“Very much so,” Elena said, voice soft. “Something this deep, this beautiful? It can only be love. I’ve never experienced anything like it. It has to be the truth.”
“It’s pretty special to hear that.” Maddie’s lips curled into a tiny smile. “And I hope that wasn’t just a one-off. I should warn you, it’s all I’ll want to hear in the future. You’ve spoilt me now.”
“Is that so?”
“Mmm. And I must say I like your idea of truth.”
Devilment danced in Elena’s eyes. “As do I. After all, I may have mentioned once or twice that I prefer the truth in all matters.”
Without warning, Elena pulled Maddie to her, kissed her thoroughly, and held her with a possessiveness that told anyone watching who Maddie belonged to. And whom Elena loved.
Warmth swamped Maddie, and she clung to her.
Out of the periphery, just before Maddie’s eyes fluttered closed, she saw Perry beam and clasp his hands to his chest.
Felicity slumped against a pillar. Over the orchestral music in the distant background came the faintest words in a clipped voice, which at least sounded amused for once.
“Oh! Of bloody course! Longest winning streak ever!”
# # #
FIVE TIMES FELICITY MET ELENA
Twenty-Three
Felicity Simmons is twenty-three, a junior legal associate, professionally ambitious, personally miserable, and entirely straight, thank you very much.
It’s rather odd how vigorously that last fact jumps into her head as she reviews the icy woman opposite her. Elena Bartell. Media mogul. So-called Tiger Shark. Devourer of failing newspapers that get strip-mined for her burgeoning empire.
Today, Bartell is overseeing the takeover of yet another small print masthead. And Felicity’s team, led by her boss, is negotiating—disastrously—on behalf of the minnow of a paper to secure a decent deal. Felicity supposes she should be more concerned by how badly they’re doing.
Instead, she’s staring.
Power exudes from Elena’s compact form, making her beautiful in the way of a predatory panther. Short jet-black hair is slicked around her pale face. Elena’s piercing blue eyes roam restlessly, dismissing her competition with contempt. Yet for all her unnerving presence, the woman says little, leaving the legal white noise to a phalanx of cloned, gray-suited males on either side of her.
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.
