Her parents called by the time she was frantically vacuuming her curtains. Her curtains, for God’s sake. Her mother sounded as if she were having an asthmatic attack, she was so excited. She declared they were going to send copies to everyone in the family. And given there were forty-five members in the extended Grey clan, Maddie wanted the ground to swallow her up. She tried to talk her out of it, to no avail.

“Really, honey,” her mother said, “aren’t you proud? I know we are. It turns out you were right about your career—you have a real talent for this. I’m sorry if you felt we pushed you into catering.”

Well, she was proud, but still. Maybe she could write forty-five apology letters after her mother cleared out the shelves of Style Sydney in South Penrith?

She was steam cleaning the shower when Simon stuck his head in on his way to work. He dropped his own Style Sydney copy in front of her and solemnly asked her to sign it.

Maddie giggled like the kid she suddenly felt like.

He shook his head. “I mean it, Mads. Not kidding. This is, like, greatness right here. That story was bloody fantastic.” He tapped the cover. “So, I’m keeping this for when you get super famous. Well, more super famous. If that’s actually possible. Then I’ll sell it online, make a shitload, and retire.” He winked and passed her a pen.

She signed, trying to suppress more giggles.

He beamed, then hugged her, adjusted his corporate blue tie, and sailed out, waving the magazine.

She slumped back into a chair. Could her day get any weirder? Her knees jiggled impatiently. Maddie suddenly felt as though she wanted to escape her four walls. She was itching to do something, but what? Go where? She had no work and, due to her former all-encompassing job, no actual life. In fact, the closest thing to a life she’d had lately was when Natalii had forced her to go gay-bar hopping.

At the thought of the eccentric Frenchwoman, she opened up her email and re-read her directions for the Duchamp fashion show that evening. It contained a few cryptic promises of an extravaganza hidden somewhere within Hyde Park in the city, and a vague, hand-drawn map. Natalii mentioned in her instructions that they’d be crazy busy setting up throughout the day—so mad it would be like a zoo.

Now that sounded like something Maddie could help with. Who had more expertise at wrangling a zoo and its exotic creatures than an assistant who’d been based at a fashion magazine? Besides, it’d be better than staring at her phone, wondering why being an overnight success felt so unnerving.

After she got off the train at Town Hall station, Maddie jogged up the steps and decided she’d need a caffeine hit before deciphering Natalii’s directions. She detoured towards the nearest coffee shop and was just about to head inside, when she made the mistake of glancing up.

She froze.

A man crashed into her back and barked, “Hey! Watch it!” before striding off.

She didn’t even have the words to apologise. Her brain had been emptied of anything resembling English. Because there, on a high billboard above her, attached to a building site, was Style’s cover, trumpeting a world-exclusive interview with Véronique Duchamp. Her black-and-white photo of Natalii and her mother stared back at her. The words On sale now below it were in a cursive red swirl.

“Oh my God,” she whispered. Maddie scrabbled for her phone, snapped a photo, and fired it off along with a message to Perry. She wasn’t entirely sure what she wrote, but it was along the lines of OMFG JESUS H CHRIST ARE U FUKNG KIDDING ME OH LORD!

Caffeine cravings forgotten, Maddie sank to a nearby bus-stop seat and stared up at the sign. Her phone beeped after a minute, and she glanced down at the reply. And gasped.

CHAPTER 24

A Dish Best Served Cold

Elena placed her desk phone back in its receiver and spun her chair to face the window. So, that was that. She thought she’d feel more elated. She had the ammunition to destroy Richard now, to take him apart, limb from limb. Her supremely talented private investigator, Saul, had worked with Felicity and the list and tracked down every last woman they could identify who had ever been touched by that man. At Elena’s urging, Saul had even gone as far back as Richard’s college days.

How unsavoury that quest had been. Richard had a college nickname. Octopus. She’d shared her damn bed with a man dubbed Octopus.

Saul had now reported in with the grand total. Elena had fallen silent. She’d always thought the moment of having the proof to crush Richard would be as magnificent as crushing any business rival. Instead, she just felt sickened.

Elena’s thoughts were racing. At least she’d had the Duchamp exclusive to take her mind off everything. But that story couldn’t fill her long hours each night. After drinking more than she should, she’d acquired the habit of curling up in a ball in her bed and indulging a fury that felt bottomless. Then would come the tears. Then more fury. Occasionally, her thoughts turned to Madeleine, and her rage was replaced with loss. It was ridiculous to miss an assistant like this.

She’d already ordered a new bed. She wished she could pay someone to build a bonfire for her existing marital mattress so she could watch the flames scorch it.

Her focus shifted to the streets three storeys below. Ants hurried by. Sydneysiders in a screaming hurry. All, presumably, with their little secrets. A woman in last season’s Stella McCartney sidestepped a young courier on his bike. Which one, she wondered idly, was more likely to have the darkest secret? And which one was the poor sap who should have known better than to trust their life partner?

All it would have taken was asking one question from any of them at the right time. The maid. The waitress. The mouse.

The sick lurch returned to her stomach. She scowled, hating Richard more with each passing second. That disgusting weasel.

“If you keep glaring like that, icicles will shoot up the glass.”

Elena spun her chair around in a fury at having an interloper. “I wasn’t aware we had a meeting.” Perry had to have a death wish, interrupting her in the mood she was in—oldest friend or not.

He merely shrugged and slid into the chair opposite. “Then just say I’m early for the next one we do have scheduled.” He folded a dapper, Tom Ford-attired knee neatly over his thigh, clasped it, and gave her a gentle look. “Felicity tells me Saul just called in. You got the final head count, then?”

She exhaled. “Forty-one.” The number felt stuck in her throat.

Perry brushed lint off his knee, attempting to hide his shock, but Elena saw it.

“Hell,” he eventually said. “I heard you’re making him cough up donations to all those women’s shelters. That’s smart. Got him over a barrel, since he doesn’t want anyone else knowing.”

Regret reared up again and clawed at her. “Apparently, now I get smart.”

He cocked his head. “Meaning?”

She glared at him again. He knew damned well what she was saying. Perry seemed determined to have her process this train wreck; he’d been trying for days. Elena debated throwing him out of her office so she wouldn’t have to think about it. But it would just delay the inevitable.

“Well, obviously, you think I’ve been a fool not to have known. You all do. It is not pleasant being the last one to find out.” Her voice cracked, and Elena almost did too. Hell. Her emotional disarray was not acceptable. Not even in front of Perry.

He gave her a soft look, rose, and came around to perch on the edge of her desk. “Hey, remember Christophe, my ex-boyfriend of, like, five years ago? The one with the rhinestone fetish and perfect hair?”

Elena peered at him, mystified. Who could forget Christophe? The man was walking performance art. She nodded.

“He has this sister, Lana. She’s an MIT professor—a theoretical propulsion expert. When her husband left her out of the blue last year, she hired an investigator to find him. She regretted it. Turned out he had girlfriends coast to coast and a mistress shacked up two streets away. She’d been there for ten years. And here Lana was, literally a rocket scientist, and she didn’t know. Not a clue.” He gave her a pointed look.

“While all this is very fascinating, I fail to see— ”

“So then, Lana’s mother, who had been the one to set them up in the first place, I might add, suddenly announced to the family there’d always been something ‘off’ about him. And everyone acted like Lana must have known deep down and she’d turned a blind eye to it. The alternative explanation was that she had to have been an idiot not to see the signs, and they knew she wasn’t an idiot, so she had to have known. Somehow. And do you know why they assumed this?”

Elena said nothing.

“It makes humans feel better,” Perry said. “Safer. That it couldn’t happen to us. They’ve done studies on it. People shift the blame onto the victims, finding ways to make the people who’ve been betrayed seem compromised in some way, just so they can sleep at night. It’s easier to do that than admit we could be gullible or so easily tricked like that, too. But Elena, this stuff—it just happens. Even the smartest person in the room can’t always spot it. So pin the blame and the crimes on the asshole who did it. And leave them there.”

Elena glanced away, thinking again of her uncharacteristic move to give a reference to that fearful assistant. It had made no logical sense for her to do it. And yet she had. “I… There may have been signs. Maybe…it’s not wrong to be thinking I should have suspected. Or, subconsciously, maybe I did suspect.” Her cheeks tinged with heat.

“Stop,” Perry said, voice firm. “I mean it. You’re not God. Much as you may wish it were so on occasion.”

She shot him an evil look, and he smiled.

“Hindsight is all very well and good, but it’s still useless,” Perry continued. “Only one person knew, with certainty, what he was up to. And I understand that you are in the process of shredding his slimy gizzards. The end. We leave it there. Draw a line under it. So now what? What happens with the names?”

“I’ve given them to my lawyers. I’ll leave it to them to sort out. There will be compensation. I even generously offered for any compensation to come from the money I would normally pay to Richard from our pending divorce settlement. Unfortunately, my lawyers say they can’t swing that, because, officially, it would be better if I was not involved in any of this due to my company position. It could drop the share price if I look exposed to compensation claims or a scandal. A shame. I’d love it tattooed on his head what he’s like. I will make him pay, though. He will suffer. But God, what a mess.” Her tone hardened, as she thought of the headlines if this got out.

Perry regarded her for a moment. “Worried about what the media will do with it?”