Chapter Text
✦ Chapter 1 ✦
The way things were going these days was truly magnificent!
Cruella had absolutely everything she could want for: clothes, money, fame, attention, and adoration. Each and every day of her life was practically a party of its very own!
However, when the end of the day came, and she lay alone in the darkness of her bedroom, the emptiness inside kept her up for hours.
As the CEO and Lead Designer of a company she built from the ground up, her work life was extremely demanding. Cruella had completely enveloped herself in the upcoming lineup for Fashion Week, especially after the last fiasco her mother pulled that sent her off the deep end.
It had been a month since then, Cruella had found a good groove, spending very little time resting unless she was on the verge of collapse.
Today, she’d spent several hours in the drawing room, trying to get it through to her artists how important invention was in the fashion industry. But everything they were bringing to her was drab and repetitive.
Utter catastrophe.
Then came a routine meeting with her shareholders over the phone, but as soon as it was over, she smacked the button to end the call on the desk phone.
Her head dropped to her arm, and she sighed.
After a few moments of stillness, she lifted her chin, pressing another button.
“Y-yes Miss De Vil?” Alonzo answered nervously. He was the receptionist, a wormy little man with a terribly fragile sense of confidence.
“Bring in some tea, oolong. With lemon,” Cruella demanded.
She didn’t give him any time to respond before her finger left the button.
Instantly, she eyed a stack of files nearby, no doubt left there by Alonzo.
Bringing it close, she noticed a post-it saying ‘new hires: art department’. More applicants that her vice president had approved of.
Another soft sigh as she began to thumb through the files, growing more and more disinterested as the number piled up.
It was always the same, there were hundreds of applicants who wanted to work for her, naturally. In England, Cruella De Vil had become the fashion king-pin; anyone who was anything wanted to be a part of it!
But more than half of this stack would end up in the dumpster out back.
Shoving the stack out of her eyeline, Cruella turned to her computer to go through her emails instead.
Only when she was halfway through typing a response to one of her publishers did Alonzo finally come in with the tea cart.
“Oh thank god, I was about to send the cavalry out to find you,” Cruella scoffed, pushing up from her desk.
Alonzo let his infamous nervous chuckle leave his throat in response to her words, and he stepped back as she approached.
“I-I had to wait for t-the kettle,” he cleared his throat, but she wasn’t listening.
“I’m going to be catching up on clerical work until four. Don’t send any calls through unless it’s Ian getting back to me about those skirts from Russia.”
Cruella poured the boiling water, only then lifting her gaze to Alonzo.
He nodded instantly.
“Y-yes Madam, right away.”
And he was gone.
Topping off her cup with lemon and a few cubes of sugar, Cruella carried the saucer and cup back to her desk, stirring it until the stack of applicants caught her eye again.
Taking a sip, Cruella set the saucer down, bringing the stack before her again. This time, she began to sift through each one carefully, separating them into piles: one for the trash, and one for those that held potential.
The name on the next tab stopped Cruella dead in her tracks.
Anita Radcliffe.
No… it couldn’t be, she wouldn’t actually want a job here.
This was a joke.
Right?
Why would she? To torment?
Cruella was frozen, her icy-blue eyes locked on those few letters. Her heart was racing, chest tight, and she’d somehow forgotten how to breathe.
Drawing a sharp gasp, she smacked the file open, searching through the onslaught of information until the school Anita graduated from confirmed it.
It was her.
Pushing up from the desk, Cruella stared blankly at the file.
No… why??? Why?
It had been over a decade since they’d gone their separate ways, why did she have to come back??
A shaking sigh left the woman’s ruby lips, she looked to her gloved hands.
They were shaking.
“… blimey-“ Cruella breathed, slowly sitting back down, skimming the file again. “This must be a terrible joke-“
But who would do such a thing?
A phone number.
Anita’s own, written down alongside an address where she currently lived.
Cruella stared at the information for a very long time.
Anita…
The phone handset was in her grasp before she even registered that she’d reached for it.
Glancing at the file, she quickly input the phone number.
It rang four times before the other end clicked.
“Hello, Anita speaking,” came a voice so sweet that Cruella’s lashes fluttered, and every ounce of oxygen left her lungs.
She’d forgotten every English word she’d ever known.
“… hello?” Anita asked.
“Yes, sorry, Anita…” Cruella breathed, trying to find her words. Her usual confident demeanor was evading her.
“It’s Cruella, I… saw your file.”
Her eyes dropped to the item still in front of her.
“Oh! I thought you might, I’ve been hopeful that you’d call.”
Cruella let her heart flutter, but within that same second, Anita back-tracked.
“I-In regards to the job, of course.”
Cruella blinked.
“… why do you want to work for me?”
They hadn’t spoken in over a decade, not since Anita decided to leave. Not so much as a letter.
Cruella had the thought that Anita would have heard about her fashion empire. After all, she had been hard to ignore, with such a quick come-up in the industry. Cruella De Vil was plastered everywhere in London square to this day.
So, the reason must be a good one.
“Well, I moved back into town a few weeks ago, and I’ve been having very little luck finding work anywhere else,” there was a soft sigh from Anita, one Cruella knew. Even after all these years, it was so easy to hear that she was nervous.
She was nervous.
Anita continued, “I was hoping you’d make an exception for me.”
An exception. Cruella blinked, letting each word settle on her shoulders. She wanted to be angry, very angry. But hearing this voice again was crippling. It had always been so terribly difficult to say no to her.
Perhaps she already knew that.
“… so you’re just coming back for a job. Because no one else will have you,”
said Cruella in a very flat tone.
A loud silence followed, before Anita began to really stammer.
“I-I didn’t want to bring our personal history into it…” she replied.
Now Cruella was quiet, staring through her desk, nails gently tapping the top.
“I suppose I can respect that,” she said finally. “Alright. Well, clearly my vice president liked you enough to put your file on my desk, but unfortunately for you, I still have the final say on if you’re hired or not.”
“Of course, yes. She made me aware there would be a second interview,” replied Anita. “I already have a small portfolio put together for you, and I can come in whenever you’re available. I… assume that’s why you called?”
Another pause from Cruella. Honestly, she didn’t truly know what possessed her to dial the phone number. Did she hate herself that much? The amount of heartbreak, tears, screaming into the night, just for her to let all of it crumble away as if it hadn’t happened?
Anita wanted to come back and Cruella would just forgive and forget about what she did?
“Yes,” Cruella said finally, pulling a desk drawer open to fetch her planner. “Can you see me tomorrow?”
Smacking the tiny book down, she flipped it to check what she had going on.
A sneer instantly curled her lip at what she read.
“Oh-! I- Yes, yes of course I can see you tomorrow! Do I need my identification as well?”
“Yes, and your social,” Cruella responded, attention torn between the conversation and her calendar.
She’d have to move a few things around, but if she did this during her lunch break and things went well, she could push back the conference call she needed to host.
“Be here by 11:30 am, not a moment later. Alright?”
“Alright! Thank you very much, Cruella, I really can’t wait. I’ll be very happy to see you again.”
The feeling that overcame Cruella from hearing those words was indescribable. She stiffened, and her throat went dry immediately.
She choked down a lump.
“See you then.”
Click.
Nothing but the ticking of a clock filled the office.
Cruella stared at her calendar, before she picked up a pencil, gently erasing a section of the line drawn for her lunch.
In its place, in very neat, careful letters, she wrote: Meeting with Anita.
A plethora of feelings coursed through her as she stared at that name, though only one was more overwhelming than them all.
Hope.