Page 56 of When Ice Queens Collide
“Okay. Anything else?”
“Yes, clear my calendar from one o’clock through the rest of the afternoon.”
“On it.”
“And one more thing: If Simone comes to the building today, send her in.”
Helen paused a half-beat too long. “Of course.”
Alexandra set the phone handset down and turned the page. At one-forty, the intercom buzzed.
“She’s here,” Helen said.
“Send her in.”
Alexandra capped the pen, closed the portfolio, and slid it to the side of the desk. The morning had been long, and the work she'd done on the deal between the article and now was the kind of work that came easily once the decision underneath it was settled. She'd been waiting for Simone the way she'd waited for storms when she was a child, knowing one was coming, knowing roughly when, and knowing nothing she did would change it.
The door opened, and Simone came in. She was still in her coat, and her bag was still on her shoulder. She shut the door behind her without breaking eye contact with Alexandra.
“Hi,” Simone said.
“Hi.”
There was a chair across the desk and leather settee under the window, but Simone moved toward neither one. Instead, she stood three feet inside the door with her bag still up on her shoulder. The afternoon light through the window caught theside of her face, and the tiredness was visible. Clearly, she hadn't slept, her hair was pulled back tighter than she usually wore it, and there were crescent-shaped hollows under her eyes that had not been there the last time she’d seen her.
“You read it,” Alexandra said, skipping pleasantries.
“Yes, in Maplewood when it was published.”
“And you came back.”
“I caught a charter flight at noon. We just landed forty minutes again.”
“Take off your coat and sit, Simone.”
Simone’s hesitation was so small that Alexandra would have missed it, except she’d learned to read Simone’s most subtle body language over the last four months: the steadying breath before she reconsidered something, the flick of her eyes to somewhere off-center while she adjusted in real time to something someone had said that she didn’t expect. Whatever Simone had come up from the lobby ready to do, settling in hadn’t been part of it. But she did anyway. She slipped off the coat and folded it once over the back of the chair.
“Sit down, please.”
“I’d rather stand.”
Alexandra didn't push it. She'd asked twice and that was enough. Simone needed to stand to do whatever it was she had to do, and Alexandra taking that away from her wasn’t going to change the conversation, just made it harder for Simone to begin.
Simone took a breath, her signature habit to restore her composure. “I’m going to step away from the deal.”
Simone’s voice was steady, and the sentence hung between them in the air. Alexandra’s chest tightened beneath her ribs.
“I’m going to make a public statement this afternoon,” Simone continued. “I’ll cite the conflict of interest and withdraw Rousseau Global’s interest in the merger entirely. Audrey isalready working on a first draft, and I expect the board to accept it. After that, I’m going to leave Phoenix Ridge.”
“For where?”
“London. My core operations are there. The flight is at ten.”
“Tonight?”
“Yes.”
“All right.”
