“I did wonder.” Cooper’s smile was evident even with Felicity’s eyes shut. “I don’t think I thanked you properly for what you did. I told you once when I tried to walk away from you that I needed kindness, too. I’m sorry I didn’t understand that you already are kind. You do have compassion, and I didn’t see it because you hide it so well behind your enormous walls. Sorry I misjudged you. But I guess that’s why you got your promotion, hmm?”
“What?” Felicity cracked an eyelid again. “I was promoted because you misjudged me?” She rolled over onto her back, enjoying the appreciation lighting Cooper’s face at her boobs sliding into view. “That makes no sense.”
“No, Felicity. Your boss had to have known you were compassionate. We agree she’s seeking happiness over career these days, right? So no one like that would put someone who’s only career hungry in her place to run her corporation. She’d put someone like herself, right? So she had to know.”
Felicity sat up. “Oh fuck.”
“What is it?”
“That’s what she was trying to say! That’s the answer!”
“Who? What?”
“I need to see Elena.”
“What, now? It’s a Sunday!”
“She’s flying out to Sydney tomorrow.” Felicity slid out of bed, then paused. “But I’ll be back in time for a celebratory lunch.”
“What are we celebrating?” Cooper asked, her voice both rough and filled with warmth.
“Us. Together. The future. Our relationship.” Felicity blew out a breath and suddenly realized she was standing naked in front of a woman whose eyes were roaming her avidly.
She straightened, put her hands on her hips, and let Cooper look her fill. It was a mirror of the first time she’d done this, when she’d been so caught up in self-consciousness, wondering what her new lover would see. “Something to remember me by”—she smirked—“until our lunch.”
“I love the view. Fuck, I really do.” Cooper swallowed. Her eyes were appreciative. “Hurry back,” she whispered hoarsely. “After lunch, there will be more flinging.”
Anticipation filled Felicity as she raced from the room.
CHAPTER 19
The Girl from Pinckney
Felicity had never been to Elena’s place socially before. Hell, she’d barely visited for work. Usually it was to drop off or pick up something or to collect Elena on their way to an event. But here she stood, about to knock on the door of Elena’s New York apartment and…discuss things.
Elena answered after a few minutes.
Her surprise at Felicity’s unexpected visit couldn’t possibly trump Felicity’s surprise at Elena’s appearance.
The media mogul was in jeans. Tatty, worn, paint-spattered jeans. They were loose, looked lived in and comfortable, and went with the sinfully tight white shirt a little too well.
“S-sorry,” Felicity said. Her gaze met dozens of boxes behind Elena. “I should have called. Well, I mean I tried, but your phone’s not answering.”
Elena widened the door. “Come in. Yes, sorry, my battery died and I’m still trying to work out where I put the charger in this mess.” She followed Felicity’s gaze to all the boxes. “I’m having a last-minute frenzy of working out what I want to send on by container ship, things I won’t need immediately. I suspect my late uncle’s tailor’s dummy collection will be taking the sea voyage.” Her eyes narrowed. “However, there’s no way I’m allowing my family heirlooms to be packed by graceless oafs. Hence the DIY work.”
“Oh.” Some days it was hard thinking of Elena Bartell…well, Bartlewski, really…having family at all, let alone one gifting her heirlooms. She just seemed to have been hatched fully formed, a media mogul to be reckoned with. “I could come back at another time, if you’d prefer.”
“No, it’s fine. Come into the kitchen. I believe there’s still a couple of chairs left. I’ll make us tea.”
Felicity hated tea, but she’d never actually gotten around to telling Elena that. No time like the present. “You don’t have coffee, do you?”
“Of course.”
Huh. How easy had that been? Felicity perched on a bar stool at the granite kitchen counter and watched as her boss busied herself finding a pair of mugs, then digging out tea and coffee and milk. “I didn’t know you drank coffee. It’s always tea at work. How do you take it?”
“Black. Just black.”
Elena nodded and made no further comment until she slid the mug over and took the bar stool opposite Felicity. She took a sip of her tea and smiled. “Well, I don’t have to ask why you’re here.”
“You don’t?”
“If it was work, you’d have launched straight into it at the doorstep. You’ve figured it out, then? Why I sent you to that charity?”
“I think so.” Felicity bit her lip. “You weren’t sure I had enough compassion. You were afraid the person running your corporation might be someone lacking in empathy, and you needed to know. Or maybe you thought I had zero compassion, and you hoped I might acquire some while surrounded by people less fortunate.” She really hoped it wasn’t that more damning one. “And by me choosing to save Living Ruff, I proved I was compassionate. Because I realized later you never once said what you thought about me making the charity Bartell Corp’s concern.”
Elena’s eyes crinkled. She tilted her mug toward her in silent salute. “I always said you were smart.”
Felicity inhaled. “Why did you even hire me in the first place if you were afraid I was heartless?”
“That’s just it. I thought quite the opposite.”
Felicity’s mouth fell open. “You did?” She’d tried so hard to show the world how tough she was, and Elena hadn’t seen that at all.
“Remember the first time we met? Or well, the first several times?”
“Across boardrooms. My law firm was defending the interests of newspapers you were taking over.”
“Yes. I noticed you right away. The serious woman with the Midwest accent and sharp mind who everyone ignored. I’d see things firing in your eyes whenever you realized your boss had erred; it was written all across your face. And you would scribble him frantic notes that he barely even looked at. I wondered about you. How you’d gotten into that negotiating team in the first place. Where you planned on going.”
Felicity remembered those meetings all too well. Her boss had been useless. “You told me once my team would have won a deal if I’d been running the meeting.”
“You would have.” Elena’s eyes became half-lidded. “We kept bumping into each other. And every time we did, you looked older, sadder, and your accent was less Pinckney, Michigan, more 17 Cherry Tree Lane, London.”
“Where?”
“Don’t you read the classics, Felicity?” Elena’s eyes brightened. “Mary Poppins lived there with the Banks family.” She steepled her fingers. “But I made a mistake. I offered you the chief of staff job based on a wrong assumption.”
Alarm prickled through Felicity. “You did?”
“I thought a woman from Pinckney, Michigan, would be more well-rounded than all my other lawyers put together. You’d have seen more of America, have more empathy and connection with people. I assumed you might have a few down-to-earth Midwest sensibilities lurking under your fierce persona. That’s necessary because we live such a privileged existence.”
“We do.” Felicity had come of late to see just how much that was true.
“I’m aware every day that I’m a far cry from being a poor Polish-American girl who mended other people’s clothing to help her family make ends meet. I know crushing poverty; I know the smell of it, the taste of it, the burning need to flee it. And it shaped my ambition. I might have talked myself into an editorial job I had no qualifications for, changed my name, and made sure I never looked back. Even so, I never forgot where I came from. And I thought a Pinckney, Michigan, girl probably understood that, too. I could see you reshaping yourself every time we met, changing your look from long hair to tight bun, your accent, your attitude until no one dismissed you. I saw aspects of me in you. But I was wrong.”
Felicity swallowed. “Wrong?”
“I used to wish, when I was younger, that I could obliterate my past. I saw it as embarrassing. Some people, like my charming rival Emmanuelle Lecoq, occasionally liked to remind me of it. She was a bully who loved to bring up my past and tell me it belonged in the gutter along with me. Younger me would have done anything to have wiped it away like a stain. Older me wishes no such thing. I’m aware it made me who I am. But that’s me. I don’t know how you achieved such a feat of wiping your past from every part of you, but it seems you succeeded.”
