15. Sophia
Sophia
It’s nine on Saturday morning when I show up on Ethan’s very nice doorstep in Notting Hill.
He has an enormous pad on Elgin Crescent, just a couple of hundred metres away from the development my pal Lotta’s company built.
It’s a shame they don’t know each other, but Notting Hill’s not exactly the kind of place where you knock on someone’s door to borrow a cup of sugar, and I’m sure Ethan would find Lotta’s vivacity levels even more distasteful than he seems to find mine.
Unlike Elgin, Lotta’s modern, environmentally precocious baby, Ethan’s home is a classic, white-stuccoed Georgian villa, all generous proportions and gorgeous features.
The security detail on the gate lets me through with a smile and a nod—he’s one of the guys Ethan has on rotation—and I advance down an immaculate sandstone path.
It’s flanked by a herringbone border that divides it from the perfect front garden: tiny pure-white pebbles; discreet water feature; imported ancient olive tree for a spot of character.
I wonder if Ethan has his housekeeping team polish the pebbles. I wouldn’t put it past him.
He asked me yesterday if I’d be willing to come over and plough through some work today ahead of the meeting that the Montagues have finally agreed to next week.
‘Only deal-related stuff,’ he clarified swiftly.
The seraphim have a strict office-hours policy for the sexy stuff.
Rock-hard boundaries are critical in this career.
Usually, we have a Monday-to-Friday policy full stop to ensure that we get the necessary distance from the rigours of the job, but at crunch times like this I would never play that card.
Besides, I’m a former banker. Working all hours on a deal is in my blood and, if I’m honest, I love it.
It’s so much more fun than the boring day-to-day stuff.
A woman answers the front door. She’s dressed all in black, her greying hair tied neatly back. The housekeeper, I assume. She smiles but doesn’t make a move to introduce herself, so I do.
‘Sophia.’ I stick my hand out jauntily. ‘I’m Ethan’s new executive assistant.’
An executive assistant in fabulous burgundy-coloured leather leggings and a big black Moncler sweater, because it’s far too cold for my liking, but hey-ho.
‘I’m Susan.’ She shakes my hand. ‘I’ll show you to his study.’
The house is like a very beautiful mausoleum, the hallway a chilling, if flawless, mix of white marble floors inlaid with black borders, white walls, and a couple of seriously inaccessible sculptures—again in white marble.
A marble cantilevered staircase that I wouldn’t want to let a toddler near.
Total death trap. It’s the polar—appropriate word—opposite of the kind of hallway you’d want to come home to after a walk on a freezing cold day.
Nothing about it surprises me, knowing its owner.
Susan leads me off to the left, down a white marble corridor. She knocks briskly on a white-painted panelled door and opens it without waiting for an answer. ‘Miss Sophia here to see you,’ she announces and leaves me with a little nod that looks a lot like rather you than me.
Ethan isn’t at his desk but at the small, circular table to one side of the room, papers and a laptop scattered in front of him. To one side—Hallelujah—is a tray with a French press and a couple of coffee cups.
‘Thanks for coming,’ he says tiredly, gesturing to the chair beside him. ‘Grab a seat.’
I survey him as I take my seat. He looks weary and inscrutable and gorgeous in a pale grey cashmere sweater, his hair a mess from where he’s probably been taking his stress out on it.
It’s the strangest thing. I’ve been intimate with him in a number of ways—very intimate—and yet I feel like I don’t know him at all yet, physically speaking.
Still haven’t felt his skin properly. He hasn’t got me naked again since my interview.
Hasn’t gone down on me. He hasn’t really let himself go to town on me at all.
I wonder if he will.
I wonder when he’ll break.
‘Help yourself to coffee.’ He reaches out and draws the tray closer to us. ‘So we have a date for the meeting. Montague messaged me last night. We’re going in to present to their board on Tuesday.’
‘Wow.’ This is a turn-up for the books. ‘That’s not long.’
‘Nope. And I want to make sure our numbers are bang on. The strategy team’s sent over a load of data, but I want us to comb through it again.
I don’t want a single chink in our armour when we meet these guys.
So ideally, we get the numbers finalised today.
That gives our bankers and lawyers tomorrow and Monday to get themselves fully acquainted with the data. ’
‘Are they coming too?’ I ask in surprise. For some reason, I assumed the initial meeting would be as close to a fireside chat as possible—a way for both parties to test the waters in a tentative way before things escalate.
Clearly, I was wrong.
‘We need a united front, an indisputable show of strength. They need to know we mean business, and they all need a bloody good reminder that we’re the bigger, stronger party here. From the way Montague bawled me out over our friendly offer, it seems I need to show him who’s running this show.’
‘Got it. Makes sense.’ My tone is briskly supportive, but oh boy, is this guy armouring up. Brené Brown would have a lot to say about Eight’s brand of armoured leadership. I wonder if sneaking a copy of Dare to Lead onto his desk would be an overstep?
We work hard until lunchtime. Ethan is relentless when it comes to fine-tooth-combing through the numbers. As his stress levels ratchet up, so does his need to be on top of every single detail. I can’t deny the data looks good. The cost synergies, banker speak for job cuts, are impressive.
Miles is going to hate them.
At one on the dot, a text comes through on Ethan’s phone.
‘Lunch.’ He pushes his chair abruptly back from the table. ‘Come on, let’s eat.’
‘You don’t need to tell me twice.’ I stand and stretch, not missing the hungry way his eyes rake over my sexy leather leggings. Honestly, why won’t he just ravish me? Or ravage me? I’m not quite clear on the difference and I definitely don’t care. I just want some Ethan Kingsley-branded throw-down.
I’m a confident woman, and I assume he’s attracted to me, given his little you’re a prize speech when we first met.
But he’s paying a fortune for my services and doing very fucking little with the goods, and it genuinely makes me doubt myself.
Maybe he hired me as some kind of status symbol rather than acting from a deep physical desire?
Maybe he has buyer’s remorse. Maybe he’s regretting opting for someone like me instead of the usual lean, teeny-tiny type of women he’s gone for in the past?
Beautiful, sleek Talia with her washboard stomach and boobs so small and neat that they require little more than a pretty little lace bralet?
I don’t bloody know anymore.
‘That’s a very big sweater,’ he observes as he rises.
‘It’s big because I’m cold.’ I can’t hide my grumpiness.
‘Cold in here? You should have said.’ He looks genuinely horrified.
Yes, cold in this beautiful, frigid mausoleum, oh king of the underworld.
I shrug. ‘Cold generally. All the fucking time. I’d forgotten how much I dislike London weather.’
‘Must make a change from the playgrounds of the Med.’ His tone is distracted, though. He strides ahead, out of the room, my body temperature already forgotten as he likely grapples with whether to lead with IT or human “cost synergies” on Tuesday.
What I’m not expecting, as I follow Ethan through into a large kitchen that’s sleekly industrial enough to belong in a Michelin-starred restaurant rather than a home, is to find a tow-headed mini-Ethan slumped at the central (grey marble, you guessed it) island.
I stop dead.
‘Sophia, my son Jamie,’ Ethan says disinterestedly. ‘Jamie, this is my new executive assistant, Sophia.’
The kid looks up from his bowl of soup for a fraction of a second, interest levels in this introduction mirroring his father’s. ‘Hey.’ It’s more of a mutter than anything else.
‘Hi, Jamie. Good to meet you.’
That doesn’t get a response.
I’m a bit dumbfounded. Has he been here all morning?
You could have fooled me. Ethan hasn’t so much as glanced outside his study since I arrived at nine.
The boy looks to be a young teenager—fourteen or fifteen, maybe?
And my god is he sweet. He has his father’s eyes, only brown, and the same lightish brown hair, albeit a lot messier.
He’s wearing an oversized Westminster School hoodie—must be a clever boy—but even so I can tell that he’s still slight, all thin, gangly limbs.
Just wait until he discovers the gym and they’ll be queuing up to cast him in some British version of The Summer I Turned Pretty. I’d put money on it.
I knew Ethan had a son, but he’s mentioned him so rarely over the past week that I’d assumed he didn’t see much of him.
‘Do you live here?’ I ask Jamie.
‘It’s Dad’s weekend,’ he mutters.
‘He lives with his mum,’ Ethan clarifies.
‘Ah, I see.’
So Ethan gets Jamie, what, every other weekend? And he’s holed up in his study with me and endless spreadsheets? I realise it’s not every weekend that he’s preparing for a ten-figure hostile takeover, but that’s got to be shitty for both of them.
It’s none of my business. At least that’s what I tell myself. Still, I’ll be fascinated to see the arctic Ethan Kingsley interacting as a father. I turn to the man operating the huge industrial hob.
‘Hi! I’m Sophia. That smells amazing.’
He gives me a kind smile. He must be late fifties, with a round face and dark brown eyes. ‘Davide. Ciao. And thank you. Would you like some?’
‘I would absolutely love some, thanks.’ It looks to be a hearty minestrone—just the ticket for warming me up. Finally, something warm and comforting in this house.