“What?” She was fairly sure her ears had just lied to her.
“I have a guest room. And there is no way I am about to risk the scoop of my lifetime and yours to a random taxi or train.”
“Oh.” Of course. Guest room. Bed. “That makes sense.” She tried for a smile.
Elena nodded. “Good. I’ll show you the way. And if you get peckish in the night, you can help yourself to anything in the kitchen.”
“Thanks.”
Elena’s perfectly proportioned ass should be the subject of poetry, Maddie decided as she followed her up the stairs to the second level. It was so toned and undulated gloriously against her tight pants. Her brain went to a dreamy place.
“Here.” Elena snapped on a light and gestured. “En suite is through there.”
Maddie stared at a room that was like something in a five-star hotel. The wall facing the queen-sized bed contained a gleaming, integrated TV and stereo. Peaceful artworks, stylish fittings, and a lush carpet completed the luxurious picture. A person could stay in here for a week and never want to leave. She must have been making an odd face, because Elena paused.
“Is it not acceptable?” Her gaze took in the room. “Did you need something else? Extra blankets, pillows? The sheets are thousand-count Egyptian cotton, if that’s an issue.”
“No! It’s not, it’s… I mean, it’s…wow. I think the room’s bigger than half of my apartment.”
Elena smiled, and Maddie was struck by the softness to her eyes.
“Good,” Elena said. “Until the morning, then. Sleep well.” She closed the door behind her.
* * *
They proved to be famous last words. It was like a curse. Despite the lateness of the hour, Maddie found it impossible to fall asleep. Her mind was still whirring about the evening. Elena’s watchful, intense eyes. Maddie’s story. How to structure it, what to put in. Elena’s fingers, so long and supple as they grasped the stem of her glass. What to save for the next issue. Elena’s smile. She’d smiled a lot tonight, sometimes teasing, sometimes amused. It was probably just the wine. But it was overwhelming seeing her with her guard down.
And then there was the six-figure elephant in the room, stampeding through her brain. She’d have so many opportunities now—she could freelance if she wanted to, not having to worry about meeting rent for a long while. Or put down a deposit on her own apartment. Or…
After two hours of tossing and turning, her stomach intervened and grumbled loudly. Véronique’s bizarre preference for French fries and caviar hadn’t exactly filled her up. Nor had Rosetta’s chocolate cake. Maddie threw aside her bedding and padded downstairs to the kitchen, hoping to find a snack to tide her over. As she approached in the darkness, a noise made her freeze. She stilled and peered around the doorway.
There, in profile, Elena Bartell sat on a stool at her kitchen island, staring at an empty second bottle of wine, a half-filled glass in one hand, wiping her eyes with the back of the other. Wet trails on her cheek glistened in the low light filtering through the window from a street lamp. A second, empty glass was beside hers, which Maddie recognised as the one she’d been toasting her with only hours before. It looked as though Elena had made a move to clean up when Maddie had gone to bed, and then simply sat down and decided to drown her sorrows instead.
Maddie crept back upstairs, feeling guilty for intruding. She knew Elena would hate being seen like that. Devastated and lost, she was at odds to the powerful figure who swept the corridors of Bartell Corp. Underneath it all, she was still a woman who’d had the worst day of her life, tucked inside the best one, like some messed-up Russian nesting doll.
Somehow, in all the thrills of her big career-boosting scoop, Maddie had forgotten that today Elena had lost a husband she’d once cared for. Worse, she’d learned he was a disgusting bastard. No wonder Elena was numbing herself with twenty-year-old booze. But it was still a shocking sight. The ache in her expression was unforgettable.
Maddie tried to shut out the image of a tear-streaked Elena. Part of her wanted to just hug her until she lost that haunted look. Of course, that wouldn’t be welcome.
Sliding back between the sheets, hunger forgotten, Maddie stared at the ceiling. Glossy paint had been matched to the exact shade of equally gorgeous drapes. The decor alone in this room would have cost a mint.
Money really wasn’t everything, was it?
Dwelling on her big payday suddenly seemed tacky. One floor below sat a slumped, devastated woman, alone in her kitchen, crying into her expensive wine. It was Maddie’s last thought before her eyelids drooped and shut.
* * *
Elena stared into her wine glass. The fine vintage tasted like ash. Her mind was a dulled blur of anger and hurt and something else. She pushed away the something else for now, as she focused on the start of her night. Richard’s face. When she’d arrived home and first confronted him about Madeleine’s allegations. She’d seen it, just for a split second. Panic.
He’d been caught, and he knew it.
Then came the bluster, attempted charm, and lies.
“Elena… honey…you know that’s bull. Come on, love!”
But she’d seen it.
“You don’t get to call me that ever again,” Elena had said with a low hiss. “You groped women in my employ, vulnerable women who couldn’t fight back. And then, to add to the depravity, you crawled into bed with me each night. You make me sick.”
“It wasn’t like that. Elly, please. Let’s just sit down and talk. We’ve shared too much to throw it all away.”
She’d given him a glare that could have bubbled the paint on the wall.
His expression fell, and his eyes became hard. Eyes she could well imagine sizing up prey. Hurting women. Getting off on the power. It was all there. It made her want to throw up.
Apparently, he didn’t like her expression because his own morphed into a cruel parody of the face of the man she’d married.
“If you’d spread your legs a little more often, I might not have had to look farther afield,” he said, a malicious gleam filling his eyes. “You always were a cold fish, Elena. Sometimes I wondered if you were thinking about your spreadsheets when we were doing it. If people only knew how often you ‘have a headache’, and how little you like to be touched. Actually, they already assume that, don’t they? Well, I can confirm your ice queen chill goes right to the bone. I’m no saint, but you’d drive any man to seek his pleasure elsewhere.”
Elena’s lips thinned, and she gave him a look of such fury that he shrank back a little.
“All right,” he ground out. “What do you want?”
“You gone. Tonight.”
“Tonight! That’s absurd! I can’t just—”
“Tonight, or I’ll make your life a living hell. That’s a promise. I want no trace of you left in here by the time I return home. If there is, whatever you’ve left behind will be burnt. Text me when it’s done.”
