Filed to story: Watch Out, I’m The Lady Boss (Eleanor & Sebastian) Book PDF Free
She’d been part of the founding team when I started up in Wessexia, but we hadn’t met in person for years, despite her now being CEO of Titanova.
All our meetings since had been video calls-formal, clipped, distant.
I knew it was her way of telling me she was still pissed.
She thought I’d bailed on the company, leaving her and the gang to carry it alone while I faded into a background shareholder role.
I got it. She wasn’t the only one who felt that way, just the most vocal.
So I kept my distance.
Still, it stung when she didn’t invite me to her wedding.
Over time, we’d let the silence stretch. Updates about each other came second-hand, via Olivier or Kylian.
The occasional holiday card. That was it.
Which made it all the more shocking when she confided in me over dinner-told me what her husband had done.
Elean was still watching me. Her bare face made her look younger than twenty-four. Like a uni student still figuring life out.
She was waiting for an answer.
Lea’s name reached the back of my throat. But I didn’t say it.
Would it help Lea to hear about someone else’s experience? Hers and Elean’s weren’t the same, though.
I knew Elean had ended things with Daniel after he slapped her. Just once-but once was enough. She’d told me everything. Her stance on domestic violence was zero tolerance. I agreed.
But Lea? She was still with Pierre Marchand, even after telling me all the shit he’d pulled-hitting her when drunk or angry, stalking her when he thought she was cheating.
I told her-no, demanded-that she divorce him. Right then and there.
But Lea, usually so sharp, so decisiv?, hesitated.
She still loved him, she said. And after every incident, held cry, beg, swear it’d never happen again.
I’d wanted to shake her. How could someone so smart fall for that? Believe a man like that would change?
“No. No one hit on me,” I finally said.
Lea was a friend in need. Not a woman trying to get in my bed.
“Oh,” Elean said. Then turned back to her screen.
“How was your tour?” I asked.
“It was fine. We walked around the town, had dinner at a place with a live fish tank. I saw the biggest crab of my life. You?”
“Dinner with some old friends.”
“You inviting them to the wedding?”
“Who?” I was still stuck in my thoughts.
“Your old friends. I’d like to meet some of them.”
“You will.” At the wedding. Probably.
“They’ve got the invites.”I stood behind her, watching her work. Still thinking about Lea.
Should I bring it up? Maybe Elean would understand Lea’s rationale better, being a woman. But… would it reopen old wounds? Mentioning Daniel never sat right, even now.
“Need help with that?” I asked.
Elean hated numbers. Anything beyond a quadratic equation made her head ache.
“No, I’m fine. This is kind of confidential anyway,” she said, not looking up.
“Aren’t you coming to bed? It’s late.”
“I’ll work a bit more. You go ahead.”I waited. Stayed up.
Eventually, she shut down the computer and climbed into bed.
I pulled her into my arms, kissed her forehead, then her cheek.
When my hand slipped to her pyjama buttons, she rolled away.
“I’m tired. Not tonight.”I woke with a pounding headache, a heartbeat in my ears, and a general hatred for everything.
Valmont & Cie’s financial statements came in at over a thousand pages – five years” worth of balance sheets, income reports, graphs, tables, the works.
On my own, I’d need weeks to get through them. Even longer to make sense of it all.
I should’ve asked Sebastian for help.
I’d planned to.
But when he came back, something stopped me.
Okay, fine, I knew what stopped me. I just didn’t want to admit it.
I was angry with him.
I saw him getting out of a car that wasn’t his, watched a woman in a red dress approach him and wrap her arms around him.
They might have kissed. They might not have. The awning blocked my view.
Still, even if they didn’t-hell, even if it was one of those polite French kisses on the cheek-shouldn’t Sebastian, as a married or nearly-married man, know better?
I shake hands with Fabrizio, sure, but I wouldn’t let him kiss me. Cultural norms or not.
So why didn’t Sebastian keep his distance?
And if he thought there was nothing wrong, why didn’t he tell me about her?
I’d told him about the guy who hit on me-which, fine, was true, but it happened on my first day at Valmont, not yesterday.
Still, wasn’t that a hint? Wasn’t I basically saying, “Look, I’m honest with you-can you be the same with me?”Either he didn’t catch the hint, or he did and chose to ignore it.
I was tempted to pull out my phone and confront him with the photo. But that felt petty. Jealous. Stalker- ish.
And shouldn’t he be the one to bring it up? Like he had with Rowan Hale, when she tried to mislead the public into thinking they were together?
Where was that openness now? What made Red Dress Woman different?
Too many questions. Not enough answers.
No wonder I barely slept.
Not that I dared toss or turn-then he’d know I was awake, and that’d just lead to more questions.
I stared at the ceiling and counted cheniers until my eyes finally shut.
“Morning,” Sebastian said.
I rolled over to face him.
How could he look so alert at 6 am?
But the slight shadows under his eyes gave him away. He hadn’t slept well either.
Serves you right,” I thought.
“Morning”
I dragged myself out of bed. The headache was still there pulsing harder when I glanced at my laptop. I quickly looked away and promised myself I wouldn’t touch the statements until after breakfast.
“What’s your plan today? Also, you haven’t told me how long you’re staying,” I asked, sipping coffee and nibbling a croissant.
“You that eager to get rid of me? I’ve been here two days No. But Skyline probably needs you, and I don’t want you staying just for me. It makes me feel guilty. Like I’m dragging you down.”
“You’re not. And I’ve got some business here to handle,
The flicker of something grim in his eyes made it clear: this wasn’t the usual kind of business.
I want you to meet a designer,” Sebastian said. I gave him your measurements. He’s made you a wedding dress. Try it on. If you hate it, we’ll find someone else”Sure. It’s Friday. I finish early, Can we go today?”
“Of course, Pick you up at four?”I’ll meet you here instead.”After breakfast, he had to leave early to take care of that mysterious “business”.
The man who drove me to work was unfamiliar, but I was used to Sebastian summoning new staff out of thin air.
The driver kept sneaking looks at me in the mirror. I noticed, could’ve called him out on it, but decided he was probably just curious about his boss’s wife.
In his office, when I told Fabrizio I was seriously considering investing in Valmont, he looked like he might leap over the desk and kiss me.
“It’ll still take me a few days to get through the statements,” I said.
“My, ah, accountant’s busy at the Of course, take all the time you need. Ask me anything Although…”
I got the hint.
“Don’t worry We’ll sign the deal before leave Paris”Fabrizio gave me the whitest, widest grin I’d ever seen.
Valmont had an early Friday policy people started disappearing after lunch.
Back at the hotel, I downed two espressos and forced myself to open the laptop.
I focused on the cash flow statements-Valmont’s main issue.
I tried to focus. But words like “depreciation”, “amortisation”, and “EBITDA” started melting on the screen.
I physically held my eyelids open with my fingers and zeroed in on cash from operations. It looked solid. Positive, and trending up.