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?”
“Another divorce and a grubby scandal as well. They’ll dance on the tiger shark’s shame.”
A grin slowly curled around his lips. “You’re forgetting one thing right now—today, you are golden. You have the exclusive of the decade. Style is selling out in stands all over the world. The media are too busy talking about Duchamp’s crazy rugby player and her brilliant new collection to worry about your ex, even if it all came out today.”
He grinned, and Elena tried to smile.
“I suppose.” But she did feel better. He had a point. Style had been flying off shelves. The issue had already sold out in France.
Perry chuckled. “Hey, want me to tell you all the colours Emmanuelle’s face changed when she saw our story? My brother-in-law knows the front security guard at CQ, and he says she stopped dead, hissed at the cover, then …”
Elena’s phone beeped, and she picked it up, listening to Perry with a half smile. Her mood was rapidly improving. She glanced at her phone screen. The name Madeleine greeted her. Tapping the text message, Elena stared at what appeared. She read with growing astonishment. And then it all became clear. She smirked.
“Who is putting such an evil smile on your face?” Perry paused mid dramatic anecdote and leaned forward, craning his neck to see the screen.
Elena spun the phone around to show him a picture of the mid-city, Pitt Street billboard and a text message below it. OMFG JESUS H CHRIST ARE U FUKNG KIDDING ME OH LORD!
“I believe my former assistant intended this for one of her earthier friends,” Elena said with a drawl. “Quite possibly you, given her uncensored venting.”
Perry snorted. “Ha! Yes, I think you’re right.” He wiggled his fingers. “Want me to reply?”
