“I…what?”
“Finally speaking your mind? In front of witnesses no less? Standing up for what you believe in? That’s something I need from a chief of staff. And you need a new job. It cannot possibly be fulfilling watching junior, less-talented colleagues stealing your promotions.”
The careless comment burns like acid. Of course Elena would know about that. Felicity’s boss has been offering placating, condescending platitudes to her for weeks since she lost her partnership to an underling while Felicity’s blood slowly boils.
She should have known. Hell, Elena knew. She’s known for years. “Is this your ‘I told you so’?” Felicity asks suspiciously.
“No. It’s my job offer.”
“I’m a lawyer…not anything else.”
“You’d make a better chief of staff. You’re smart, organized, and know the law better than most of my suits.” Elena cocks her head. “Tell me something: Did you keep my business card? Or rip it up in a fit of misplaced loyalty to your mediocre little firm?”
It’s still on Felicity’s fridge door. She’s been thinking about that card a lot lately, to be honest, wondering whether the opportunity to call Elena is long gone. She’d assumed it was, given how Elena had put her in her place last time they’d met.
Felicity doesn’t answer, not willing to let the woman know she matters so much as to have had her card in pride of place on Felicity’s fridge all this time.
Elena apparently doesn’t require a response. “I’m planning a global media revolution.” Her blue eyes are glinting at the prospect. “Want in?”
“Why me?” Felicity croaks in astonishment.
“I see you, Ms. Simmons…Felicity. You’re ready. It’s long overdue, wouldn’t you say?”
Thirty-Six
Felicity sees Elena Bartell daily. And each day, Elena looks at Felicity, challenges her, and tells her, not in so many words, that she’s valuable.
They’re taking over the media world together.
Felicity’s stress levels haven’t improved from her old job, given idiots and incompetence still surround her, but her satisfaction has. Hundreds of lawyers all across the world now have to answer to Felicity if they want to deal with the impenetrable Elena Bartell.
Felicity’s old boss is one of them. She takes a perverse delight in taking Hank’s calls and explaining in detail just how busy Elena is while they’re conquering the world. It’s petty, yes, but Elena did tell Felicity she needs a hobby.
Felicity snorts to herself. She probably needs a better hobby. Maybe she should call Larissa back for another hookup. Or even Tim. Or was it Tom?
“Felicity, pull up the contract on Hudson Metro News,” Elena calls out to her from her glass office. “Time we think big.”
That little flea-bitten boot-scraping of a newspaper? How is that thinking big? Curiosity floods Felicity. She’s been to its waterlogged, smelly nether reaches near the Hudson River, and there’s nothing remotely revolutionary nor interesting about the commuter rag.
But Elena is often mysterious about such things. She rarely explains much, so Felicity never knows what her boss is up to next—her mind whirs far beyond that of mere mortals. Felicity’s sure that whatever it is, her plan will be exceptional.
It doesn’t matter that Elena doesn’t confide in her, she reminds herself. It’s just good being this close to the action.
Felicity’s thirty-six, has quit smoking, is professionally satisfied, and is thoroughly bisexual, thank you very much.
She never did make partner.
And now she no longer cares.
# # #
ALIENS OF NEW YORK
Maddie Grey took a centering breath and tried to suppress her nerves. She could do this. This was just a book launch, right? Just some random collection of the blogs she’d written while homesick and miserable as a graveyard-shift reporter more than two years ago.
She gazed out the window at the New York streets below. In her mind, she was back at her old Hudson Metro News office, staring down at the bagel streetcart, suicidal bicycle couriers, and snaking yellow cabs with their winking red taillights.
This was where she’d first tried to make it as a reporter since arriving from Sydney. She was standing on the exact spot she’d failed.
Of course, it was all different now. Her struggling commuter rag had been gobbled up by Bartell Corporation, then knocked down and turned into the Hudson Shard—1,200 feet of vast, gleaming office space, a building as sleek and beautiful as the woman behind it.
On the ground floor sat a bookstore/café that, in a matter of minutes now, would be the site of the launch of Maddie’s first book. She still had to pinch herself to believe that a major publishing house had asked for the rights to her whimsical collection of blogs on life, loneliness, and drowning in a city everyone else seemed to love.
Book boxes stamped Aliens of New York surrounded her, along with stacks of other novels the bookstore had no space for downstairs. The smell of freshly printed ink wasn’t that far removed from that of her old paper, where she’d hunched over her desk turning late-breaking stories, obits, and crime stats into something interesting for the next day’s commuter crowd.
Her publishing house’s publicist, Alicia Keen, had blown in fifteen minutes ago, deposited Maddie in this storage room with a foldout chair and a view, told her to relax, and announced that a crowd was building in the bookstore, one that included several influential book reviewers.
Maddie still didn’t quite understand why her blogs had captivated the online attention they had, let alone earned a buzz when the book deal had been announced.
Alicia reappeared, eyes gleaming with excitement. She blew out a breath. “Almost ready for you. I must say, there are a lot of finance reporters downstairs.”
“What? Why? My blogs were about emotions, not business.”
