The safe and reasonable thing to do is couch your answers in the form of "I have felt that our interpersonal communication is best when X." "My interactions with her go better when Y." "I am motivated when Z."

It may not be a trap. It smells like a trap. I once had to go take a drug test in order to do a site visit at the Experience Music Project, if you believe that. Then we didn't end up doing the site visit. Now - was that my fundie promise-keepers all-the-Left-Behind-books-on-her-shelf-at-work boss trying to figure out a neat way to unhire an atheist? Or just one of those things? I also spent two weeks leading an "efficiency consultant" through all the things I did on my job only to get fired on week 3. Now - was that them trying to figure out how to help me out more only to discover they couldn't retain my position? Or were they a bunch of shitheads taking notes so that the cheap person they hired to replace me wouldn't eat utter shit? We'll never know, I just know I had to console the consultant because she burst out crying as I explained to her the fact that I knew how to do my job because I'd done it for years and that the only way you learn how to do it is by doing it. Either way, they laid me off and lost $25m worth of business within six weeks so fuck 'em.

for I am a scorpion. It is my nature.

Trap or no trap, the thing to recognize is that when someone tells you this person will never do or say anything that doesn't directly benefit her, believe it. Your every answer needs to be in the form of "how does this help COO" "how do I phrase this so it does not hurt COO" "what can I say that will never come back and make me a target of COO."

Palace intrigue is no time to grow a conscience. If you wish to remain in the palace, you avoid the intrigue. If you didn't hatch it, the only role open to you is "collateral damage."