The Brutal Truth

by Lee Winter

“Elena is a brilliant businesswoman. I’m certain her strategy will reveal itself. Even if someone can’t see it, she always has it. She thinks ten steps ahead of the rest. I’m learning a lot here. It’s an incredible opportunity.” “Yeah?” Maddie studied her for a moment. “Then why do you always look so miserable?” There was a soft snicker of laughter from the glass office behind Felicity,

Someone once said: “Be yourself; everyone else is taken.” Surely this is the hardest advice ever offered.

We all wear masks. We’re all practiced liars, neatly curating ourselves for the benefit of others.

You never truly know what’s under anyone’s mask until you take one corner and start to peel. It awes me that anyone would allow another human to do this to them. To willingly say, hey, this is me. Do you still like me? The advice might be right—but by God, it’s asking a lot of us.

Maddie swallowed at the same time Elena did. A look of surprise flitted across Elena’s face, and the hint of a smile. Then nothing. Elena turned back to her computer.

She peeked eight or nine more times throughout the night, and the little pile of balls had almost disappeared by the end of it. Not that she’d been stressing about it or anything. Nope, not at all. The tenth time, Elena looked straight at her and gave a faint smile as she popped the final ball into her mouth. Not for the first time, Maddie wondered what on earth Elena was thinking.

It was unnerving to work out Maddie as Hell was not ancient, still, or steeped in wisdom. She was just a lost, homesick, young reporter. Someone hapless, chaotic, and unfathomable, not to mention a fashion tragic…and yet she wrote words that stirred Elena.

When people say something’s like riding a bike, I think maybe they mean it will hurt sometimes, but it will get better. Today, I remembered how to smile. I wonder whether it will hurt later.

“You see me.” Elena gave her a pointed look. Madeleine stopped. “Oh. Yeah. I guess, well, yeah, I do. So you want me to dress for you?” Her eyes flew wide open. “Oh hell. That came out wrong.”

Elena withheld a snort of laughter. Really, squirming Madeleine was her favourite kind. She wondered when that had happened. Having a favourite kind of anything regarding this woman.

Fifteen minutes later, Elena flung down her pen and shoved the stick into a USB slot.

The young woman’s expression was pure delight. Elena’s heart did an embarrassing, pleased little flip at having put that look on Madeleine’s face. She clenched her jaw. This was absurd. She shouldn’t care what Madeleine Grey thought of anything. She was just an occasionally interesting employee. Her brain blew her a raspberry.

This clinched it. Madeleine’s cooking was better than sex—which wasn’t saying much given how overrated she’d found the bedroom activity to be.

Madeleine really was like no one she’d ever met. Mystifying and full of contradictions. And what did she mean by saying she’d been miserable except for recently? It sounded very much like she meant their time together. Time that would soon be up.

“when the world gets too overwhelming and things feel too big for us to fix, just change your little corner of it”.

Because Elena is fascinating, her brain whispered to her. And beautiful. And a mystery. And I love to unpick a mystery. I want to know who she is and how she thinks about anything and everything. I want to know her.

Tonight, she’d ordered him home only to look over his shoulder and discover the Hudson Metro News’s junior crime reporter had also disappeared.

“Tell you what—if Elena Tiger Bitch Bartell wants me to be her personal assistant, she can damn well ask me herself.” She ended the call with a vicious stab of her finger. There.

Our talks, she wanted to say. Our almost friendship. You always looking at me like you wanted to know more. All the times I watched you and couldn’t stop. The intriguing conversations, the intense moments, late at night with no one around. Missing you when you weren’t there. It couldn’t be so one sided. Could it? Could she just erase it like it never happened?

How does it feel? Like a soft fire. Like churning. Nerves and excitement. Like missing out on something close enough to taste. Honey and spices and temptation and…

“The world would run much more smoothly if people were able to give and receive the brutal truth.

Without omission. Without guile or bright, fake smiles.”

“So quiet.” Elena’s look was challenging. “I remember a time when you were more than keen to share your passing thoughts with me. There was a time you’d feed me homemade goods and tell me your secrets without a lick of self-censorship.”

Maddie resisted the urge to roll her eyes. Elena brought up her old look so often that Maddie wondered if she missed it.

“If I win,” Elena began, “and I will, I want something from you that you seem incapable of doing anymore.”

“Honesty. An entire day of complete honesty. Every question asked, you answer truthfully. None of your perfectly safe answers that tell me nothing. None of your boring, Stepford-wife blandness I’ve endured of late.” Elena’s eyes were sharp and bright now. “The whole truth to me. On everything. Well? You may surrender now.” Her gaze flicked back to her layouts, and without looking up, she added, “I will not be shocked.”

Elena’s cool eyes flicked back up and seemed to be dancing with mischief.

tone sounded more curious than anything else. As though she didn’t seem to care either way. As Elena considered the implications, a coldness settled over her, along with fear. “You’ve already found a better offer?”

Elena enjoyed the sound of it. She wished the woman had laughed more since they’d left New York. She’d missed those engaging green eyes teasing her.

“Learn to pivot. Find the thing that you are best at, not the thing you trained for.”

“Is that why you asked me to be your assistant? You…missed me?” It sounded insane. And yet… “That’s…” Maddie could see the lie forming, but just then, Elena’s intense gaze was back. “One reason. A major one. It will be odd, tomorrow, being at work without seeing you every day.” Her tone became flat.

“Madeleine?” “Yes?” She reluctantly looked up. “It was remarkable.” Elena sighed and looked as though this was not something she ever wanted to discuss. “You are…quite remarkable. I’ve thought so ever since I read that blog of yours. To capture the loneliness of a soul in such a way? Well. I knew the moment you got the Duchamp interview that you would craft an exquisite story.”

Maddie as Hell? You read that?” “Without fail. I found it intriguing. I always looked forward to it. Your replacement is useless, by the way.

“The point is, you do have talent. It’s all about directing it well.” Elena reached out and softly slid her fingers across Maddie’s cheek, leaving a scorching trail of heat where her fingers touched.

She met Maddie’s eyes with a dark look. “Don’t waste your talent.” She studied her, hand stilled on her skin. Maddie held her breath, shocked into silence by the touch.

“Madeleine is no longer in my employ,” she said testily. “She has moved on.”

Elena turned to stare out the window, his question vexing her far more than it should. Madeleine was, indeed, no longer in her world at all. A handful of events ahead of them, and that would be that. No more. The ache intensified. Elena briefly wondered whether she should check in with her doctor. This couldn’t possibly be a normal reaction to losing one’s assistant.

She’s not just an assistant, though, is she? Friend, then. Like it or not, fight it all she might, Madeleine had been a...

“Sure thing. Oh and it’s a shame about losing your assistant. She was about the nicest person you could ever meet. Don’t think she contained an ounce of bullshit, if you’ll pardon my French.”

“Oh, Madeleine, I think there may be a secret you keep from the flower lady.” The tone was light, but her eyes were perceptive, curious.

Hidden under all those ridiculous grunge clothes had been a woman of such beauty she now stole Elena’s breath. She sat speechless, as she drank in the sight of her. Desire coiled inside her, sharp and dangerous, begging her for something she had never dared think about. And she finally understood.

Madeleine was not her friend. Not like Perry. It wasn’t normal to feel this way for a friend. It wasn’t normal to want to dust your fingertips over a friend’s body and map it the way she suddenly had a burning urge to do to Madeleine’s.

She savoured the sight of her. Her Madeleine. The woman s...

You could be an artist’s model. A muse to inspire and study.”

Maddie swallowed. “Is that what I am to you? Someone you like to study?” “Yes.” Elena’s expression contained nothing but sincerity. “I do like to watch you.” “I like looking at you too,” Maddie said, voice a whisper. “I’ve really missed you.”

Over Elena’s shoulder, Véronique smirked. Maddie started to panic. What had the bloody woman told Elena? She shot the designer a part mutinous, part terrified glare, which made her laugh heartily.

“I worked my ass off to get a tenth as lucky as you in life. I swear, if I didn’t somewhat like you and find you a damned good PA—although I will kill you if you tell a soul I just said that—I would poke your eyes out with a cheese knife. Well, I would, if cheese knives weren’t so bloody close to the cheese platter.”

If I ruined her marriage, she’d politely ask her driver to reverse over my still-twitching corpse a few times, and then she’d fire me posthumously.”

“A woman,” Véronique said. “And when I told her the emotion I had when I designed my signature dress was amour—amour for the beautiful female body, she looked right to you.”

Véronique laughed and gave her cheek an affectionate pat. “Oui, dear girl, they do. They roam all over you.”