Maddy Collated: The Complete Trilogy (11 page)

At the other end of the line the phone buzzed once, twice, and
Maddy
suddenly had a sick feeling in her stomach. What if it wasn't Sam or Chet giving her these things?

But no.
That was stupid. Who else could afford
Louboutins
?

"
Embra
Enterprises, this is Holly. How may I direct your call?"

Maddy
forced herself to swallow around a dry tongue. "Could you please connect me with Sam Lake's office, please?"

"One moment please." The line clicked and soft music began to play. Almost immediately the line clicked again.

"Office of Samuel Lake, this is Diane." One of the interchangeable secretaries she'd seen on her one and only trip to the top floor.
Maddy
took a deep breath.

"Yes, this is Madeline Marcos. May I please speak to Mr. Lake?"

There was a slight pause at the other end of the line, and
Maddy
imagined Diane flipping through her mental rolodex of names. "I'm afraid Mr. Lake is out of the office today," she said smoothly, her voice calm and even.
Maddy
would have bet ten dollars that Sam was in today, but there was no way she was going to get stupid Sam's stupid personal assistant to admit that.
Ugh.

"Well, if you could tell him I called," she said.

"Of course, Miss Martin, I'll let him know. Thank you for calling."

"It's Marcos—"
Maddy
began, but the click at the other end of the line told her she had got as far as she was going to.

Well, so much for that. If she wanted to talk to Sam or Chet, she was probably going to have to do it in person.

Ruefully she looked at the stack of files on her desk.
If I can ever come up for air,
she thought. She had no illusions about breaching the wall erected around them by personal assistants, so when was she going to find the time she needed to sit upstairs and hope that Sam or Chet walked past her?

In the meantime, she had this new package sitting at her feet, and once again her curiosity ate her up. The wait for lunch was agonizing. When at last it came, she grabbed the box and made a beeline for the elevators, meaning to open it in the lobby or her car.

"
Maddy
!"

She turned to see Sandy jogging to catch up with her.
"Yeah?"

"What's in the box?"

"I don't know."

"Can I see?"

Maddy
had to laugh. Sandy looked like a puppy, begging for a bone. "Sure," she said. "I don't know that it will be as impressive as yesterday's package, though."

"How could it not be?" Sandy said as they got into the elevator together. "Did you find out who sent yesterday's?"

Maddy
shook her head. "Not for sure, but I have a pretty good idea."

"Oh, tell me! Tell me!"

Maddy
gave her a look.
"No way."

"Is it the CEO?" Sandy demanded.

Maddy's
jaw dropped as the elevator began to descend. "How... no, I don't... what do you mean?"

"Well who
else
was down here two weeks ago and is rich enough to send you
Louboutins
?"

Maddy
felt her mouth twist. "Have you told anyone?" she said.

Sandy shook her head. "No. Well. I did sort of tell Laurie that you got
Louboutins
. But I didn't say anything about who I thought they might be from!"

Maddy
heaved a sigh.
Office gossip.
And not just any office gossip.
Office gossip about her and Sam Lake.
"Well, don't say anything," she said. "There's nothing going on."

"Then why is he sending you shoes? Oh! Are you doing some kind of work for him?"

Maddy
felt a scowl flit across her face. "You could say that," she answered carefully. It was... sort of close to the truth. Wasn't it?

"That is so cool!" Sandy made the zipped lips gesture as the elevator doors opened into the lobby. "I won't tell anyone. I know moonlighting is against the rules. Although does it count as moonlighting if you're doing work for our company?"

Maddy
shrugged. "I have no idea, and I'm not going to think about it."

Sandy grabbed her arm and pulled her over to one of the couches that sat in the lobby. "Open it!" she commanded. "I'm dying here." She pulled out a nail file and handed it to
Maddy
.

Maddy
slit the package open and lifted out a black box. This time she recognized the name, though she had to squint at the logo. Sandy, of course, had no problems.

"Oh my god!"
Her voice was pitched as high as a bat's. "Open it, open it!"

Running her fingers over the silver Prada logo,
Maddy
took a deep breath and did so.

Inside was a handbag.
A bright red patent leather handbag, the same shade as her shoes.
Carefully she lifted it out. She may not have been up on her designers, but even she knew that a Prada handbag was probably a big deal. Given the way Sandy was hyperventilating, it was probably worth twice as much as the shoes.

"Oh my god, oh my god, oh my god.
What kind of work are you doing for Mr. Lake?" she said.

"Keep your voice down,"
Maddy
hissed. "And I'm not at liberty to say."

Sandy fanned herself. "This is like a TV show or a movie," she gushed. "Top secret corporate espionage, paid out in designer handbags."

Bemused,
Maddy
handed the bag over to Sandy, who began to run her hands over it like it had healing powers and she was on the brink of death. A little humming sound came from her throat as she did so. "It's not espionage,"
Maddy
told her, but Sandy wasn't listening. With a sigh,
Maddy
glanced back in the box and pulled out another card. It said the same thing as
yesterday's
.
For Friday.

For Friday.
What did that mean? What were they doing on Friday? She couldn't help but feel vaguely annoyed. She needed a time to go with her date. With a sigh, she tucked the card into the bag, though she didn't bother trying to take it back from Sandy. She didn't want to lose a finger.

"How can I get in on this?" Sandy asked, breathless. Her fingers wouldn't stop stroking the leather.
Maddy
started to worry that she was going to leave a puddle behind when they got up to leave.

"I don't think you can,"
Maddy
said. "I just kind of... lucked into it."
Whatever
it
was.

"Well, whatever you're doing," Sandy said, "keep it up."

*

On Wednesday another package arrived. This time both Sandy and Laurie wanted to know what was inside, and when
Maddy
opened it at lunch they both swooned to see an
Ippolita
necklace, all hematite and blood-red garnet. On Thursday the box held a black Donna Karan bustier dress that
Maddy
was eight hundred percent certain she would never fit into. By this time she had collected a gaggle of followers, all
ooh
ing
and
aah
ing
over every expensive fold and seam, begging to know who sent the gifts and then filling in their own details.

"Are you Cinderella?" Janet wanted to know. "I bet you're actually Cinderella."

"This is a reality show," Melissa said. "You say you have no idea who's sending you this stuff. Well watch out, I bet it's some guy in the mob."

"The mob?"
Sandy laughed. "What kind of reality show is that?"

"They have that one about mob wives, why not mob stalkers?
My Secret Mob Stalker.
I'd watch it."

"I would, too,"
Maddy
said, "but I really doubt I have a stalker who's in the Mob."

"But how would you know?" Melissa asked, spearing a leaf of lettuce and stuffing it into her mouth.
"How would you know?"

All of them loved the mysterious note.
For Friday.

She should have been excited, but instead
Maddy
just found
herself
growing more and more apprehensive. What was going to happen on Friday? What was she going to need all this stuff for? Was she even going to make it to Friday? All the extra work Rick was piling on her was seriously taking its toll: when she went home at night she barely had time to heat herself a TV dinner and pass out in front of one of her
DVRed
shows, much less get dolled up. Further calls upstairs to Sam and Chet's offices in the hopes of halting the packages, or at least having them delivered downstairs or something,
yeilded
 
nothing
. She was stonewalled each time by Diane or Grace, the gatekeepers. She was certain neither Sam nor Chet had been notified that she'd called, and they probably had no idea it was her, anyway, since Diane insisted on calling her Miss Martin. Every package was just more stress.

Then Friday came.

Another package arrived at her desk, and
Maddy
took it, feeling strangely resigned. Rick had added three new files for every package she
recieved
, and now they towered over her, threatening to topple if she breathed wrong.
Maddy
wasn't quite sure whatever was happening today was worth all this extra work. Just thinking about how many months she was going to have to come in early and stay late made her stomach hurt. And if Sam...
or
Chet... or, well, both of them wanted her to go somewhere tonight, they should probably have a look at their own company's policies regarding personal deliveries.
Flowers only.
And only on one's birthday.
Not even Valentine's was an excuse for flowers, much less Donna Karan dresses or Prada handbags.

Sandy rolled her chair across the floor to
Maddy's
desk before the courier was even out of sight. "Let's take an early lunch," she said. "I'm dying to know what's in this one. Maybe your mystery admirer—" Here she gave
Maddy
a wink, and
Maddy
tried not to groan, "—is going to let you know what kind of event you'll be attending in all this finery." She lowered her voice. "I bet it's some kind of board party. There'll be caviar and little sandwiches. It'll be so classy."

After all the work and extra time she'd been putting in this week, and all the work she had staring her in the face in the future, all
Maddy
really wanted to do was go home and put on her pajamas and eat ice cream and watch that show about the Amish kids who were living in New York City. She'd loved her night out with Chet and Sam because it had been fresh and exciting, something new, a place she'd never been and never would have been able to get into otherwise. And the sex afterwards... the sex had blown her mind. She'd never had two men at the same time before. And then the very next day they'd approached her again, and she'd
wrangled
another amazing fuck out of them. But now, after a whole week of extravagant gifts that, added up, cost more than her car, and, if sold even at half-price, would pay for at least three months of rent, she just felt tired. What were they getting at?

With a sigh, she slung her purse over her shoulder—her old ratty one, not the Prada, which still sat in its box in her closet, too expensive for her to even dare looking at for more than a minute at a time—and followed Sandy to the elevator. She didn't dare look behind her to see if Rick were watching. She knew he probably was, but she was so buried now that another three files weren't going to make much difference. As though some sort of signal went out, the other women of the office packed up and followed them. It was another ladies' lunch, and
Maddy
wanted nothing more than to sit in her car and take a nap.

They ended up at a little tea and sandwich shop, spread out over two tables. The harried waitress came by and set their soups and sandwiches down, and then it was time for the next unveiling.

"I bet
it's
car keys," Haley said.

"No way, it's a coat."

"A scarf!"

"One of those diamond encrusted
iPad
cases!"

"That's stupid."

Maddy
stared at the flat package in her hands. It looked like it could hold a shirt, but she was pretty sure that wasn't it. Chewing on her lip, she took Sandy's nail-file, now known as the ceremonial file, and sliced it open.