“Free.”
“Maddie, focus, darling. Seven? I hate to rush, but I have the Fredericks luncheon to prep for.”
“Sure.” She’d felt light-headed. “Seven.”
“All right, then. Until tonight. Bye, honey.” Click.
Maddie looked at her phone, the cupcake, and then over at Elena. She scrambled shakily to her feet and walked to Elena’s desk until she was staring at the impassive face of her boss.
Elena didn’t look up. “Problem?”
“No. I just… I wanted to say…for the cupcake. Thanks!”
“Mm. Consider it payback.”
“Payback?”
“I did appreciate many of your evening offerings.” Elena glanced up, her gaze half-lidded. She nudged a pile of folders across her desk. “These need filing.”
Maddie returned to her desk, arms overflowing, trying to understand what had just happened. Had Elena actually made mention of their time together in New York? That was a first. She hadn’t been any closer to figuring out what it all meant when, at six on the dot, Elena called her in.
“Go home,” she said, sounding annoyed. “You’re chewing the lid of your pen too loudly, and it’s ruining my concentration. So go. Now.”
Maddie hadn’t been using her pen.
Which was in her drawer.
And had no lid.
Such discoveries were both endearing and maddening. One moment Elena was a shark who shredded whole companies; the next she was the wry, smart, occasionally thoughtful woman Maddie had caught glimpses of in New York. Elena Bartell defied definition. She was impossible to pin down.
A blush warmed Maddie’s cheeks, as she imagined pinning the woman down in a very different way. She shook her head in annoyance and forced herself to focus on the work at hand. This, this…crush…would soon pass, and she could get on with life.
She hit Enter on her order for flowers and then winced at how high the total cost was. Oh well, Elena had wanted that Duchamp woman’s attention. She’d certainly get it for that price.
CHAPTER 11
The Truth Bet
Elena Bartell was not a woman who liked to be denied. Which was why when Véronique Duchamp not only rejected Elena’s floral tributes but denied her an interview on the grounds that journalists were all lowly cafards, Maddie slammed on her metaphoric hard hat.
“Cafards!” Elena hissed as she spun her chair away from the window and raked Maddie with a cold glare that lowered the temperature at least ten degrees. “She calls me a cockroach!”
“Well, to be fair, uh, Elena, she calls everyone that,” Maddie said in her most reasonable tone. “All of us. All journalists.”
“Us?” Elena eyed Maddie with deliberate care, voice silky.
Uh-oh. She was in a worse mood than Maddie had thought. “Yes.” She lifted her chin.
“Mm.” Elena spun her chair back to the window. “I tried to get an interview with that woman when I was a junior writer at CQ, and then off and on over the years since. This year, I thought, maybe, because there are succession talks. Her daughter may be taking over. Véronique will want to explain the changes and how they affect her dynasty. I sent a roomful of flowers on that ungrateful creature’s sixtieth birthday. Now this! Cafards!”
No kidding. Maddie had been there for God’s sake. Véronique hadn’t even sent an acknowledgement. Maddie thought she knew why. Flowers were the only thing everyone knew that the mysterious designer liked. So, Elena had joined a queue of every other hopeful wellwisher, from Vogue and Elle to CQ, using floral tributes to vie for favour with her.
Elena glanced back, catching Maddie mid-thought. Her shapely eyebrow lifted. “Something to add? You have some contrary thought in that fevered brain of yours?”
“What?” Maddie said, startled. Her boss’s mood had degenerated from irritated to full-on bitch mode.
“Your face.” Elena waved her hand. “It speaks volumes. What is it?”
“I…Nothing.”
“Nothing,” Elena parroted back at her and gave her a sharp look. She’d been doing that a lot lately. “Could you actually be less honest? Is truthfulness too hard? Am I asking the universe?”
Truthfulness? People didn’t want the truth. She told Elena as much.
Elena gave her a contemplative look. “The world would run much more smoothly if people were able to give and receive the brutal truth. Without omission. Without guile or bright, fake smiles.”
Maddie gave her boss a sceptical look. Yeah, sure. Where had the brutal truth been at the Lancôme gala two nights ago when Elena had patted Richard’s arm and suggested they should “give the drinks a miss tonight” because Elena wanted to cut down? Maddie had known what Elena really meant the moment she’d overheard the whispered words. She wanted him to cut down.
“So quiet.” Elena’s look was challenging. “I remember a time when you were more than keen to share your passing thoughts with me. There was a time you’d feed me homemade goods and tell me your secrets without a lick of self-censorship.”
There was an edge to her voice—both speculative and dangerous. She had not mentioned New York since Maddie’s birthday. This was new. Maddie eyed her. Had the goal posts just shifted?
“You told me those days were over.” Maddie’s tone was cautious. “Back when I took this job.”
Elena said nothing and tapped her fingers on her desk. She gave her a cool look. “Out with it. Véronique? You had a contrary viewpoint. So share.”
So they weren’t touching that topic. Maddie sighed. “The flowers. They were a bad idea. We just became one of the rest, clamouring for her attention. We didn’t stand out. We needed to not be one of the other ‘cockroaches’ begging to be seen.”
