Page 113 of Vivacity
She shrugs. ‘It makes me feel seen.’
‘Because Alexander Hamilton was the biggest raging Three who ever Three’d.’ If Athena personifies The Achiever Enneagram type, then that particular Founding Father blows the stereotype out of the park.
‘Exactly. I find it inspiring.’
I laugh at that. ‘Babe, you know it’s supposed to be acautionarytale, right? Like, he lost everything.’
Her expression is mulish. ‘But he achieved so much. He was willing to pay the price, although the real tragedy is that he never got to achieve everything he wanted to before he died.’
Clearly, Athena’s work on herself is not done if she thinks Threeseverget to achieve all the things they want before theyinconveniently die. No wonder Hamilton wrote like he was running out of time. But I’ll leave that to her executive coach and her therapist to work through with her. In fact, she should probably play Billy Joel’sViennafirst thing every morning just to calm herself the hell down.
‘I don’t know why you’re dragging poor Gabe along,’ I say instead. ‘You’ll just complain the whole way through that Hamilton married the wrong Schuyler sister. Although you know Gabe is the real-life version of Eliza, right?’
‘I love my saintly Two fiancé.’ She shakes out her napkin crossly. ‘But you’re right, he should have married Angelica. At least then they could have been unsatisfied together. She said it herself—theirs was a meeting of wits.’
I sigh and pick up the cocktail menu. We both know she’ll go and hate-watch it the whole way through and have an absolute blast.
‘So, how are you coping without Eight?’ she asks with a sly look at me. ‘You still have a job, right?’
‘For the moment. Miles and the deal are keeping me busy, thank fuck.’
It’s true. Ethan stuck around for the board meeting that voted Miles in (they were one person short of getting a unanimous vote, funnily enough) and attended key handover meetings with the top investors of both companies. The conversations weren’t easy, but it seems the market’s faith in Miles’ capabilities is high, and the entire issue has turned out to be less of a crisis and more of a wobble for the deal.
Since he left, I’ve been working mainly on helping Miles and his team with everything from liaising with various financial PR firms on communicating his hastily drawn-up vision for the merged entity to working with our finance and strategy teams on delivering endlessly crunched numbers to the Montague side.
Quite honestly, it’s been incredibly stimulating. Gone is most of the ill-feeling between the two companies, too. While there are a great deal of nerves at the Kingsley team’s end over what it will mean for their jobs to have the Montagues running things, Miles tells me that his people feel like the executioner’s axe is no longer hanging over them. Even Theo admitted to me that Ethan’s stunt wasthe sickest fucking stunt I’ve ever seen.
‘Have you had any time to work on your app?’
‘A bit. Having no one to shag in the evenings frees up quite a lot of time. And I’ve got my doctorate all lined up for September at UCL.’
University College London is one of the best places in the country to do a clinical psychology qualification, and, while it will take me three or so years to complete, I absolutely intend to both launch my app and achieve my IFS Institute qualifications at the same time.
I guess I have a major Three part after all.
Athena nods approvingly. ‘Excellent. And Ethan will help you with the app?’
‘He wants to. He seems really excited about it, but I’ve forbidden him from committing to anything until he gets back from Oz. I want him to keep an open mind.’
‘Who would have known that Ethan Kingsley, ice-cold tyrant and destroyer of seraphim, would end up in IFS therapy, of all things? By his standards, he’s practically singingKumbaya. You’ve done well with that one, girl.’
‘He’s done all the hard work himself,’ I say defensively, and she smiles.
‘So, does he call you for phone sex a lot?’
‘Sometimes. The time difference is pretty rough. They’re surfing in Noosa at the moment, so I get hurried calls from him when Jamie’s down at the beach, begging me to show him my tits so he can jerk off to them. But mainly he just sends me sillypresents from wherever they are and calls to tell me how much he loves me and how much he misses me. He’ll go dark next week when they’re on K’gari, though.’
I trail off, a little embarrassed at how sentimental it all makes me feel. Still, knowing that Ethan is all the way over there, thinking about me—or my tits—is really something, even if I’ll have a couple of weeks of no contact.
But Athena doesn’t tease me. Instead, she raises her glass.
‘So my favourite Seven has finally found a man she feels safe to settle down with. And the glorious irony is that she would have avoided him like the plague if he hadn’t suggested at the outset, with every single word out of that lovely mouth of his, that he was the ultimate walking red flag. It’s a stealth attack worthy of the history books, darling.’
I pick up my glass and clink hers. ‘The man has moves. I’ll give him that.’
CHAPTER 50
Ethan
