MILA
I've been doing exactly the same thing all morning, frowning at my sketches on the laptop. They're not what I had in mind, and no matter how many times I start over, something still feels missing. I'm not sure what it is. It is supposed to be an evening gown. The brief calls for something architectural, structured at the bodice but fluid at the hem, the kind of silhouette that looks effortless and takes months to perfect. I have tried a dropped neckline, a sculpted one, a corseted back with trailing panels. None of it lands. The proportions are off, or the fabric weight feels wrong even on paper, or the whole thing simply looks like something that has already been done. I close the file and open it again. Still wrong. I'm not sure what it is.
"Bad day, huh?" a voice calls over my cubicle. I look up. Felicia is leaning close, her arm draped over the edge.
"More like a bad week." I sigh and reach for the mug beside my workspace. I bring it to my mouth before I even realize it's empty. When did I finish my coffee?
"Want me to grab you some?" Felicia says, pointing at my empty mug with her chin. I shake my head and lean back in my seat. A dull pain moves through my forehead. I close my eyes and massage the spot with two fingers. I really need to start resting more. The irony of that thought is not lost on me. With everything I have lined up, decent sleep has become a luxury I cannot afford.
Felicia clears her throat. I look up at her, momentarily forgetting she has not left yet. She leans in closer.
"So… how did it really go with Visconti?"
The mention of that name sends a cold shiver down my spine. I sit up and turn back to my laptop. I already sent Gilmore a memo filled with vague language about discussions and agreements that never happened. Thankfully, he has not called yet, and he has not arrived at the office. Maybe he has not read it.
I doubt that.
"It was… productive," I say, forcing a small smile.
"That's it? That's all you're giving me?"
My fingers move across the laptop mouse. I edit some details on my design, grateful the deadline is not any time soon. I already have enough on my plate without adding a dissatisfied client to it.
Felicia straightens, folding her arms over her chest. "Really? That's all?"
"I'm sorry, Felicia, but most of what we discussed is confidential. Only Gilmore is allowed to know the details." The lie slips out so easily I almost believe it myself. Felicia studies me for a moment, unconvinced, then rolls her eyes.
"You look terrible, by the way. Take the day off." She says it the way someone comments on the weather, offhand and unbothered, and then she is gone before I can respond.
Gilmore walks in at that exact moment, appearing in the doorway with his arms crossed and his jaw set tight. His expression settles into something cold and deliberate, a particular stillness that means he is choosing his words very carefully. That look is always worse than when he shouts.
"My office. Now." Low. Even.
I follow behind him, my stomach turning with the sudden thought that he is about to fire me. I push it aside. Even though he is my employer, ours is a symbiotic relationship. I need his employment as much as he needs my work. I am not just another designer to him. I am L'Étoile Noir's greatest asset. Letting me go would be foolish.
Or would it?
He could have said whatever he needed to right there at my cubicle. The fact that he did not tells me this is going to be worse than I thought.
In his office, he does not bother sitting. He stands behind his desk with his arms still crossed.
"Close the door."
I do.
"Sit."
I do not. Something in me resists. I stand near the chair instead, my hands loose at my sides.
Gilmore studies me for a long moment. Then he reaches across his desk and turns the laptop screen toward me. My memo. He has pulled it up.
"I read this three times," he says. "You want to know what I found?"
I say nothing.
"Nothing. I found nothing." He taps the screen once. "Vague language. No figures. No timeline. No deliverables. No confirmation of a second meeting." He straightens. "This reads like something written by someone who has absolutely nothing to report and is hoping I will not notice."
"The discussions were preliminary—"
"Do not." His voice remains low, which is worse than if he had raised it. "Do not insult my intelligence, Mila. I have been in this industry long enough. I know what a preliminary meeting looks like, and I know what a failed one looks like. This memo reads like the second one."
I hold his gaze.
"What happened in that penthouse?"
"I told you. We discussed—"
"What happened."
The silence stretches between us. A sewing machine hums somewhere down the hall. Outside his window, the morning carries on as if nothing is wrong.
"He was not interested in a standard partnership," I say carefully. "He wants to restructure the conversation. Approach it from a different angle."
"What angle?"
"I do not have those details yet."
"You do not have the details." He repeats it slowly, as if weighing the words. "He invited you, specifically you, not me, to his private penthouse, kept you there for hours, and you came back with nothing except a vague memo and a story about restructuring."
"That is not—"
"Stop, Mila. Enough."
He holds my gaze a moment longer. Then he uncrosses his arms and sits heavily in his chair, some of the tension leaving his shoulders. Not all of it, but enough.
"I need a follow-up meeting by the end of this week," he says. "A real one. Confirmed date, confirmed agenda, and his team's signature on an NDA before anyone says another word about collections or creative direction. Can you do that?"
"Yes."
"And Mila." He looks up, his eyes steady. "Next time Visconti requests a private meeting, you tell me before you go, during if anything significant is discussed, and everything after. Every detail. Are we clear?"
"Clear."
He waves a hand toward the door.
I leave before he can change his mind.
---
The rest of the day passes in a blur of familiar tasks. Meetings, sketching, revising designs, organizing fabric samples, one crisis averted, another narrowly avoided. For most of it, my mind is somewhere else entirely. I keep returning to my father's message. He wants me over for dinner.
Me.
I lean back and stare at the ceiling. What could Arthur Thorne possibly want now? He never did anything without a reason. There was always something in it for him. So a sudden change of heart seems unlikely. And yet, what if this time, speaking to him works? The thought circles my mind. I already know the answer, yet I allow myself the stress of imagining it. Whatever happens at that dinner will determine whether I run to Visconti.
Hopefully not.
Visconti cannot be trusted either. Nobody makes an offer without expecting something in return. And regardless of what he said in that penthouse, I still do not see how a marriage arrangement benefits him. He could have any woman he wanted, whenever and however he chose.
I search his name on my phone. Nothing new. Nothing linking him to my father. I grab my bag and leave.
My chest tightens the farther I get from the office. Either Visconti wants something beyond what he has stated, or I am unraveling for nothing. Both possibilities are unsettling.
What I know about my parents' marriage does not inspire confidence. It began like this, a contract. A negotiated arrangement between two families with more to gain from a merger than a marriage. My mother had been twenty-three. Educated. Beautiful. Desperate in her own way. My father had offered security, status, a name that opened doors. She accepted.
And for the first few years, by all accounts, it worked.
But agreements are only as steady as the people who uphold them. By the time I was old enough to understand the silences in our house, the careful way conversations were managed, the distance that grew between them, I had already learned the lesson. A man like Arthur Thorne never enters an arrangement unless the terms favor him. And the person on the other side rarely sees the full picture until much later.
I stop at the corner of the street, the evening air cold against my face.
If my father is inviting me to dinner, it means he already knows something I do not.
And if Visconti is still waiting for my answer, it means he does too.