“Ah.” Elena glanced down at her fingers and her mouth opened, but no words came out, as if she wasn’t sure whether to say something.
“I’m fine, really,” Felicity rushed in. “Give it no more thought. I promise I’ll never let my personal emotions interfere with business.”
Elena’s head snapped up. “Well, that’s a very disturbing thought. I want your head to rule most of the time. But listen to your heart, too, on occasion. I don’t want an unfeeling automaton running Bartell Corp.”
“I— No, of course not. That is…” Felicity had no clue what to say. She and Elena had never had the sort of relationship that involved sharing things. She paused. And that’s why she’d never been close to her, not in the way Maddie was. Maddie, who just blurted out things and shared her emotions with an open heart.
That was it, wasn’t it? Sharing anything, especially vulnerabilities that could be used against you later, was a foreign concept to Felicity. You had to keep up your walls or people could find your weaknesses. Except…Elena wasn’t looking for her weaknesses. In her own reserved, walls-up way, she was trying to help.
Felicity hesitated and then admitted, “I made a mistake.”
“Go on.”
“The vet I wanted to make director of Living Ruff didn’t want the promotion.”
Elena frowned. “Yes, I did wonder if that might be an issue. Vets tend to want to stay hands on, unless they’re particularly ambitious. But you don’t join a charity if you’re in any way ambitious, so…”
Well, that was a good point. Felicity sighed. “I thought she’d be pleased. Instead, she was very angry when I didn’t understand why she didn’t want the promotion. She wants nothing more to do with me, either.” Felicity looked away, cheeks flaming hot, beyond embarrassed by how pathetic she must look to someone she idolized.
The confusion on Elena’s face suddenly cleared, replaced with surprise. Then understanding. “Felicity,” she said carefully, “by any chance were you…romantically involved with this vet?”
“No… Well… Involved might be too strong a word.” Felicity could rent herself out as a space heater at this rate. “We were intimate, though. A few times.” She couldn’t bring herself to look up.
“And she…matters to you, this woman? I mean compared to Phillip, the lawyer you don’t miss.”
“She…” Felicity stopped again as she tried to process her thoughts. “She matters.”
God. The admission felt so baring. Felicity wanted to curl up in a tight ball and never look at her boss again. What must Elena think of her? How wretched must she sound? But it was a relief in a way, too. She had no friends to turn to who could help her make sense of this mess.
“Felicity.” Elena’s voice was low and kind.
She looked up. “Yes?”
“It’s okay.”
It was? How did she figure? Wait. What was okay?
“It’s okay to let someone in if they matter to you. And it’s not the end of the world if they don’t share your ambition. Differences can be the spice of life.” She smiled then.
Suddenly it struck her how different Elena looked. Felicity had been trying to put her finger on it for weeks, but it was right there. Elena had such a lightness to her now. Gone were the constant stress lines and down-turned corners of her mouth as she flayed incompetent employees. Elena had always had a bit of darkness to her. It was a little compelling, a little frightening. But now she seemed…settled?
“What’s happened to you?” Felicity blurted.
“You really don’t know?” Elena asked, surprise in her eyes.
No denial. Felicity stared at her, completely perplexed.
“Well, how interesting. I can see that you don’t.” A ghost of a smile danced across her lips. “I’ll let you work it out for yourself. Anyway, right now I think it’s best if we focus on you. Listen to someone who once only ever cared about showing CQ magazine that they’d made a terrible mistake not appointing me its editor. Everything I built”—she waved around the office—“was to that end. I made sure nothing stood in my way. Not even my own weaknesses.”
Weaknesses? Elena had no discernible weaknesses that Felicity could see. Unless you counted her appalling taste in men. She shot her a baffled look.
“I can see you debating whether to tell me I have no weaknesses.” Amusement danced in Elena’s eyes. “Of course I do, even if I don’t advertise them. Why do you think I named myself COO, not CEO, when I set up Bartell Corp?”
Felicity blinked. She’d heard Elena’s standard answer on this many times. “You like to focus on what inspires you and outsource the rest. So you structured your company so that the CEO would handle all the financials, day-to-day running, paperwork, and minor boardroom matters, freeing you up for the hands-on work, takeovers, and policy direction.”
“That’s the official line. But it’s not entirely true.” Elena gave a small, rueful smile. “Felicity, I went from an editorial job on a fashion magazine to having my own corporation in mere months. I had only a rudimentary knowledge about running a business in those days. My knowledge gaps were vast. So everything I did, including setting aside my ego to appoint someone else CEO—someone experienced and skilled where I wasn’t—was about ensuring my victory. I was determined to prove CQ wrong about overlooking me, no matter the cost.”
“And you sure showed them,” Felicity said with a grim nod. “Good. They deserved to have their stupid noses rubbed in it.”
Elena’s eyes sparkled. “Your enthusiastic support is appreciated. And yes, for a long time, I felt they deserved the constant reminder of their foolishness. But one day, not too long ago, I realized something: they don’t think of me at all. All of my empire building has been to prove something to people who’ve long since moved on. Well, except CQ’s editor, of course. Lecoq does deserve a little nose-rubbing; she’s still so obnoxious about having the job I should have had.”
“She really is,” Felicity agreed with an adamant nod.
Elena laughed again, and Felicity was struck by how rarely she’d been privy to this side of her. She laughs more.
“I feel like in some ways I’ve let you down,” Elena said, expression becoming serious. “I haven’t been modeling a very well-rounded boss for you to learn from all these years. But I hope in recent weeks you’ve come to understand that being a leader is more than just carrying on like an ice-breathing dragon waving your power around. I hope you see now that it’s about nuance, too. In fact, it’s almost all nuance, if you really look at what good leadership is.”
Felicity nodded. “I’m beginning to see that.”
“Which brings me back to your vet. She means something to you. Tell me, is it just pride that prevents you from being with her now?”
“She thinks all I’m interested in is ambition.”
“And are you?”
“No!” Felicity shot back instantly. She gasped. “No,” she repeated, realizing that actually felt true. Since when? Half an hour ago she’d been convincing herself of the opposite.
“Then it seems to me you have a choice. Show her she’s wrong about you. Or do absolutely nothing. Those are your options. But understand that if you want to know what your life will be like in ten years, change nothing now.”
