“You wouldn’t!”
“Try me!”
“Felicity!” The panic leaked out of her voice.
“Oh, don’t worry,” Felicity said with a long-suffering sigh, “you’re apparently a protected species. Elena has threatened to fire anyone who imparts your personal details to the media.”
“She what? Why?”
“Of course I asked her at once. ‘Please Elena, explain in detail your mysterious inner workings so that we may all understand’. Honestly.”
“Oh, yeah. Right.”
There was a pause. “It was good, by the way,” Felicity said, her tone quiet.
“Huh?”
“Keep up. Your article. I read it this morning. It was… Well, it was far better than I expected.”
Maddie laughed at how pained she sounded admitting that. “Thanks, Felicity.”
She sniffed. “I hate you for it, but it was exceptional. Okay? Oh! Have you seen the ads yet?”
“Ads? Uh, no.” Maddie’s heart rate surged.
Felicity snorted. “Well, then, you’ll be in for a surprise…” Murmuring interrupted her. “Damn. Elena needs the Harborside Times contract ready in ten minutes—”
“Felicity? What ads?”
The call was already ended. Maddie sighed and slapped the phone on her breakfast table. Immediately, it began to ring again. And again. Not recognising the incoming numbers, she let the calls go to voicemail. Her fifteen minutes of fame were going to take some getting used to.
After breakfast, she bought a copy of Style Sydney from her neighbourhood newsstand, then went home, curled up in bed and went over it again. She was awed at how beautiful her story looked in the glossy publication. As she turned each page and studied the attention to detail within those stunning layouts, it was clear Elena really was an artist who drew out the best from her team. What on earth she was doing wasting her talents on corporate takeovers was beyond Maddie. This was real art.
She sighed as a familiar surge of longing went through her. She was ridiculous. It had only been three days since she’d last seen her. With a huff of annoyance at herself, Maddie grabbed her phone and went through the rest of her new messages.
They ranged from some respectable magazines and newspapers to a few tawdry interview requests promising to pay her if she coughed up a scoop on her relationship with “the French chick you screwed to get that big interview”. She ground her teeth.
Maddie spent about an hour returning the calls of the publications she’d heard of and looking up the ones she hadn’t. Then she did some cleaning to clear her head, as she contemplated their offers. Did she really want to work for Vogue, CQ, or Elle? Writing more fashion? She barely liked it now. Nope, she was fairly sure she didn’t want a job in an industry so shallow it guilted women into impossible ideals, while lacking its sole key benefit—working with Elena Bartell.
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.
