The Secret of Secretary

03. Elisa : The Cold Ceo

Morning sunlight slid across the tall windows of Glacier Media Group, catching the fine dust motes that spun like lazy snowflakes in the air. The office was not glamorous—not yet. It occupied the twelfth floor of a mid-rise building, tucked between a chain law firm and a dental clinic.

The walls were plain, the furniture practical, and the smell of printer toner never quite left. But to Elisa Rendelle, this floor was the battlefield where she had chosen to stake her claim against the world.

She was twenty-seven and already a CEO, though not the kind people pictured when they heard the word. There were no corner offices with panoramic city views, no board of directors watching her every move. Her empire consisted of ten employees, a modest but growing list of clients, and her own relentless drive.

Elisa was brilliant. No one doubted that. She could walk into a room, listen to a client stumble through half-baked ideas, and within an hour sketch out a brand strategy so sharp it made competitors look sluggish. She knew the market trends, the social media algorithms, the colors that would make a campaign breathe. Creativity lived in her fingertips, flowed from her like electricity.

But brilliance came with mess. Her office desk looked less like a CEO's workspace and more like a storm's aftermath. Paperwork sprawled in teetering stacks. Post-it notes curled at the edges, some stuck to the underside of her laptop, others trapped beneath coffee mugs.

A marketing proposal for a cosmetics brand lay half-buried under sketches of an entirely different project—rough, gorgeous hand-drawn concepts she'd abandoned halfway through. Pens scattered like fallen soldiers. Somewhere under the chaos, an invoice that should have been sent two weeks ago was quietly rotting.

It drove Astrid insane.

"Elisabeth," Astrid said now, leaning against the doorframe with her arms crossed. "You're supposed to be the face of this company. A vision of authority. And your desk looks like a recycling bin exploded."

Elisa didn't look up. She was bent over a sketchpad, platinum hair falling in waves that half-concealed her expression. Her icy-blue eyes narrowed as she shaded a concept logo for a new bakery client—a swirl of blue that resembled a snowdrift curling into a bread loaf. Her blouse was crisp, her slacks perfectly tailored, but her desk was an insult to the outfit.

"It's organized chaos," Elisa said, her voice smooth, clipped. "I know where everything is."

Astrid snorted. "Really? Because last week you signed a contract with a pen that had yogurt stuck to it."

"That was once."

"It was disgusting."

Elisa sighed and finally raised her head, meeting her best friend's glare with the faintest twitch of her lips. To anyone else, Elisa Rendelle was the ice queen: cold, exacting, impossible to please. But Astrid Hofferson had known her since university, back when Elisa had been the brilliant, arrogant girl who dominated every group project and yet forgot to hand in half her essays on time. Astrid alone was immune to the frost.

"We landed three new clients this week," Elisa said, her tone even. "That's why the paperwork looks like this." She gestured vaguely at the mess, as if it were an unavoidable consequence of success. "Growing pains."

"Growing pains are fine," Astrid said. "You forgetting to approve payroll until the night before? Not fine. I had three staffers asking me if we were bankrupt."

Elisa's jaw tightened. She reached for a loose sheet buried under a sketch and tapped it. "I had payroll here the whole time. I just... got distracted."

"With what?"

Elisa hesitated, then flipped the page to reveal another sketch—this one a half-finished painting concept, a mix of swirling blues and silvers that looked nothing like a marketing logo. More like... art.

Astrid groaned. "You were doodling again."

"It's not doodling," Elisa corrected sharply, though a flush of guilt crept into her cheeks. "It's part of my creative process."

"Your creative process is going to kill me," Astrid muttered. She walked over, plucked up a stack of invoices, and straightened them with practiced irritation. "You can't keep relying on me to remember all the boring but essential things while you vanish into your snowflake brain. I'm HR, not your secretary."

Elisa bristled. "I'm not asking for a secretary."

"You're not asking, you're dumping." Astrid slapped the papers back onto the desk. "If this agency keeps growing, you can't keep micromanaging every campaign, every design, and every meeting. You need help."

Elisa's lips pressed into a thin line. She hated that Astrid was right. She hated it because admitting weakness felt like cracking ice, and cracked ice always broke.

By noon, the office buzzed with low chatter. The staff moved between desks, juggling social media reports, mock-ups, and client calls. A whiteboard on the far wall listed deadlines in red marker, half of them circled twice.

Elisa walked the floor with her tablet in hand, her heels clicking softly. Employees straightened when she passed. She wasn't cruel, not exactly, but her presence carried weight. She demanded excellence, and people rose—or cracked—under it.

"Tom," she said, stopping by the design desk. "That draft for Nordwell Shoes. You're using Helvetica again."

Tom looked up, startled. "It's clean. Modern."

"It's lazy," Elisa said flatly. "Nordwell is about energy and speed, not sterile minimalism. Try Futura Bold, give it weight. If you want it clean, adjust kerning, don't hide behind Helvetica."

Tom flushed and nodded quickly. "Yes, Ms. Rendelle."

Elisa moved on.

She wasn't wrong. Her eye was flawless. She saw things others missed—the font that betrayed a brand's voice, the color shade that cheapened a product. But she also forgot to sign the courier forms sitting on her desk, which meant half the packages piled in reception would sit unsent until Astrid noticed.

Perfectionist vision. Messy execution.

Astrid's words rang in her head: You need help.

Elisa shut the thought out. Help meant trust, and trust was a fragile, dangerous thing.

Later that evening, the office lights dimmed as people filtered out. Elisa remained, perched at her desk surrounded by chaos. She sifted through notes with the intensity of a storm, pencil between her fingers, sketching one more draft. Her mind spun with colors, slogans, imagery—her brilliance unstoppable.

But when she finally looked up, hours had slipped away, and she realized she had missed a client call scheduled for five o'clock. The phone sat silent, mocking.

She cursed softly under her breath.

Somewhere outside her office, Astrid called a cheery goodbye and left for the night. Elisa didn't answer. She sat in silence, the only sound the scratching of her pencil across paper.

The truth pressed heavy in her chest: she was extraordinary, but she was also human. And humans forgot things. Humans needed structure. Humans needed help.

She hated that truth more than anything.

So she buried it beneath another sketch, another idea, another desperate attempt to prove she could carry the weight of everything on her own.

The office was louder than usual for a Tuesday morning. Phones rang in tandem, keyboards clattered, and a nervous laugh carried from the interns' corner. A deadline was coming due, and Elisa Rendelle could feel it pulsing beneath every sound.

She sat at her desk, chin propped on one hand, as she scanned the creative deck for a new restaurant client. Her other hand doodled absent circles on a sketchpad, half-distracted, half-inspired. The restaurant wanted bold colors, something youthful. Elisa had already reimagined their logo three times in her head, but her eyes snagged on a number in the budget column.

Something didn't add up.

She frowned, flipping through a small avalanche of papers, searching for the missing sheet. She found three receipts, a post-it note with Astrid's handwriting (Call at 2:30!!), and a crumpled draft of last week's campaign. The budget sheet itself was nowhere in sight.

"Elisa."

The sharp voice at the door made her glance up. Astrid stood there, arms loaded with folders, blonde hair in a no-nonsense braid. She dropped the stack onto the desk, where it collapsed like a landslide across Elisa's sketches.

"You missed the payroll approval. Again."

Elisa blinked. "I—"

"You told me you'd sign it last night," Astrid snapped, hands on her hips now. "Do you know what it's like to have five people corner you this morning asking if their salaries are late?"

Elisa's lips parted, then closed. For once, she didn't have a sharp retort.

Astrid leaned forward, her voice lowering but sharpening all the same. "You're brilliant, Elisa. No one's arguing that. But you can't keep running this place like you're the only one who matters. These people trust you. They depend on you."

"I didn't forget," Elisa muttered, fumbling with the papers. "I just... misplaced the form."

Astrid stared at her. "You misplaced payroll."

Elisa's jaw tensed. "I'll find it."

"You shouldn't have to find it," Astrid said, exasperation threading through every word. "You should have signed it yesterday like a normal CEO."

⸻

The staff outside Elisa's glass door pretended not to hear, though their typing slowed conspicuously. Elisa's cheeks flushed, not from guilt—at least, not only guilt—but from the humiliating realization that her flaws were showing where she most wanted to appear invincible.

Astrid dropped into the chair opposite her, crossing one leg over the other. She didn't look like she was about to leave until she'd won this war.

"Elisa, I love you," she said flatly. "But you're a nightmare."

Elisa lifted her chin. "A productive nightmare."

Astrid threw her hands up. "That's not better! You micromanage every campaign, rewrite everyone's copy, and redesign every logo—"

"Because their first drafts aren't good enough."

"—and then you forget to sign the checks that keep them from quitting. Do you realize how insane that is?"

Elisa opened her mouth, then closed it again. She had no defense. Not really. She knew she was right about the creative work, but Astrid was right about the cracks she refused to admit.

Astrid's voice softened, just slightly. "Why do you do this to yourself?"

Elisa stared at the sketches under her hand. Lines blurred into color, color into shape. It was easier to focus on designs than on the knot in her chest.

"I don't trust people to get it right," she said finally.

Astrid tilted her head. "So you don't trust anyone but yourself?"

"Not anymore."

The words left her mouth before she could stop them, and with them came a memory:

A boardroom, years ago. The Rendelle name gleamed in gold across the polished wood table. Her father sat at the head, his presence filling the space like a storm front. Elisa, only twenty-five at the time, had stood at the far end with a portfolio clutched in her trembling hands.

She'd pitched her first big campaign idea—bold, unconventional, risky. She had poured herself into it, stayed up nights refining every detail.

When she finished, her father had leaned back, his expression unreadable. For a moment she thought he might be impressed. Then his voice cut through the silence like ice.

"Childish. Amateur. You waste your talent on vanity projects. A Rendelle builds empires, not art shows."

She had stood frozen, cheeks burning as the board members murmured their agreement.

Later, when she tried to defend herself, he silenced her with a single look.

"You don't belong in business, Elisabeth. You don't have the discipline."

The words had buried themselves deep, cold as frostbite.

Astrid's voice dragged her back to the present. "Elisa?"

She blinked, realizing she'd gripped her pencil so hard it snapped in half. She dropped it onto the desk and forced her tone flat. "It doesn't matter. What matters is the work. If I want it done right, I'll do it myself."

Astrid sighed, rubbing her forehead. "You're going to burn out. And when you do, this whole company collapses with you."

"It won't."

"It will. Unless you let people help."

Elisa pressed her lips together. She hated this—hated feeling cornered, hated the truth ringing in Astrid's words.

They sat in silence for a long moment. Outside, the staff tiptoed around their tasks, pretending not to notice the tension radiating from the glass office.

Finally, Astrid leaned forward. "You need someone to manage your schedule, your paperwork, your distractions. Someone who can keep you from imploding."

"I don't need a babysitter," Elisa said icily.

"No. You need a secretary."

Elisa froze.

The word cut like an insult, though Astrid didn't mean it that way. A secretary meant admitting she couldn't handle everything. It meant exposing her weaknesses. It meant trust.

"I'll think about it," Elisa lied, her voice cool.

Astrid arched a brow, unconvinced. But she didn't press further—not yet. She stood, gathering her folders again. "Do more than think about it. Do something. Or else one day you'll wake up, and this empire of yours will be a pile of unpaid invoices and burnt-out staff."

She left, the door shutting softly behind her.

Elisa sat alone, staring at the chaos on her desk. Paperwork sprawled, deadlines loomed, and her sketches whispered of beauty no one else seemed to understand.

Her father's words echoed again in her head: You don't have the discipline.

She clenched her fists until her knuckles whitened.

She would prove him wrong.

Even if it killed her.