“Huh?” Maddie peered at her phone. “And you’re sharing this why?”
“Are you interested?”
“In working for Elena? She just fired me!”
“Yes, I am quite aware of that. She fired everyone. Moving on—”
“I’m not the PA type. I don’t do PA-ing. I. Am. A. Journalist.”
“Not. According. To. Elena.”
Maddie was beside herself with frustration now. “Do you not get that she just fired me? I may have also called her a shark.”
“Well.”
“A calculating, icy, money-hungry bitch of a shark.”
“Is that a yes or a no?”
Maddie frowned. “Look, I don’t know what Elena wants from me, but—”
“Elena wants someone fluent in kangaroo speak or whatever cultural mangling your people do down there, and she’d prefer someone she knows. And she told me to tell you the position gives you your fondest wish.”
Maddie shook her head. “I’m going to regret asking this, aren’t I?” She rubbed her bleary eyes. “And what is this fondest wish?”
There was a smug snicker. “A face-saving way to return home.”
“Face-saving? I’d be going back as a PA, not a journalist! An assistant!” Maddie couldn’t believe her ears. “Oh, I get it…” So this was Elena’s revenge for not having the last word and for Maddie calling her a few choice names? Hiring her as her lackey. “She thinks I’m going to give up my career as a journalist to get down on my knees and kiss her a—”
“Ugh! You would be her personal assistant, you idiot. That is hardly giving up anything. That’s a job with status. Surely even your feral, dingo-bred clan from Outer Bog Swamp have heard of Elena Bartell?”
Maddie groaned at the pointlessness of arguing with Felicity Simmons. “Just give me a simple answer to this: why would she want to hire me?”
“She said you’d ask that.”
“And?”
“It’s business.”
Maddie ground her teeth. “Not for me it’s not.”
“Suit yourself. You know I could find a truckload of PAs who would jump at this opportunity. But if you’d rather cling to the delusion you’re cut out for New York when you’re so miserable that even I can see it, and I have no interest in your life whatsoever, then I can’t stop you.”
“Then why not get one of those truckload of PAs to do it?” Maddie said with a snarl. “Tell you what—if Elena Tiger Bitch Bartell wants me to be her personal assistant, she can damn well ask me herself.” She ended the call with a vicious stab of her finger. There.
* * *
An hour later, Maddie mustered the energy to go grocery shopping. She’d just made her way gingerly down the stairs of her apartment building, head thumping, when she spotted a shiny, black BMW slowly creeping up Humboldt Street towards her. Maddie watched it, wondering if the luxury vehicle was lost. Unless it was stopping by Bruno’s next door for a service?
It pulled up, and a familiar driver stepped out.
“Ms Grey?” Amir said.
She looked at him. Then at the car. Then at him again. Her not entirely sober brain struggled to process what she was seeing.
Finally, the back passenger window rolled down. Elena peered at her through dark sunglasses. “I’m a busy woman. Can we move this along?”
“Move what along?”
“I refuse to conduct business shouted across the street. Get in.”
Amir walked to the opposite rear door and opened it, looking at her.
Maddie hesitated, then sauntered around the car and slid inside.
Amir closed the door and walked away.
Maddie took in the smell of Elena’s familiar perfume, mingled with leather from the fancy seats. She looked down at herself, in torn jeans, an old T-shirt, and denim jacket. She folded her arms. “Yes?”
“I understand you wished to discuss the terms of your new employment?”
“No, I wanted to hear it from your lips—a personal invitation to be your assistant.”
Elena regarded her. “You wish to go home. I’m paying. Isn’t that good enough?”
“No. Come on, you fired me. And then I called you a bunch of insulting names, and now you’re offering me a job.”
“Apparently. So?”
