“Why don’t you take Oscar for a walk, while you contemplate how your future in my employ is linked to any further idiocy that might leave your mouth. About an hour should do it. He hasn’t been properly walked since yesterday morning. And do dress him warmly.”

Maddie, Perry, and Felicity all glanced at the windows. It was blowing a frigid gale.

“Now, Felicity.”

Felicity scrambled up and left the room, shooting a mortified glance back at Maddie, as she went to track down the dog.

Mask back on, Elena turned to her, expression neutral once more. “I have a typist ready to begin transcribing your interview.”

Maddie had a hard time following the sudden mood shift. “Sorry, what? Why? I can…”

“Unless you can type up a four-hour interview faster than 200 words a minute, it makes sense to outsource it to Sydney’s fastest available typist,” Elena said, tone brisk.

Perry pointed to his laptop and told Elena. “The interview’s on there. On the desktop.”

Elena nodded. “Good. Give it to Ingrid to type up. She’s in the study. Then go over the cover work with Jonas, whenever our illustrious graphic designer deigns to show up.”

Perry left, and Elena slid onto his vacated stool. She studied Maddie for a moment, then sighed. “They will say this about you, you know.”

Maddie’s brow creased in confusion.

“What Felicity suggested. Because of the gossip-column photo and now your world exclusive, that will be the first accusation you get. You will need to be prepared for it.”

Maddie thought about that. Damn. She’s right.

“And they will be even less kind than Felicity was. Trust me, I know what they’re capable of. It’s vile.”

Maddie suddenly understood the source of Elena’s anger. For years, when Elena had started out, gossip writers, under the safety of anonymity, had implied she’d slept with all sorts of investors and board members to make her way so far in the business world. They couldn’t get their heads around the fact that a woman had come out of nowhere, without a rich family, a background in the business, or a sugar daddy, and become a self-made multi-millionaire. So, they’d made assumptions.

“It’s the price successful and prominent women pay,” Elena added with a sour look, “and what’s worse is, you will find other women can be your worst enemies. We don’t need fists to injure. Oh no, we are far more brutal than that.”

Maddie digested her words. “I appreciate the warning. I also really don’t think Felicity meant what she said.”

“Then she should not say something if she didn’t mean it.” Elena paused. “I think this is where we came in,” she added with a rueful look. “Was I not lamenting how hard it is for people to speak the truth, not so long ago?”

“True. God, so much has happened since we had that innocent little conversation before our bet.”

Elena gave her a long look. Her lips twitched. “That conversation was many things, Madeleine, but innocent was not one of them. And I believe you know it.”

Surprise rippled through Maddie. What was she saying? That she was well aware Maddie had a crush on her? Or worse than a crush? Fear and embarrassment wrestled inside her. Was she that obvious?

Maddie desperately sought the answers on Elena’s face. There were none. The woman’s smile merely widened.

Maddening.

“Now come on,” Elena said, straightening. “I believe I promised you a day of hell.”

CHAPTER 22

Filleting a Fish

Elena hadn’t been kidding. The day was a wash of chaos and pressure, stress and anxiety. In the eye of the hurricane swirling all around her, Maddie wrote like a demon.

At times, people would appear at her side. Felicity, looking windblown after her excursion with Oscar, had slid a glazed doughnut onto the table beside her without saying a word. Her version of an apology, Maddie supposed. Being within the mere orbit of all those carbs was probably giving Felicity vapours.

Victor would appear whenever she had a question about magazine style. The man was like a walking bible of grammar and spelling.

Perry would breeze in and out, mutter something with the word “Maddie” in it, but after the first half-dozen interruptions, she’d just tuned him out as she focused.

Writing, writing, writing.

Her wrists were aching from typing, her shoulders groaned, and everything felt as if it was taking too damned long. The clock ticked on, food appeared and disappeared—she wasn’t entirely sure whether it had come from Rosetta and whether she’d been the one to eat it—she never looked up. The words were starting to look ready, but now she had a flow problem. Her story jumped around too much, from subject to subject. If she could just concentrate long enough…to…there was a din from people talking just out of her zone of concentration…she had to think and…for God’s sake, it was getting louder…

“Would you all please just shut up!” she cried out, as the hubbub near her working space rose to a dull roar.

She half expected a “sorry, Maddie,” followed by Perry dashing off to bother someone else. Instead, she got eerie silence and a weird prickling sensation. She turned slowly to see Elena’s astonished look, three feet away, a phone frozen in her hand, as someone on the speaker called from it, “Hello? Ms Bartell are you still there?” and Felicity’s you-did-not-just-do-that wide-eyed expression.

Maddie gestured at her computer screen with a helpless look.

Elena’s lips thinned. She turned. “Benjamin, I will call you back.” She stabbed the phone off and stared at Maddie.

No one spoke. Maddie’s pulse thudded like a jackhammer.

“Quite correct, Madeleine, we will steer clear of your working area.” She turned to Felicity. “See that no one bothers her again.” The steel was back in her voice, as Elena bowed out of the room.

With sweating hands, Maddie returned to her work. Her thoughts wandered, though.

Holy hell.That did not just happen.

For the first time in her life, Maddie understood what having power meant. Another thought struck her.

Is this what it’s like all the time to be Elena?

* * *

Hours later, a sharp rap sounded, and Elena entered the room.

Blearily, Maddie lifted her head from her computer and realised it was almost five in the afternoon.

“Well?” Elena perched on a chair facing her, all elegance and regal coolness despite having endured just as intense a day as Maddie. “I trust I am not interrupting your tenuous concentration this time?” She slid up a challenging eyebrow.

Maddie caught a faint glint of humour in those blue eyes.

“First draft is done,” she reported. “I emailed it to Victor forty minutes ago. I was just figuring out an approach for the second story, the life and times of Véronique. What do you think about starting it with the anecdote of her milking the cows? You know, setting the scene in the barn, and here’s the world’s top fashion designer perched on a rustic, old stool squeezing cow teats?”

Elena’s mouth performed some amused contortions. “By all means, Madeleine, Véronique Duchamp and cow teats it is.” This time the humour in her eyes was anything but faint.

Maddie grinned. She moved her laptop to one side and shook her wrists. “Less of a mad rush on the second story, right? I mean, that one runs next month.”