Page 1 of Vivacity
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 thatIam 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 perfectcandidate 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 islush.
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’tin good conscience complain that I short-changed them on the other key element of our relationships.
Because I am very,verygood 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 Iamsure 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, saidoh, 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 paintedmouth, and I have the uncomfortable impression of having played right into her hands by summoning her over.
