Page 1 of Shifting Gears

Chapter 1

The intercom on Eleanor’s deskcrackles with her assistant’s voice for the fourteenth time today—Eleanor’s been counting, making a frustrated mental mark every time it interrupts her train of thought.

“MissCromwell?“ Your three o’clock is here.”

“Send them in,” Eleanor says absently. She doesn’t lift her eyes from the report she’s trying to focus on. She’s been trying to reread it since lunchtime in preparation for tomorrow’s board meeting, and with the frequency of today’s interruptions, her progress has been irritatingly slow.

Words likeunderdeveloped landandpotential for growthcatch her attention. Even as Kayla and Ashwin stride into her office, she keeps reading. They can wait a minute or two.

Manufacturing operations in Bracken County, Ontario, were closed by CromTech CEO Robert Cromwell in 1996 in favour of outsourcing. Land was not sold due to depreciating value.

Eleanor chews at her lip. Her father probably hadn’t thought twice about shutting down 45 percent of the jobs in a region in one fell swoop, causing widespread unemployment on a whim. It had saved him money. But now it’s presented Eleanor with the perfect opportunity. Underdeveloped land still owned by CromTech with potential for growth is just what she needs.

No surveying has been undertaken, but aerial maps show—

Kayla’s manicured hand waves in front of the page. “Earth to Eleanor?”

“Just a minute,” Eleanor mutters, batting it away.

She hears Ashwin’s low chuckle. “Even when we book a meeting as her executives, she doesn’t have time for us anymore.”

Eleanor sighs. It takes a concerted effort not to roll her eyes, but she tosses the report onto her desk for the moment, giving her full attention to her friends turned business partners. They’re standing on either side of her desk. Ash is tapping his foot anxiously. Kayla’s arms are folded like a disapproving mother.

It’s only when there’s no hope of escape that Eleanor realizes she’s being ambushed.

“Eleanor. Honey,” Kayla says in the kind of soft and careful voice a person might use when approaching a feral cat, “you’re working yourself to death.”

Ashwin has his worried face on, the one where his thick, dark brows almost knit together. Eleanor remembers it well, having seen it at least weekly in university when he’d tried valiantly to be the fake boyfriend she needed to convince her father she wasn’t a total disappointment.

It had benefited both of them, in her defense—he needed the cover as much as she did at the time, though his closet door had always been pretty transparent. His family had been ready to buy Eleanor a ticket to Mumbai for an engagement ceremony by the time she and Ash agreed the arrangement had run its course.

Eleanor’s affection for Ash’s expression—one as familiar to her as her own reflection—is tempered by her annoyance at the subject matter he and Kayla are bringing up.

“I’m fine. This really isn’t the best time to discuss it,” she says, pulling up the agenda for tomorrow’s meeting on her laptop while they continue staring. She might be giving the presentation of her career in the morning, and her friends chosetoday of all days for an intervention. Tomorrow needs to be perfect. She needs to get it right.

“I know for a fact that you’ve slept at the office three times this week,” Kayla fires back.

Eleanor slams her laptop closed. “How did you—”

“Even your assistant is worried about you.”

The distantwhirrof the printer on said assistant’s desk is extra audible in the awkward silence the room has descended into.

“I’m fine,” Eleanor repeats, knowing even as she says it that her friends won’t believe her.

“Kayla is right.” Ash leans against Eleanor’s desk and crosses his ankles together. His coiffed hair is a little unruly, as if he’s run his hands through it. “Ever since you took over as CEO, you’ve been running yourself into the ground. Your blood pressure is high, you’re losing weight. You never stop working. You have no social life.”

“I don’t need a social life,” Eleanor interrupts. “I never have. You know that better than anyone.”

Ash and Kayla roll their eyes in tandem. Eleanor studiously ignores them.

It’s Kayla who finishes Ash’s point—he’s always had less stamina for arguments. Kayla is unmatched in her stubbornness; Eleanor’s known this since they were teenagers. She’d been the queen of one-woman protests back then, outlasting their private school administration over everything from inadequate course offerings to the gendered dress code. “You barely sleep, we never see you eat. You’re going to make yourself sick. Just like your father.”

Eleanor nudges her untouched salad container and three empty coffee cups to a less visible spot on the desk. She’s forgotten to eat lunch yet again, focused as she’s been today on preparing. Her friends might be right, but that doesn’t changethe reality of the situation: Her father is gone. He passed the company to Eleanor, for better or for worse. When the options presented to her five years ago had been to either liquidate his shares or abandon her beloved position in Research and Development to take on his CEO role, Eleanor’s heart and mind had pulled her in opposite directions.

Sure, Eleanor misses using her brain for more than just PR and profit margins, but she’s never been one to disregard the logical solution for the emotional. She took up this mantle, heavy as it is. She even managed to poach Kayla and Ash from their respective careers in corporate real estate and investment banking to shore up her executive team.

Though at times such as this, Eleanor occasionally regrets the choice to hire her friends.

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