by Lee Winter
“Oh, yeah. Right.”
There was a pause. “It was good, by the way,” Felicity said, her tone quiet.
“Huh?”
“Keep up. Your article. I read it this morning. It was… Well, it was far better than I expected.”
Maddie laughed at how pained she sounded admitting that. “Thanks, Felicity.”
She sniffed. “I hate you for it, but it was exceptional. Okay? Oh! Have you seen the ads yet?”
“Ads? Uh, no.” Maddie’s heart rate surged.
Felicity snorted. “Well, then, you’ll be in for a surprise…” Murmuring interrupted her. “Damn. Elena needs the Harborside Times contract ready in ten minutes—”
“Felicity? What ads?”
The call was already ended. Maddie sighed and slapped the phone on her breakfast table. Immediately, it began to ring again. And again. Not recognising the incoming numbers, she let the calls go to voicemail. Her fifteen minutes of fame were going to take some getting used to.
After breakfast, she bought a copy of Style Sydney from her neighbourhood newsstand, then went home, curled up in bed and went over it again. She was awed at how beautiful her story looked in the glossy publication. As she turned each page and studied the attention to detail within those stunning layouts, it was clear Elena really was an artist who drew out the best from her team. What on earth she was doing wasting her talents on corporate takeovers was beyond Maddie. This was real art.
She sighed as a familiar surge of longing went through her. She was ridiculous. It had only been three days since she’d last seen her. With a huff of annoyance at herself, Maddie grabbed her phone and went through the rest of her new messages.
They ranged from some respectable magazines and newspapers to a few tawdry interview requests promising to pay her if she coughed up a scoop on her relationship with “the French chick you screwed to get that big interview”. She ground her teeth.
Maddie spent about an hour returning the calls of the publications she’d heard of and looking up the ones she hadn’t. Then she did some cleaning to clear her head, as she contemplated their offers. Did she really want to work for Vogue, CQ, or Elle? Writing more fashion? She barely liked it now. Nope, she was fairly sure she didn’t want a job in an industry so shallow it guilted women into impossible ideals, while lacking its sole key benefit—working with Elena Bartell.
Her parents called by the time she was frantically vacuuming her curtains. Her curtains, for God’s sake. Her mother sounded as if she were having an asthmatic attack, she was so excited. She declared they were going to send copies to everyone in the family. And given there were forty-five members in the extended Grey clan, Maddie wanted the ground to swallow her up. She tried to talk her out of it, to no avail.
“Really, honey,” her mother said, “aren’t you proud? I know we are. It turns out you were right about your career—you have a real talent for this. I’m sorry if you felt we pushed you into catering.”
Well, she was proud, but still. Maybe she could write forty-five apology letters after her mother cleared out the shelves of Style Sydney in South Penrith?
She was steam cleaning the shower when Simon stuck his head in on his way to work. He dropped his own Style Sydney copy in front of her and solemnly asked her to sign it.
Maddie giggled like the kid she suddenly felt like.
He shook his head. “I mean it, Mads. Not kidding. This is, like, greatness right here. That story was bloody fantastic.” He tapped the cover. “So, I’m keeping this for when you get super famous. Well, more super famous. If that’s actually possible. Then I’ll sell it online, make a shitload, and retire.” He winked and passed her a pen.
She signed, trying to suppress more giggles.
He beamed, then hugged her, adjusted his corporate blue tie, and sailed out, waving the magazine.
She slumped back into a chair. Could her day get any weirder? Her knees jiggled impatiently. Maddie suddenly felt as though she wanted to escape her four walls. She was itching to do something, but what? Go where? She had no work and, due to her former all-encompassing job, no actual life. In fact, the closest thing to a life she’d had lately was when Natalii had forced her to go gay-bar hopping.
At the thought of the eccentric Frenchwoman, she opened up her email and re-read her directions for the Duchamp fashion show that evening. It contained a few cryptic promises of an extravaganza hidden somewhere within Hyde Park in the city, and a vague, hand-drawn map. Natalii mentioned in her instructions that they’d be crazy busy setting up throughout the day—so mad it would be like a zoo.
Now that sounded like something Maddie could help with. Who had more expertise at wrangling a zoo and its exotic creatures than an assistant who’d been based at a fashion magazine? Besides, it’d be better than staring at her phone, wondering why being an overnight success felt so unnerving.
After she got off the train at Town Hall station, Maddie jogged up the steps and decided she’d need a caffeine hit before deciphering Natalii’s directions. She detoured towards the nearest coffee shop and was just about to head inside, when she made the mistake of glancing up.
She froze.
A man crashed into her back and barked, “Hey! Watch it!” before striding off.
She didn’t even have the words to apologise. Her brain had been emptied of anything resembling English. Because there, on a high billboard above her, attached to a building site, was Style’s cover, trumpeting a world-exclusive interview with Véronique Duchamp. Her black-and-white photo of Natalii and her mother stared back at her. The words On sale now below it were in a cursive red swirl.
“Oh my God,” she whispered. Maddie scrabbled for her phone, snapped a photo, and fired it off along with a message to Perry. She wasn’t entirely sure what she wrote, but it was along the lines of OMFG JESUS H CHRIST ARE U FUKNG KIDDING ME OH LORD!
Caffeine cravings forgotten, Maddie sank to a nearby bus-stop seat and stared up at the sign. Her phone beeped after a minute, and she glanced down at the reply. And gasped.
CHAPTER 24
A Dish Best Served Cold
Elena placed her desk phone back in its receiver and spun her chair to face the window. So, that was that. She thought she’d feel more elated. She had the ammunition to destroy Richard now, to take him apart, limb from limb. Her supremely talented private investigator, Saul, had worked with Felicity and the list and tracked down every last woman they could identify who had ever been touched by that man. At Elena’s urging, Saul had even gone as far back as Richard’s college days.
How unsavoury that quest had been. Richard had a college nickname. Octopus. She’d shared her damn bed with a man dubbed Octopus.
Saul had now reported in with the grand total. Elena had fallen silent. She’d always thought the moment of having the proof to crush Richard would be as magnificent as crushing any business rival. Instead, she just felt sickened.
Elena’s thoughts were racing. At least she’d had the Duchamp exclusive to take her mind off everything. But that story couldn’t fill her long hours each night. After drinking more than she should, she’d acquired the habit of curling up in a ball in her bed and indulging a fury that felt bottomless. Then would come the tears. Then more fury. Occasionally, her thoughts turned to Madeleine, and her rage was replaced with loss. It was ridiculous to miss an assistant like this.
She’d already ordered a new bed. She wished she could pay someone to build a bonfire for her existing marital mattress so she could watch the flames scorch it.
Her focus shifted to the streets three storeys below. Ants hurried by. Sydneysiders in a screaming hurry. All, presumably, with their little secrets. A woman in last season’s Stella McCartney sidestepped a young courier on his bike. Which one, she wondered idly, was more likely to have the darkest secret? And which one was the poor sap who should have known better than to trust their life partner?
All it would have taken was asking one question from any of them at the right time. The maid. The wai
tress. The mouse.
The sick lurch returned to her stomach. She scowled, hating Richard more with each passing second. That disgusting weasel.
“If you keep glaring like that, icicles will shoot up the glass.”
Elena spun her chair around in a fury at having an interloper. “I wasn’t aware we had a meeting.” Perry had to have a death wish, interrupting her in the mood she was in—oldest friend or not.
He merely shrugged and slid into the chair opposite. “Then just say I’m early for the next one we do have scheduled.” He folded a dapper, Tom Ford-attired knee neatly over his thigh, clasped it, and gave her a gentle look. “Felicity tells me Saul just called in. You got the final head count, then?”
She exhaled. “Forty-one.” The number felt stuck in her throat.
Perry brushed lint off his knee, attempting to hide his shock, but Elena saw it.
“Hell,” he eventually said. “I heard you’re making him cough up donations to all those women’s shelters. That’s smart. Got him over a barrel, since he doesn’t want anyone else knowing.”
Regret reared up again and clawed at her. “Apparently, now I get smart.”
He cocked his head. “Meaning?”
She glared at him again. He knew damned well what she was saying. Perry seemed determined to have her process this train wreck; he’d been trying for days. Elena debated throwing him out of her office so she wouldn’t have to think about it. But it would just delay the inevitable.
“Well, obviously, you think I’ve been a fool not to have known. You all do. It is not pleasant being the last one to find out.” Her voice cracked, and Elena almost did too. Hell. Her emotional disarray was not acceptable. Not even in front of Perry.
He gave her a soft look, rose, and came around to perch on the edge of her desk. “Hey, remember Christophe, my ex-boyfriend of, like, five years ago? The one with the rhinestone fetish and perfect hair?”
Elena peered at him, mystified. Who could forget Christophe? The man was walking performance art. She nodded.
“He has this sister, Lana. She’s an MIT professor—a theoretical propulsion expert. When her husband left her out of the blue last year, she hired an investigator to find him. She regretted it. Turned out he had girlfriends coast to coast and a mistress shacked up two streets away. She’d been there for ten years. And here Lana was, literally a rocket scientist, and she didn’t know. Not a clue.” He gave her a pointed look.
“While all this is very fascinating, I fail to see— ”
“So then, Lana’s mother, who had been the one to set them up in the first place, I might add, suddenly announced to the family there’d always been something ‘off’ about him. And everyone acted like Lana must have known deep down and she’d turned a blind eye to it. The alternative explanation was that she had to have been an idiot not to see the signs, and they knew she wasn’t an idiot, so she had to have known. Somehow. And do you know why they assumed this?”
Elena said nothing.
“It makes humans feel better,” Perry said. “Safer. That it couldn’t happen to us. They’ve done studies on it. People shift the blame onto the victims, finding ways to make the people who’ve been betrayed seem compromised in some way, just so they can sleep at night. It’s easier to do that than admit we could be gullible or so easily tricked like that, too. But Elena, this stuff—it just happens. Even the smartest person in the room can’t always spot it. So pin the blame and the crimes on the asshole who did it. And leave them there.”
Elena glanced away, thinking again of her uncharacteristic move to give a reference to that fearful assistant. It had made no logical sense for her to do it. And yet she had. “I… There may have been signs. Maybe…it’s not wrong to be thinking I should have suspected. Or, subconsciously, maybe I did suspect.” Her cheeks tinged with heat.
“Stop,” Perry said, voice firm. “I mean it. You’re not God. Much as you may wish it were so on occasion.”
She shot him an evil look, and he smiled.
“Hindsight is all very well and good, but it’s still useless,” Perry continued. “Only one person knew, with certainty, what he was up to. And I understand that you are in the process of shredding his slimy gizzards. The end. We leave it there. Draw a line under it. So now what? What happens with the names?”
“I’ve given them to my lawyers. I’ll leave it to them to sort out. There will be compensation. I even generously offered for any compensation to come from the money I would normally pay to Richard from our pending divorce settlement. Unfortunately, my lawyers say they can’t swing that, because, officially, it would be better if I was not involved in any of this due to my company position. It could drop the share price if I look exposed to compensation claims or a scandal. A shame. I’d love it tattooed on his head what he’s like. I will make him pay, though. He will suffer. But God, what a mess.” Her tone hardened, as she thought of the headlines if this got out.
Perry regarded her for a moment. “Worried about what the media will do with it?”
“Another divorce and a grubby scandal as well. They’ll dance on the tiger shark’s shame.”
A grin slowly curled around his lips. “You’re forgetting one thing right now—today, you are golden. You have the exclusive of the decade. Style is selling out in stands all over the world. The media are too busy talking about Duchamp’s crazy rugby player and her brilliant new collection to worry about your ex, even if it all came out today.”
He grinned, and Elena tried to smile.
“I suppose.” But she did feel better. He had a point. Style had been flying off shelves. The issue had already sold out in France.
Perry chuckled. “Hey, want me to tell you all the colours Emmanuelle’s face changed when she saw our story? My brother-in-law knows the front security guard at CQ, and he says she stopped dead, hissed at the cover, then …”
Elena’s phone beeped, and she picked it up, listening to Perry with a half smile. Her mood was rapidly improving. She glanced at her phone screen. The name Madeleine greeted her. Tapping the text message, Elena stared at what appeared. She read with growing astonishment. And then it all became clear. She smirked.
“Who is putting such an evil smile on your face?” Perry paused mid dramatic anecdote and leaned forward, craning his neck to see the screen.
Elena spun the phone around to show him a picture of the mid-city, Pitt Street billboard and a text message below it. OMFG JESUS H CHRIST ARE U FUKNG KIDDING ME OH LORD!
“I believe my former assistant intended this for one of her earthier friends,” Elena said with a drawl. “Quite possibly you, given her uncensored venting.”
Perry snorted. “Ha! Yes, I think you’re right.” He wiggled his fingers. “Want me to reply?”
“No, no.” She waved him away. “I’ll take care of it. Now, make yourself useful and get me some of the proofs from the Morrison shoot that do not look like rainbows have exploded all over lime chiffon. I don’t care what you say, rainbows are not the next big thing.”
Perry grinned. “Sure, boss.” He gave her a warm look, far warmer than she probably deserved, and left.
She watched him go, a fondness welling in her chest for her best friend.
Elena glanced back to that all-caps message. After a moment’s delicious anticipation, she hit Reply, unable to contain her amusement.
CHAPTER 25
Monkey Business
The name Elena was staring back at Maddie. She was sure she’d sent that message to Perry. Well, sort of sure. Okay, not sure. They were next to each other in her Bartell Corp group contacts—Bartell, Marks, Simmons. She could have hit the wrong name.
With shaking fingers, Maddie clicked the text message.
I’m not quite sure why you are invoking deities or sending me profanities. Should world exclusives not be promoted? E
Oh crap! She stared at Elena’s message. Actually, it was kind of weird to get it at all. Didn’t Elena famously ignore everything she thought was beneath her? She wr
ote back.
Sorry. Just overwhelmed. Meant to Send that to Perry. Not expecting to see my happy snap 2 storeys high.
She debated whether to add a smiley emoticon before finally leaving it off. She held her breath.
Her phone beeped a few minutes later.
Only two? Well you mustn’t have heard about the big one in Times Square. E
Maddie’s mouth dropped open. Holy mother of… And, okay, this time she could definitely see Elena’s smirk in that message. No doubt about it. She was amusing the hell out of her ex-boss.
She grinned as she typed back.
You know how to give a girl a heart attack, don’t you? This might be all in a day’s work for you, but I’m a puddle.
She hit send before she could rethink it. Her phone remained unlit just long enough for her to wonder if she’d been overfamiliar and maybe even angered her. Then it beeped.
Well it’s a good thing I fired you then. Puddles are slip hazards. I can’t have my employees injured. Will you be at the Véronique show this evening? E
Maddie blinked. Had Elena just cracked a joke and expressed an interest in seeing her tonight? She felt like doing cartwheels.
Yep. Want to meet her?
She typed that back, fingers a blur, before she’d engaged her brain. Seconds later, she mentally slapped herself. Wanting to be useful to Elena was obviously a habit that was proving difficult to break.
Sure, Véronique might have warmed up to her, but Maddie knew the shy designer hated strangers in general and flower-sending cafards named Elena Bartell in particular. She prayed Elena would mention another engagement she had to rush off to or maybe a sudden lack of interest in the world’s most elusive designer.
Yeah right. God. Who am I kidding?
Seconds later, her phone lit up.
Certainly. Until tonight. E
Oh man. She bit her lip. Maybe she could throw herself on Véronique’s mercy? No. Okay, maybe if she worked hard all afternoon, helping the Duchamp team set up for tonight, they’d take pity on her hormone-stunted intellect? Yeah, okay. Argh. Not likely. She sighed.