“A shame. I was going to introduce you to mine. Trent Dalton and Alan Kadinsky. We’ve all just come back from the Middle East. I’m a war photographer.” Her cocky smirk fell over the wrong side of the line on arrogant.

Maddie hesitated. She would really like to meet Dalton. “Maybe later. I want to talk to my friends first.”

“Sure,” Theresa said, and gave her arm a playful pat. “Later it is.”

Maddie turned to find herself caught in the laser-sharp focus of Elena Bartell, watching from across the room. Her pulse leaped as she saw Elena’s dress—a sleek, white gown, with a slit at the front up to her knees, the exact length of the plunge of her cleavage. Symmetry and style. Wow. She headed towards her.

As she closed in, a man stepped into her line of sight. “Maddie!” Perry gasped, grabbing both her arms and pulling them out wide. “Let me look at you! So this is it? Natalii’s dramatic leap from the nest?”

He studied her closely, turning her. As he did so, Maddie felt a hole being burnt into her as Elena looked at them. She glanced down at her outfit, wondering what her former boss thought of it.

Black. Sheer. Feminine. A suit. Over the wide-legged palazzo pants lay the finest black mesh, filmy and floating, so from some angles it looked as if she was wearing a flowing, elegant skirt. Her jet-black jacket was formal, like a tux, with plunging lapels all the way down. The bottom of the jacket flared out at a forty-five-degree angle, which was matched by the parallel slash of cream-trimmed pockets at the hip and chest. Underneath, she wore an intricate, cream, brocaded waistcoat, like something out of the Palace of Versailles, with tiny gold-thread-embroidered buttons. A silk scarf, in matching cream and gold, was loosely knotted, giving her the effect of a rakish gentlewoman. There was no shirt underneath the vest, so Maddie’s smooth, pale skin provided the final counterpoint. It was formal but daring; risqué yet covered everything.

“Superb.” Perry nodded. “I don’t often beg, but we need her for Style. You can’t swan around with this on and not let us do a big write-up.”

“I’ll ask her.”

“Good. Must be an exclusive, though. Oh,” he turned, “Elena wanted a word. Meanwhile, I’ll find out what’s keeping Felicity with the drinks.”

He headed off, and the distracted look on his face told Maddie he was mentally prepping shoots for a Natalii spread.

Maddie’s eyes slid over to the woman studying her silently. “Hello.”

Elena’s gaze raked the outfit, and her eyebrow lifted. A hint of a smile dusted her lips. “Very chic. Elegant. Like mother, like daughter. I see she’s not just a pretty face.”

“No, she’s not.” Silence fell. Maddie fidgeted. “About the article—”

Elena’s expression lost its lightness. “Did I anger you that much at the last ball? Or did you merely seek to advance your career through my suffering?”

Oh hell. Elena really was mad. “It wasn’t about you. You were no factor in my decision to run it.” Maddie begged her to see the truth in her eyes. “You were, almost, a factor in my decision not to. But in the end…” In the end she’d known she was right to do it. “In the end, I had to.”

“Well.” Elena took a sip of her drink.

“Well what?”

“Well done. It’s important journalism. And a fine piece of writing.”

“Wait, you’re not mad at me?”

“You believed I would be so petty as to put my personal feelings ahead of the well-being of vulnerable people? I can’t say I’m pleased to be at the centre of so tawdry a controversy tearing apart my industry, but your feature was honest, balanced, avoided clichés, and repeatedly pointed out who the true villains were.”

“What about Richard?”

“Terrified. And frothing,” Elena said with an evil smile. “So, there is that at least. He’s suddenly being extra accommodating with the terms of our divorce. On that note, he had been encouraged to make several sizable donations to women’s shelters around New York to avoid being named and shamed. But now your story’s out, I’m informed he’s shaking in his size-twelve boots that someone will put two and two together and reach Richard Barclay.”

“I’m sorry by the way. About the divorce.”

“I’m not.” Elena regarded her for a moment. “Let’s change the subject. What were you doing with Theresa Hunter? Give her a wide berth.”

“Why?”

Elena’s eyes narrowed. “Because I’ve suggested it. She’s notorious.”

“You do know I don’t work for you anymore,” Maddie said. Her indignation rose. “You know I don’t have to run my friends or romantic interests past you either.”

“Romantic interests? You must be joking. That snake?”

Maddie winced. This was getting derailed fast. “Right, stop. Look, can we…restart this conversation? I’m not interested in dating Theresa Hunter. We talked for a minute. Not even that. Okay? Could you please stop assuming I’m into everyone who shows an interest in me? First Lucas, now this woman?”

Elena said nothing, but her expression relaxed.

“Come on,” Maddie said, more softly, “why do you do that? Is that what you think of me? That I’m just waiting for anyone to pay me the slightest bit of attention and I’m all into them now?”

Elena regarded her. “If you could see yourself as I do, you’d also expect everyone in the room to make an approach.”

Maddie started at the unexpected words. “That’s flattering, but for the record, I have no interest in some war photographer who asks me to dish the dirt on my sources and then uses her job title as a pick-up line.”

“She truly is a snake.” Elena’s lips thinned. “I was not exaggerating.”

“No, you weren’t, but it’s irrelevant.” She sucked in a deep breath. “We’ve danced all around it, but you have to know by now that I only have eyes for one woman. And it’s not her.”

“Madeleine,” Elena’s tone was low and held a hint of warning. “We can’t. I mean—”

“You told me, last time we met, there’s no ‘we’.” Maddie studied her. “That there couldn’t be. It’s impossible. You say things like that, and yet you still act like you want more. And then you shut the whole conversation down, like now. Can you just tell me what you want? It’s so confusing.”

“I could say the same of you.” Elena flicked some lint off Maddie’s sleeve, with a careless sweep of her fingertips. “You say you can predict what I need and want, but on this you seem so unsure. I have explained why I cannot make promises or offer any hope.”

“But you’re no longer married.”

“I’m not divorced yet, either, and I cannot ignore the fact that the paint’s barely dry on my separation. I’m the owner of a company that has hundreds of thousands of employees, has a turnover of just under a billion dollars. If I make one wrong move, the share price plunges. If they sense weakness or scandal, investors flee. I cannot put a foot wrong. Tell me you can understand that.”

“That sounds like hell.”

“Hell?”

“Yeah. The worst.”

Elena’s eyes narrowed. “So now you minimise what I do? Do you even grasp how powerful I am? How important my position is? This is nothing to shrug at. It comes with enormous responsibility. You have no idea how—”

“You’re not powerful enough to choose your own path. That’s what I hear. You’re actually less in control of your life than I am—and I am close to a nobody. Was this really your dream? You can’t ever make mistakes. Can’t put a foot wrong. Won’t take a chance. I’m sorry, but to me it sounds terrible.”

“You don’t understand—”

“I understand that you’re scared of making even one wrong move. It’s sad. And a shame too. You know, there’s a reason you loved my blog—it’s because we see the world the same way. We’re very different, but in all the important ways, we get each other. You feel it, too, or we wouldn’t even be doing this…confusing dance. We think alike, appreciate determination, laugh at the same things, observe the world in a similar way, as outsiders. And I know you secretly like my Latvian folk music, so don’t bother denying it,” she added with a smile. “Do you know how rare and beautiful it is for two watchful, lonely souls like us to find each other?”

Elena said nothing, but it was all there in her eyes. Doubt. Fear. And something else that made Elena’s jaw set hard.

Perry returned with Felicity in tow, bearing drinks, which they handed out.