Spark Me Tenderly: Eric's POV
Description
Eric Brighton has built an empire on control. As CEO of Europe's most powerful surveillance company, he manipulates lives like chess pieces, and he's never met a person he couldn't break. Until Floris Middleton. For months, he's orchestrated her downfall, destroying her career and manufacturing her desperation to force her into his web. She's supposed to be another disposable assistant, another toy to use and discard. But the moment she kneels in his office, everything changes. Eric expected to own her body. He didn't expect her to possess his mind. Between boardroom power plays and private submission, between calculated cruelty and unexpected tenderness, he discovers that the hunter can become the hunted.
Chapter 1
Aug 19, 2025
[POV Eric]
I’d been watching Floris Middleton for three months before she even knew Amsterdam existed as anything more than a dot on her unemployment map.
Digital surveillance beats stalking every time—cleaner, more efficient, zero chance of awkward grocery store encounters.
I knew her shitty Boston café order (oat milk latte, extra shot, because apparently caffeine addiction runs in overachievers).
Her brother’s medical records read like a medical textbook’s worst-case scenario. Student loans that could fund a small military coup. And those pathetic salary negotiations with companies that would ghost her faster than a bad Tinder date.
Because I’d made sure they would.
TechFlow position she was banking on? Bought them out two weeks before her interview. That Berlin startup showing interest? One strategic phone call about her whistleblowing history killed that opportunity deader than disco.
Desperate people make the best employees. It’s basic psychological economics.
From my office, I watched security feeds as she wrestled with a suitcase that clearly had personal vendetta issues. Five feet of concentrated chaos in discount boots and a coat that had seen better decades.
Sharp amber eyes, dark hair with commitment problems, face more interesting than Instagram-pretty.
Absolutely fucking perfect.
“She’s here,” I told Juno through my earpiece, watching Floris navigate Schiphol like she was defusing a bomb instead of catching a ride. “Bringing her up now.”
Every second of this encounter was choreographed.
Airport delays, job switches, even the specific phrasing about her brother’s medical debt—I’d calculated exactly which emotional buttons would make her dance.
Floris thought she was desperate. She had zero clue how thoroughly I’d manufactured that desperation.
Security cameras caught her phone ritual when the second Juno vanished. Predictable as sunrise. Tell someone not to Google you, they’ll Google you before the words finish leaving your mouth.
“Stupid girl,” I murmured, but something almost fond crept into my voice.
Her face cycled through curiosity to horror to genuine terror as she scrolled. The yacht photo always triggered that reaction. Harassment settlements. Employee turnover rates that looked like genocide statistics.
All carefully curated fiction designed to create exactly this response.
Here’s what she didn’t know: every single “scandal” was planted content. Yacht photo? Stock image with strategic shadow work.
Harassment suits? Paid actors with NDAs thicker than Bible. Employee horror stories? Creative writing from the same team handling my corporate PR.
I’m manipulative, controlling, probably ticking boxes on several psychological checklists. But sexual predator? Please. That legend existed to keep people at precisely the right distance.
Everyone except her.
She was deep-diving into the creative stuff now—psychological manipulation articles, speculation about former employee fates. All bullshit designed to make her think she was walking into her personal nightmare.
Reality was infinitely more dangerous: a trap built specifically for someone with her exact psychological DNA.
Brilliant but overlooked. Family-protective to the point of self-destruction. Too proud to beg, desperate enough to sacrifice dignity for love.
I’d discovered her résumé six months ago while researching cybersecurity talent my competitors might poach. Floris Middleton, MIT graduate, encryption protocol designer who’d given the NSA legitimate headaches.
Also: blacklisted whistleblower with dying brother and student debt that could finance small nations.
Three days to realize I wasn’t just interested in her professional skills.
She’d gone still in the lobby, phone abandoned, staring at nothing. Processing odds. Calculating whether working for a rumored psychopath beat watching her brother die by degrees.
My door chimed. Showtime.
I positioned myself at the monitors—back turned, surveying my digital empire like some corporate deity. Performance mattered. First impressions were psychological manipulation 101.
Elevator opened. Her sharp breath intake as she absorbed my surveillance cathedral. Hundreds of screens showing global feeds. Visual representation of my power, reach, complete privacy disregard.
That part wasn’t performance, by the way.
“Miss Middleton,” I said without turning. “You’re late.”
Cue predictable argument. Phone-checking, confusion, the whole script. Let her stumble through half a sentence before cutting her off.
“You’re late.” Repetition establishes authority.
Then I turned and watched her brain short-circuit. Always my favorite moment.
Realizing the corporate legend was younger than expected, better-looking than grainy photos suggested, absolutely nothing like their imagination had constructed.
Floris Middleton looked like she’d been hit by a very expensive truck.
“I’m not late,” she managed, voice smaller now. “My phone says 10:58.”
“Then your phone is lying.”
Moving closer, noting how she fought the step-back instinct. Brave. Stupid, but brave.
“Tell me, Miss Middleton, what exactly did you think you were applying for?”
Pure theater followed. I knew her background, motivations, and pressure points better than she did. But she needed to believe this was negotiation when really, it was just an elaborate cage reveal.
“Executive assistant position. Administrative support, scheduling, correspondence—”
“Wrong.” Time to circle like the predator I was. “You’re here because you have a very specific skill set that I require. You’re here because you’ve already proven you’re willing to sacrifice everything for what you believe is right. And you’re here because your brother is dying.”
Her breath caught. Perfect.
“How do you—?”
“I know everything about you, Floris. MIT graduate, summa cum laude. Designed the Phantom Protocol encryption system at age twenty-four. Exposed Nexus Tech’s illegal surveillance of federal judges, got yourself blacklisted from every major tech company in North America.”
Stopping directly in front of her. “And now you’re desperate enough to work for someone like me.”
“Someone like you?”
“Someone you Googled despite being explicitly told not to. Someone whose reputation terrifies you. Someone you believe is capable of terrible things.” Smile sharp enough to perform surgery. “You’re not wrong.”
She swallowed hard. “What do you want from me?”
“Honesty. Loyalty. Absolute obedience.” Walking to my desk, grabbing the tablet prop. “Your real job isn’t assistant work. It's a security analysis. Corporate espionage prevention. Finding the holes in my system before my enemies do.”
“And if I say no?”
“Your brother’s treatment stops. His medical debt gets sold to a collection agency run by some very creative people. And you get deported back to the United States, where your reputation ensures you’ll be unemployable for the rest of your life.”
The room is shrinking around her. Beautiful. “You’re blackmailing me.”
“I’m offering you a choice. Work for me, use your considerable talents to protect my interests, and your brother lives. Refuse, and you both learn what desperation really feels like.”
She stared at me—this ice-carved man she’d never understand. “Why me? There have to be hundreds of security analysts who don’t come with my… baggage.”
“Because baggage creates loyalty. Because desperate people work harder. And because you’ve already proven you’re willing to destroy your own life to expose the truth.” Leaning against my desk, dead gray eyes watching. “I respect that. I can use that.”
“And what happens when you’re done using me?”
“That depends entirely on how useful you prove to be.”
Monitors flickered to the hospital feed I’d prepared. Her brother, peaceful in his bed, connected to life-sustaining machines.
“He looks peaceful,” I observed, watching her face crumble with relief, gratitude, and a terrible understanding of how thoroughly she’d been outmaneuvered. “The new treatment is working well. His white cell count has improved dramatically in just the past week.”
“You’ve already started treating him?”
“Insurance authorization came through this morning. Funny how quickly these things can be processed when you know the right people.”
Tears burning behind her eyes. Relief, rage, gratitude tangling in her chest.
“So,” I continued, “do we have an understanding?”
She looked at her brother’s screen image, then back at the man holding both their lives.
“What’s my first assignment?”
I almost smiled then. “Get on your knees.”
Words hanging like a test. Not sexual—despite internet legends about me. This was pure power dynamics. Establishing control hierarchies.
She fought it. Argued. Tried maintaining dignity. But I saw the exact moment she broke—when her brother’s life outweighed her pride.
She sank to her knees on cold marble, and I felt something unprecedented. Not satisfaction. Not the usual manipulation rush.
Something else. Something making my chest tight, hands trembling slightly.
Looking down at her—this brilliant, sharp-tongued woman who’d sacrificed everything for family, who’d walked into my trap eyes wide open because love made her vulnerable—I realized I’d made a critical calculation error.
I’d expected to break her. I hadn’t expected to want to keep her.
“Good,” I said softly, voice betraying nothing of the chaos in my head. “Now we can begin. You will do whatever I say. Because I’m the only one keeping your brother alive.”
Spark Me Tenderly: Eric's POV
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