his suit trousers, looking entirely too smug. ‘I could have told you we’d end up going hostile.’
‘It wasn’t your role to make that call. I’m the CEO. I’m leading this transaction.’
‘I’m still the Chairman of the Board and the founder of this company.’
‘I was negotiating in good faith. Miles called this—he accused me of buying up their shares in the open market. Jesus Christ.’
Ethan is shaking now, with ill-disguised fury and what looks like genuine distress.
My first, private reaction upon hearing about the deal was pity for the Montagues.
Ethan may come across as an aggressive bastard who has no qualms about going after what he wants, but this enlightening little exchange suggests he has integrity and scruples, at the very least.
He may want a fight, but it sounds like he wants a fair fight.
Unlike his darling papa.
Richard’s voice stays perfectly charming, perfectly even—for my benefit, I suspect.
‘This may be a rare opportunity to acquire our most complementary competitor, but that doesn’t mean I want to pay any price.
Not buying up stock as soon as we approached them is nothing short of na?ve, my boy.
I for one intend this deal to go smoothly.
We want to show the market—and the Montagues—that they’re dealing with professionals.
We get this done, and we’re far less susceptible as a target.
Far less. I didn’t build this empire to see us taken out and have some ghastly Americans put their name on the door. ’
Bingo. If Ethan’s an Eight Enneagram, I suspect his father’s a raging Three.
I mean, I’ve only spent a minute with the man, but I’d put money on it.
Three—AKA The Achiever, or sometimes The Performer.
Both fit. Everything about this guy seems performative.
He builds and he builds, and as his empire swells, so does his ego.
Like I said, I’d put money on it.
Most of the seraphim are Threes, actually, with my darling Athena the most Three-ish Three I know: Driven. Outward-looking. Image-conscious. But while many of my girls seek their worth through validation and recognition, they’re at the healthier, more well-adjusted end of the spectrum.
And as for this dude?
Hmm.
He’s looking more and more like the kind of Three who’d run his own son over with a bus to get what he wants. Threes can’t help looking to others, but I suspect this guy is all image and no substance—an impressive shell that’s entirely hollow.
Fascinating.
And pretty shitty for Ethan, if my instincts are right.