That felt right saying it. She rose to take her leave. “Don’t be too hard on your husband. He’s clearly a man terrified of losing you to the point he’s not thinking straight. I’ve heard love does that. Makes you do the most ill-thought-out things.” She smiled.
Rosalind fell silent for a moment. “Harvey will be reminded as to why I chose him. He is very special. It’s rare to find someone who isn’t interested in my status, money, or power, let alone doesn’t see it as something to covet. All these things so many people crave just don’t occur to him to think about.” She leaned in. “If you ever find someone like my Harvey, Ms. Simmons, I recommend hanging onto him”—she paused and her smile grew cheeky—“or her.”
With that, she rose and showed Felicity out.
CHAPTER 14
Ambition
It was good to be back in the office, Felicity decided. She might have only been gone a week, but she felt changed in so many ways. It wasn’t just what she’d accomplished but how her eyes had been opened to things far beyond her elite bubble of entrepreneurs, lawyers, and wealth.
Today might be a Saturday, but there was too much to do before Elena left for Sydney for Felicity not to be hard at work in Bartell Corporation’s round, towering headquarters.
Felicity was on the penthouse floor today—home to Elena’s office, a hi-tech boardroom, and a few luxury amenities. She actually preferred her own office one floor down. Less wall-to-wall glass everywhere she turned, less ostentation, and a constant white noise of human activity, not just the sound of one lone voice on the phone in the background. Up here was too large. Too still. It made her too self-conscious.
Felicity unkinked her back. She was borrowing the boardroom today, which allowed her to spread her work out and remain close while she waited for Elena to finish up a long overseas call. Grabbing her cell, Felicity texted Cooper to suggest a date night. She had so much to tell her.
Speaking of news, Felicity still had to tell her boss about the deal she’d made. She was proud to have solved the Living Ruff case in a way that meant no bad publicity and the charity remaining business as usual.
As of half an hour ago, Felicity had a copy of Rosalind’s bank deposit receipt for $1.4 million credited back to Elena. And she had a bunch of paperwork from Rosalind about Charles’s community service contract and a nondisclosure agreement.
All the papers needed was Elena’s signature.
“Felicity.” Her name was called out almost simultaneously with a distant phone thudding into its receiver.
She grabbed the paperwork and followed the voice into Elena’s office.
As Felicity sat in the visitor’s chair, Elena gave her a sharp look.
“Apparently, I have acquired a charity. Would you care to explain?” She held up a faxed page that had Rosalind Stone’s letterhead on it. “Ms. Stone, the chair of Living Ruff’s board, sent me over some details to facilitate your agreement. She is anxious to finalize things quickly.”
“Ah.” Felicity had wanted to be the one to break the news. “Yes, Bartell Corp will have a hand in looking out for Living Ruff New York in a loose sense. It will run itself, though. We’re just the…um…benevolent shepherds.”
Elena rubbed her temple. “I sent you there to see where my money went, not make them cough up an entire charity.”
“You can’t exactly own a charity,” Felicity began. “Think of it like a boat…” She faded out at Elena’s incredulous do-not-continue look. “Erm, okay, forget that.” Felicity then launched into a succinct explanation of it all—Harvey being scammed, Charles’s blackmail, and Rosalind’s deal.
“So let me get this straight. Your choices were: One, going to the police, sparking a public mess. Two, us acquiring a charity and I get my money back. Or three, the charity closing down to avoid a scandal but I still get my money back…minus the headache of homeless animals, filling boards, and related paperwork to worry about?”
“Yes, Elena.”
“And you chose option two. We get stuck with a charity.” Elena’s eyes were sharp. “Is that what I’m hearing?”
“Yes.” Felicity stared right back at her. “Hundreds of people and their pets would be affected if Living Ruff was shut down. And you wouldn’t have donated if you didn’t think they were a worthy charity. Now it’s your worthy charity. I can list all the tax benefits, too, if you like.”
Elena held up her hand. “That won’t be necessary.” She exhaled. “Well, you don’t do things by half, do you?”
“Elena?”
“Did it occur to you to ask me before you made this rather monumental decision?”
“No.” Felicity bit her lip. “You left it to me. You asked for nuance. You told me to be thorough and then decide without worrying about what you might think. This is the right decision. I know it is. But if I’m wrong, so what? We can hand it off to someone else later, if you don’t like how it’s working out. Or let it carry on unassisted entirely.”
Elena leaned back in her chair. “Did it not occur to you how much work this might entail for us, a profit-based organization taking on a nonprofit? Whether it would impact the bottom line if the charity takes a loss and so on?”
“I did look into it. And there’s no real work for us at all. They’re separate entities. They’d file their own taxes. Their debt stays theirs. Their gains are theirs, too. It’s entirely hands-off for Bartell Corp. At most we find them a new board and leave them to it. Check in on them every now and then; give them occasional donations perhaps, if you’re feeling generous,” Felicity suggested with a small smile. “But really, this isn’t like taking over a business at all.”
Elena’s lips twitched. “Yes. Apparently, that’s what Bartell Corp’s chairman concluded, too, after he sat down in a panic this morning with the accounts team. Although it took them a lot longer than fifteen seconds to nutshell why.”
That felt a lot like a compliment, but Felicity pursed her lips, wondering where this was going. “So what’s the problem?”
“I’m not sure I said there was a problem. I was just curious how much thought you had put into this before saddling us with a fringe charity.”
“Saddling us? Fringe charity?” Felicity eyed her curiously. “Elena, it’s a charity you put $1.4 million of your own money into. If you didn’t like it, you wouldn’t have. I factored that into my calculations, too. Approval from Bartell Corp’s chief operating officer.”
“Did you now,” Elena said, voice silky. “Well, it seems you’ve thought of everything.”
Had she? Felicity thought she had, but doubts tumbled in. She ran through the variables again quickly in her head before reaching the same conclusion. “I have. Yes.” She slid the NDA and Charles’s community service papers onto Elena’s desk. “And if I’ve erred, just tell Rosalind Stone you can’t sign these papers and back out now.”
Elena templed her fingers. “That won’t be necessary.” She tilted her head slightly. “Do you know why I gave you this assignment, Felicity?”
“You wanted to know where your money went.” Hadn’t that been what she’d said? “And you were testing me. You had questions about my ability to be subtle and nuanced and about how I handled myself while out of my comfort zone.”
“Yes.” Elena said thoughtfully. “But that’s not all there is to it. I had one more reason. A more important one.”
“Oh. Right. Yes.” Felicity nodded. “I wasn’t going to mention it, but I know it was a news story Maddie wrote that inspired you to donate. If she’d endorsed a charity that was corrupt, it would make her look bad. And she’s your…friend.” Felicity still had to swallow on that word. “So there’s that.”
“You really thought this was about protecting Madeleine’s career?” Elena asked in surprise. “She’s an award-winning reporter. She won the scoop of the decade. Her career is in no danger. Besides, if an organization she’s written about does something bad later, it’s hardly the reporter’s fault.”
