“Oh-so judgmental. Let’s see how moral you feel when you can’t make your damned rent!”
“At least I’ll still be able to look at myself in the mirror.” Maddie hefted her bag to her shoulder. She looked around. She had everything she wanted. Her gaze went to the silent office adjacent. Well, more or less.
“In this city, you’d be lucky to even afford the mirror.”
Maddie’s attention snapped back to Felicity. They regarded each other for a long moment.
“What you did today, I’ll never forget,” Maddie said, steel edging her voice. She gentled her tone. “But I’ll probably miss you, strange as it may seem.”
Felicity bit her lip and looked down. “Yes, well. You always were the odd one.” Her inflection lacked its customary bite. “And for God’s sake, Maddie, it wasn’t personal. At least believe that.”
Maddie gave her head a rueful shake. “I know. I almost wish it was. At least then you’d have had the courage of your convictions.”
Felicity’s shoulders lost their trademark rigidness and slumped, as Maddie left Bartell Corporation forever. Along with Elena.
CHAPTER 15
Grey’s Anatomy
Elena leaned back in her chair and stared out the window. Her office was in the garment district of Sydney, and her three-storey red-brick building was among those where the piecework operations for the rag trade had dominated in the mid-1800s. Grey, concrete alleys scribbled through the suburb, and old, leafy Moreton Bay figs punched the sky.
Today, the movements below didn’t hold her eye. Elena’s heart was in her throat. The one thing she’d vowed never to do at work had happened. She’d succumbed to a personal emotional display. She’d been weak after a lifetime of training herself to give nothing sensitive away.
Nothing had ever enraged her this much. Madeleine Grey had suggested her corporation was infested with harassers, and the long line of assistants in her employ had never been sure whether Elena had been turning a blind eye to it all along or simply hadn’t known.
But that revolting thought paled next to the disgusting lie that each night she shared a bed with a man who groped women. Someone right under her nose.
She glared out the window. Richard wasn’t perfect. She’d always known that. But he’d been so helpful to her career. He knew everyone. She’d had difficulty overcoming her natural reticence to engage the human race. He was charming, and people flocked to him, found warmth, and felt he was speaking directly to them. He could close deals and bring clients and rivals over in a way that had been thrilling to watch. The thought that he also…
Rage stirred in her belly. Madeleine Grey had ruined her image of the man she’d married with a single sentence. Elena glowered at the grey, inner-city streets, seeking answers. She turned the simple truth over of what she knew about her husband. Power was his turn-on.
Power. Was his turn-on.
She spun away from the window and stared at his photo on her desk. He was handsome, confident, and ruthless. Surely he wouldn’t be…also that.
No.
He couldn’t be.
How dare that woman hurl such a charge out there like this? What proof had she apart from hearsay from assistants long departed from the company? Anyone could put a name on a list.
But why would they? a little voice nagged at the back of her head. What benefit was it to them to do so? The list had never been made public. If it was part of some spiteful vendetta, the allegations would be all over the media. But no—this list had been tucked in the back of some handbook, passed from assistant to assistant to keep them safe.
Elena’s stomach lurched again. It couldn’t be true. She refused to believe it.
But if it was false, why would Madeleine tell her such a lie?
Her PA’s accusation wrenched the rug out from under her. Had it been anyone else, she’d have known immediately their aim had been to hurt; that all this was about an ulterior motive. But Madeleine didn’t seem to want to hurt her. She didn’t have any motive. Indeed, Madeleine didn’t seem to want to hurt anyone. She didn’t have a malicious bone in her body. Elena frowned. This…cruelty was out of character for her former assistant.
But wasn’t it true that everyone had a vicious streak when pushed? A darkness, when one was attacked, that led one to do and say things designed to injure. Everyone. Even an eternally smiling young woman who once presented her with exotic gifts while stuttering out speeches about how Elena was her inspiration.
She glared at the streets of Surry Hills and wondered at the strange disquiet she felt. That Madeleine had been the one to betray her with these allegations had caught her completely off guard. And that was what hurt most of all.
CHAPTER 16
Sweet Amour
Birds had the perfect life, Maddie mused, sitting on a park bench around the corner from her work (ex work). Pigeons swooped and strutted about, mooching for food. Humans complicated everything that should be simple. Like Maddie. She hadn’t even managed just going into work, working, and going home. No, she had to get herself entangled in a silly bet that had gone thermonuclear.
She’d been sitting here for an hour, waiting for the sick dread to leave. Having Elena’s rage directed at her for the first time was like being gouged and clawed. Her look of hurt and disbelief, though, was far worse.
Felicity’s defeated expression, after she admitted selling her soul for her career, was burnt into Maddie’s psyche, too. The woman wasn’t entirely wrong, either. Maddie had no job, limited savings, and given she now lived alone, she could barely afford rent. Morals wouldn’t keep her warm and fed.
Her phone rang. It was an unfamiliar number.
“Madeleine?”
Maddie’s heart stuttered at the familiar pronunciation, then sank at the less familiar voice.
“Natalii?”
“Oui. Good. I need you. Vite!”
“What? How did you get my number?”
“Your Simon gave it to me. We are the Facebook friends.”
“You’ve got a nerve.” Maddie peered at a few kids playing on a slide on the other side of the park. “Your stupid stunt really pissed off my boss.”
