Felicity’s never been more impressed in her life. If she wants to make partner, and Felicity really does, she should pay attention to impressive women like this.
Much later, when they’re back at the office and her boss is chugging antacid like frat party beer, all she can recall clearly of that meeting is the godawful mustard yellow carpet in the newspaper’s boardroom…and Bartell’s victorious smirk.
For the briefest of moments, it occurs to Felicity she might not be entirely straight after all, when that taunting smile sticks in her mind on a loop. But that is entirely ridiculous. You can admire a woman’s power and beauty without wanting to run your fingers down her shapely arms, drop kisses under her proud chin, or take her pink, perfect earlobe into your mouth and run your tongue all over it. Obviously.
Twenty-Five
The next time Felicity sees Elena, Felicity is a senior legal associate, working on her first ulcer, and keeping herself together with cigarettes, coffee, and willpower.
She’s still totally straight, not that anyone’s asking, and so busy she can’t even remember the last time she went on a date—so it’s all rather a moot point.
On that note, her friends think she should try Tinder. “Friends” is a loose term for her regular Starbucks servers—the only people she sees often enough to form any sort of a lasting attachment with. And she is deeply, deeply attached to her Caffè Americano.
She’s not going to try Tinder. Well, not before she’s made a partner. Her focus on her goals is steely, sharp, and distraction-free—something she picked up from studying a certain someone else.
Elena Bartell’s not hard to study these days. Business profiles on her are now appearing regularly in national papers, examining Bartell Corp’s transformation, seemingly out of nothing, into a publishing behemoth.
Gone is the surprised undertone about the steepness and suddenness of her brilliant career trajectory. Instead, there is now grudging respect about her acumen and net worth, and the reports are tinged with wonder as to what will follow. Felicity herself has been wondering the same thing rather a lot lately.
Felicity’s firm is once again representing a newspaper’s interests against the ambitions of the Tiger Shark. This paper’s only middle-sized, but it’s important. It has a long history, real heritage, and means something to the locals. So it’s vital that Felicity’s firm pulls off a miracle and gets the newspaper an excellent deal that will keep it running close to its current form. Sometimes Elena allows that—she’ll reorganize papers instead of gutting them if she thinks bad management is all that’s preventing them from turning a healthy profit.
As Felicity slides into a leather chair in the conference room, she’s hopeful for the paper’s loyal readers that today’s the day her boss earns his six-figure salary and does his damned job.
It isn’t to be. Once again, Hank is getting mauled as if someone tossed an antelope into the lion enclosure. This time, though, it’s Elena shredding and twisting his arguments with his own verbal intestines. She’s not even a lawyer. Her burgeoning confidence and expertise are brilliant to watch—too bright to stare directly at, impossible to look away from.
God, Hank is useless.
Felicity tries to help of course, shoving urgent notes across to her boss to bolster his weak arguments at critical moments.
Each time she does, Elena shoots her a knowing look.
And each time, Hank ignores Felicity’s assistance and tosses her an annoyed glance.
Surely the intellectually stunted egotist will be getting his useless ass fired soon? Anyone who nukes an important deal this badly would have to cause a reshuffle. Then Felicity’s excellence will be recognized. She should make partner by thirty.
She has it all mapped out. She has everything mapped out now. She’s even started diction lessons with Mrs. Allsop to sound the part and scrape any last traces of Pinckney, Michigan, from her lips. Felicity will be ready.
The meeting breaks up with a lopsided deal and another triumphant smirk. It’s all too easy for Elena apparently, and she can’t be bothered hiding it.
Well. The mockery is deserved.
Felicity’s boss is bowed as he gathers his paperwork and shoots Elena a hateful stare.
She ignores him and clears her throat. “A word, Ms. Simmons?”
Felicity almost drops her own folders and frowns. What could the Tiger Shark possibly want with a lowly associate?
Elena perches on the edge of the boardroom table, her pinstripe skirt riding up just a little, and waits as the room empties out of men in near-identical business suits. Once they’re alone, Elena leans in. “Your client might have won today if you’d run that meeting.”
Despite being in full agreement, Felicity folds her arms. “We didn’t lose. We negotiated a mutually beneficial deal.”
“Mutually beneficial?” Elena’s voice contains mockery laced with humor. “Sure it was. And if you believe that, you’re not the woman I take you for.” She slides smoothly to her feet, pivots, and saunters off with a jaunty sway of hips.
Dear God. Felicity makes a mental note to buy a pinstripe skirt suit if that’s the effect they have.
Back at their own office, Hank asks what Bartell wanted.
“To gloat,” Felicity murmurs. Although, she’s not so sure. Her hormones do a delighted little quiver at the reminder of that badass suit.
Totally straight, she reminds herself. Of course she is.
Twenty-Eight
Felicity’s now older, seasoned—well…jaded—starting to question her partner prospects, and trying to quit stress-smoking. Peering into the mirror of the Ladies Room just off from the Park Hyatt’s main ballroom, Felicity wonders whether her fourteen-hour days are starting to show. She prods the darkening skin under her eyes for answers.
A stall door opens, and familiar, taunting eyes lock with hers in the mirror. Their owner glides over to the marble sink and washes her hands.
“Ms. Simmons, we meet again,” Elena purrs.
It’s a complete mystery to Felicity how this woman is called a shark when she’s clearly pure jungle cat, with the lethal, rapier claws to match. She’s sleek, sensuous, powerful…
Felicity blinks. Now’s hardly the time to reevaluate her sexuality. She has a boyfriend and everything. Tim. No…Tom. Christ!
Elena’s watching her, waiting for an answer.
“Congratulations on your Businessperson of the Year award tonight.” Felicity winces at how stiff she sounds. She reaches for her lipstick and rolls out the crimson. “That’s impressive.”
“It’s meaningless. Bartell Corp is a hundred-foot-high tsunami, impossible to ignore, so they feel obligated to throw awards and other such nonsense at me. I’m more interested in that award you were up for last month. A shame you missed out. You were robbed.”
Felicity detests compliments. The awkwardness of having to appear grateful while she works out why they’re being offered makes her hyperventilate. She’ll be up all night picking over this one. “I’m sure Jason Hampton deserved it more.” She grits her teeth.
Like hell he does. The New York Law Journal’s Rising Star Award? Please. No contest.
The objective truth is that Felicity has had one hell of a year. Even her boss admitted as much as he turned her down for a promotion.
“You don’t seriously believe that he was more deserving?” Elena’s eyebrows lift.
Felicity hesitates. Sometimes it’s hard being careful not to look too ambitious, too smart, too immodest… She glances around, checking they’re alone. “No. I deserved it.”
“There now.” Elena’s eyes glitter. “That wasn’t so hard, was it?” She sways into Felicity’s space. “Claim your worth, Ms. Simmons. And when you finally give up on waiting to be appreciated, call me. I can make far better use of your talent than your firm.” She opens her clutch and flips an embossed pearl business card onto the counter.
