Page 3 of Shifting Gears

“Not even for a quick backslide with an old flame? I heard you could use some stress relief.”

Eleanor’s fingers freeze over her laptop keys.

“Heard from who?”

“Ash might have sent me a message.”

At this hour, Lydia is probably leaving a party downtown. Fitting Eleanor in between social commitments, as usual—Eleanor’s condo is close to her usual stomping grounds. Heels are clicking on expensive floors in the background of the call, and Lydia covers the receiver to call out to someone in Vietnamese while Eleanor considers how best to punish Ash.

She presses her fingers to her temples. The slowly forming headache she’s been fighting for a few hours is worsening, and she grasps for the nearest bottle of ibuprofen. “Of course he did. What did he offer you to show me a good time?”

“Nothing. It was more a gentle encouragement. He’s worried about you.”

“You’re not going to start caring about my feelings now, are you? After all this time?”

“No. I appreciate our relationship for what it is,” Lydia says with a low chuckle. “But I can’t stop them from worrying.”

Eleanor takes a swig of cold coffee to accompany the painkiller, wincing at the bitter aftertaste. “Ash needs to learn that not everyone fixes their problems with sex.”

“It’s a winning strategy in my book,” Lydia says. Eleanor has always valued her matter-of-factness, along with her discretion. “It’s not serious, Eleanor. Just a night of fun. That’s what we do.”

Eleanor sighs. Her casual, businesslike arrangement with Lydia is the closest thing to a steady relationship she’s had since university, and yet even such a simple and strings-free physical agreement had been too much of a demand on Eleanor’s time. They’d decided amicably to take a break months ago, though Lydia had assured her that the bedroom door was always open.

As satisfying as a bit of uncomplicated sex might be right now, the last thing that Eleanor needs on the night before her presentation is a distraction.

She lays her head down on the desk, closing her eyes and waiting for the faint imprint of her computer screen to fade from her retinas. “It’s tempting, truly, but I have a lot going on. I really don’t have the energy.”

“Can’t say I didn’t try.”

“This is getting ridiculous,” Eleanor mumbles. “I’m fully capable of managing my own stress.”

“You should talk to your friends if you want to scold someone,” Lydia says, reliably disinterested now that sex is off the table. “Just let me know if you want to hook up, okay? You know my number.”

The line cuts out, and in the ensuing silence, Eleanor decides that it’s high time she went to bed.

* * *

The board meeting is just shy of catastrophic.

It’s been this way since the beginning, in fairness. Eleanor’s father had shocked everyone when he left his majority shares in CromTech not to any of his trusted business partners or even his newest wife—all of whom sit on this very board—but to his daughter. He’d encouraged Eleanor to pursue an advanced degree in business when his health started to decline, but he’d given no other indication of his intent.

Five years later, Eleanor has fought tooth and nail just to get her father’s group of disapproving middle-aged men to listen to her. That fight has always been an uphill battle against tradition and profit, and it’s only been getting harder.

“Since when are we an electric car manufacturer?” Renée Cromwell snaps the moment Eleanor’s pitch ends. While she’s technically Eleanor’s stepmother—the last in a line of six such women over the course of Eleanor’s life, each more distasteful than the last, and still clinging to her married surname—the fact that Renée is only a few years Eleanor’s senior has always made their relationship difficult.

She’s been Eleanor’s biggest adversary at every board meeting since the beginning. Renée had tried to buy her late husband’s shares early on, and Eleanor’s decision to keep them and take on the CEO position herself had cracked a rift between them that has only grown over the years. In contrast to some of her father’s previous wives, Renée is ambitious and sharp, armed with a business degree, and backed by a worryingly large section of the board; Eleanor isn’t sure how Renée managed it, but she suspects a combination of blackmail and pure force of personality.

“Not vehicles,” Eleanor explains with as much patience as she can muster given her lack of sleep last night. “I’m proposing we branch out into more sustainable transportation and fuel solutions. Carbon reduction. Biostimulants.”

Renée scoffs. “The environmental sector in Canada is a money pit.”

“But it has potential,” Ash says. “There are tax benefits and subsidies. We’ve entered into new markets before. Diversifying is an important—”

“There’s diversifying, and then there’s throwing away time and cash on electric cars.”

Eleanor breathes out slowly through her nose. “Like I said, cars are only one corner of the market. I’ve been working on new types of recycled biofuels, as well as on integrating other sustainable energy and transport solutions.”

“You’vebeenworking on it?” Renée sneers. “Another one of your vanity projects?”

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