Chapter 9: Chapter 9
The chicken soup was bland, just as Maeve had promised. Finn sat at the kitchen table, the cleaned surface still smelling faintly of citrus spray and underlying chlorine from the spilled cleaner. He pushed a limp carrot around his bowl with his spoon. The throbbing in his face had subsided to a dull, ever-present ache, a rhythm section to his churning thoughts.
Liam ate methodically across from him, his taped knuckles making the spoon look clumsy in his large hand. Maeve sipped her tea, watching them both over the rim of her mug.
The sketchbook lay on the counter like a guest.
The silence wasn’t uncomfortable, but it was heavy. It was the silence of things unsaid shifting, of plans not yet formed. Maeve had outlined her book club lawyer’s preliminary thoughts: a cease-and-desist, a demand for financial accounting, the possibility of an injunction if Julian tried to interfere with the collection’s production. Each legal term felt like a stone dropped into the quiet pond of the kitchen.
Finn put his spoon down. The clink was too loud.
“Why should we?” he asked. His voice was quiet, stripped of its usual defensive armor. It was just a question, small and bare.
Liam looked up. “Why should we what?”
“Fight.” Finn kept his eyes on his soup. “If we get a lawyer and go after Julian, if we try to keep the sponsorship he secured… it’ll all come out. Everything. The… the relationship. What it was really like. His side of the story, which will be that I’m an unstable, temperamental artist who can’t handle success. He’ll make it sound plausible. He’s good at that.”
He finally looked up, his one good eye wide with a fear deeper than any they’d addressed yet. “Famous people know my name now, Liam. The House of Renault had my face in Vogue, in Elle. ‘The fresh face of fashion.’ ‘Up-and-coming designer to watch.’” He recited the headlines like a grim liturgy. “The runway show in a few months wasn’t just my big break. It was a chance they were taking on me. A huge risk for an established house to spotlight an unknown like that. If I drag my personal, messy, abusive disaster out into the open now…” He shook his head, a sharp, painful-looking movement. “I let them down. I become a liability. I tarnish their brand with my drama. That’s all they’ll see. Not the work. The drama.”
The truth of it settled over the table. It wasn’t just about money or credit. It was about reputation in an industry that fed on image, about a door that had been cracked open and now seemed likely to slam shut forever.
Maeve set her mug down carefully. “So your alternative is to let him steal your work and silence you with the threat of exposure? To walk away from your own collection?”
“My alternative is to survive!” The words burst from Finn, hot and sharp. “I can start over. I can design a new collection. I can take out loans, I can work three jobs. What I can’t do is become a punchline. ‘That tragic boy from the scandal.’ That’s what they’ll call me. The work will never matter after that. It’ll just be… context for my trauma.”
Liam listened, his jaw working. He understood stakes. He understood competition and the fragile currency of reputation. “He’s counting on you thinking that,” Liam said, his voice low. “He’s betting you’re more afraid of the spotlight than you are of him. That’s his final move.”
“It’s a good bet!” Finn shot back, a flicker of his old fire returning. “This isn’t a campus league, Liam. This is the real world. Perception is everything. If the House of Renault drops me, no other major house will touch me. I’ll be radioactive.”
“Then we don’t let them drop you,” Liam said, as if it were simple.
“How? Send them a friendly note? ‘Hey, just a heads up, my sponsor is my abusive ex who might go to the press, but the designs are great, promise!’”
“We get ahead of it.” The voice was Maeve’s. It was calm, steely, and it cut through Finn’s rising panic. Both men looked at her. She leaned forward, her hands flat on the table. “Julian operates on control and secrecy. He assumes you’ll be ashamed. He assumes you’ll hide. So we don’t hide.”
Finn stared at her. “What does that even mean?”
“It means you call your contact at Renault. Today. Before Julian can. You request a private meeting. You go in, you sit down, and you tell them the truth. On your terms.”
A cold dread washed through Finn. “I can’t.”
“You can.” She held his gaze. “You tell them you entered into a private sponsorship with an individual who has since revealed himself to be manipulative and abusive, and that you are severing that tie and seeking legal recourse to protect the intellectual property of your collection. You tell them you are informing them of this potential ‘drama,’ as you call it, out of respect for the house and your professional relationship with them. You assure them your focus remains entirely on delivering an exceptional show.”
The kitchen was silent again. The plan hung in the air, audacious and terrifying.
“They’ll drop me anyway,” Finn whispered.
“Maybe,” Maeve conceded. “Or maybe they’ll respect your professionalism. Maybe they’ll see a young designer with the guts to handle a crisis instead of letting it fester. You said they took a risk on you. This is a bigger one. But it’s yours to take, not his.”
Liam nodded slowly, seeing the strategy. “It turns his weapon around. The threat of exposure is gone because you’ve already exposed it, to the only people who matter. You control the narrative.”
“It’s not a narrative, it’s my life!” Finn pushed his chair back, standing up abruptly. The movement sent a spike of pain through his head. He paced to the sink, gripping the cool stainless steel edge. He saw his reflection in the dark window above it—a distorted, bruised ghost. “You’re asking me to walk in there and say, ‘By the way, I have terrible judgment in men, and one of them is about to possibly sabotage your show.’ How is that professional?”
“Because,” Liam said, standing now too, his voice closer, “you’re also saying, ‘And I’m handling it.’ You’re not a victim in that story, Finn. You’re a problem-solver. There’s a difference.”
Finn turned around, his back against the sink. He looked from his mother’s determined face to Liam’s earnest one. They were a united front. They believed this could work. He felt dizzy with the enormity of it. The safe option was to curl up, to disappear, to let Julian win and mourn his collection in private. The other option felt like walking onto a high wire in a hurricane.
“What if they say no?” he asked, his voice small. “What if they thank me for my honesty and show me the door?”
“Then you have your answer,” Maeve said gently. “And you fight Julian for the work anyway, because it’s yours. And you build something else, somewhere else, without his shadow. But you do it clean.”
Liam took a step forward. “I’ll go with you. To the meeting. Not in the room. I’ll sit in the damn lobby. But you won’t be alone before or after.”
The offer was tangible, solid. A lobby waiting room. A ride home. A presence. It wasn’t about protecting him from physical harm this time. It was about anchoring him through a different kind of assault.
Finn looked at his soup, now cold. He thought of the sketches, of the hours, of the whispered dream he’d had since he was twelve and draped a bath towel around his shoulders like a cape. He thought of Julian’s smile, all capped teeth and calculated charm, and the way it had felt like a door opening to that dream. Now that same smile was the lock trying to seal it shut.
He took a deep, shaky breath. The ache in his face pulsed in time with his heartbeat.
“Okay,” he said, for the third time that day. But this one was different. It wasn’t surrender. It was a decision. “Okay. I’ll call Amélie. She’s the creative director who championed me. I’ll ask for the meeting.”
Maeve nodded, a swift, proud dip of her chin. Liam just watched him, a new, fierce respect in his warm eyes.
“But,” Finn continued, the old bite creeping back into his tone, a defensive reflex. “If this goes spectacularly wrong and I end up designing aprons for a catering company, you are both personally responsible for my lifelong grudge.”
A real, relieved smile broke across Liam’s face. “Duly noted.”
Finn pulled his phone from his pocket. It felt heavy, like a tool he’d forgotten how to use. He scrolled past ignored texts from unknown numbers—probably Julian—and found the contact labeled Amélie Renault (WORK. BE PROFESSIONAL.
His thumb hovered over the call button. The kitchen clock ticked. He could feel their eyes on him, not pushing, just waiting. This was his move.
He pressed it, and brought the phone to his ear. The ring was a digital purr, impersonal and vast. Each tone stretched into an eternity. He stared at a tiny chip in the pale blue paint of the kitchen wall.
Then, a click. A smooth, French-accented voice. “Allô? Amélie speaking.”
Finn’s mouth went dry. His green eye, the one not swollen shut, locked with Liam’s across the room.
“Amélie,” he said, and his voice didn’t crack. It was clear. It was, despite everything, professional. “Hi. It’s Finn Connolly. I need to speak with you. It’s important.”
He listened, nodding at nothing. "Tomorrow? Yes, I can be there. Ten is perfect." His hand was trembling. He pressed it flat against the cold steel of the sink. "Thank you, Amélie. I appreciate it. See you then."
He ended the call. The silence in the kitchen was absolute, waiting for his verdict.
"She said yes," Finn reported, his voice oddly detached. "Ten a.m. tomorrow. Her office." He slid the phone onto the counter. "She sounded... concerned."
"Good," Maeve said. It was all she said. She stood and began clearing the bowls, the mundane action a quiet counterpoint to the seismic shift in the room.
That night, Finn didn't sleep. He lay in his childhood bed, staring at the faint glow of stars his twelve-year-old self had stuck to the ceiling. The darkness pressed against his swollen eye, a physical weight. Every possible outcome of the meeting played on a loop behind his eyelids, each more catastrophic than the last. He heard Liam moving around in the room next door, the creak of floorboards, the rush of water in the pipes. The sounds were an anchor.
They left at five in the morning. The world was a study in blues and grays, the highway unspooling under a sky streaked with charcoal and rose. Finn sat curled in the passenger seat of Liam’s aging sedan, wrapped in a blanket of quiet. He wore soft, charcoal cashmere trousers and a matching drape-neck sweater, the fabric comforting against his skin. It was professional, but more importantly, it was armor he could breathe in.
He had done nothing to mask the injury. The foundation and concealer sat untouched on his bathroom counter. The brutal spectrum of color—the deep plum, the violent yellow, the swollen distortion of his eyelid—was all visible. He didn’t hide it. He wore it.
Liam drove, his taped hands steady on the wheel. He glanced over occasionally, but didn’t speak. The silent solidarity was better than any pep talk.
The city rose from the dawn mist, a jagged forest of glass and steel. Liam pulled up to the sleek, minimalist building that housed the House of Renault. He put the car in park.
"You want me to come up?" Liam asked, his first words in nearly an hour.
Finn shook his head. "Lobby. Remember?"
"Lobby," Liam confirmed. He reached out, his hand hovering for a second before resting gently on Finn's shoulder. The warmth bled through the cashmere. "However it goes in there, you walk out. You come back down. We drive home. That’s the only mission."
Finn nodded, absorbing the simple logistics. Walk out. Come back down. It was a sequence he could manage. He pushed the car door open, the city's damp chill swallowing him.
The lobby was a cavern of polished concrete and curated silence. A stern receptionist directed him to the elevators. The ride to the twelfth floor was a smooth, soundless ascent that hollowed out his stomach.
Amélie’s assistant, a young man with impeccable glasses, waved him straight through. "She's expecting you. Go on in."
Finn pushed the heavy oak door open.
Amélie’s office was a storm of creative chaos—fabric swatches cascading over chairs, technical drawings pinned to every wall, a headless dress form draped in something spectacular. Amélie herself stood by a vast mood board, but she wasn’t alone.
Sitting in a low-slung Italian leather chair was Élise Vasser. One of the two head designers. The owners. Finn had shaken her hand once, at a gala during his internship, a blur of champagne and awe. She was a legend, her severe black bob and crimson lips as iconic as any of her designs.
They both turned. The discussion they’d been having—Finn could see sketches and words like “fragility” and “strength” on the board—died instantly.
Amélie’s professionally kind expression faltered, her eyes widening. Élise Vasser’s gaze was a laser, scanning him from his cashmere-clad shoulders to his soft boots, before locking onto his face. Her perfectly sculpted eyebrows arched.
"Finn," Amélie said, recovering. "Come in. You remember Élise?"
Finn could only nod, his throat tight.
Élise gestured with a slender hand holding a charcoal pencil. "What has happened to your face, mon cher?" Her French accent was like smoke, curious but not unkind.
Finn closed the door behind him. The click was final. He walked to the empty chair opposite them, his movements deliberate. He sat.
"This," he said, his voice remarkably steady as he gestured to the ruin of his eye, "is part of why I asked for this meeting."
He took a breath. Élise Vasser made no move to leave. She settled back into her chair, watching him with the focused intensity of a critic at a show. So Finn told them. He told them about Julian. The sponsorship that felt like salvation, the slow erosion of his confidence, the control masked as support. He told them about the grant being pulled, the threat to the collection, the shove into the doorframe. He told them he was getting a lawyer, that he was severing everything, and that he was prepared to fight for the right to his own work.
"I am not going to let him take it," Finn said, the words clean and hard in the quiet room. "And I wanted you to hear it from me first, before any… noise might start. Because I respect this house, and the opportunity you gave me, more than anything."
The silence that followed was thick, charged. Amélie looked pale, her eyes darting between Finn and her boss. Élise Vasser simply stared at him, her expression unreadable. She tapped the charcoal pencil against her lip once, twice.
Then she looked at the mood board. She looked at the words “fragility” and “strength.” She looked back at Finn’s face, at the stark, brutal evidence of a breaking point written across his delicate features.
A slow, bittersweet smile touched her crimson lips. It wasn't warm. It was knowing, deeply artistic, and thrilled by a terrible, perfect truth.
"Well," Élise Vasser said, her voice a low murmur that filled the entire office. She exchanged a profound glance with Amélie, who now wore a look of dawning understanding. "It seems we have found our runway theme."
Finn didn’t understand at first. The words seemed to slide off the surface of his brain, unable to find purchase. He stared at Élise Vasser, the legendary woman’s crimson smile now feeling like a blade. He had come here expecting to be fired, or at best, pitied.
He spoke softly, his voice almost lost in the vast, fabric-strewn room. “You’re not going to release me from the house?”
Élise laughed, a short, sharp sound like breaking glass. She shook her head, her black bob swinging. “Mon cher, I am promoting you.”
She let that sit in the air between them, a bubble of pure, impossible tension. Amélie’s face broke into a wide, relieved grin, as if she’d been hoping for this very outcome.
“Only if you can handle a full new collection, designed and made, before our runway show,” Élise continued, her accent wrapping around the words, making them sound both like a challenge and a gift. “For the main feature. I wish to promote you from just a middle collection to the main feature.”
Finn’s heart slammed against his ribs. The main feature. The closing act. The collection everyone would remember. The air in the office grew thick, charged with the scent of expensive paper and impending vertigo.
“I… I don’t…” he stammered, his professional composure shattering.
Élise leaned forward, her elbows resting on her knees. “I have watched your designs throughout your internship. The technical skill is there, yes. But it is the emotion in your lines that interests me.” She gestured toward Amélie. “She has always championed you. She saw the raw narrative. Now, I see it too.”
She paused, her dark eyes tracing the violent colors on his face as if they were a mood board. “And if the theme of our runway is to be relationship toxicity, abuse,” she said, the words clinical and precise, “then I feel the featured collection should come from someone who may truly bring it to life.”
It was her way of announcing she had decided the theme, to Amélie and to Finn. All he had to do was accept. The universe had not slammed a door. It had blown the roof off the building and asked him to build a new one, from scratch, in six weeks.
His bruised eye throbbed in time with his pulse. He thought of the sketchbook at home, of the gown with the note ‘For her. For walking away.’ He thought of Julian’s hands, both the caressing and the shoving ones. He felt a terrifying, electric crackle in his veins. It wasn’t joy. It was a kind of brutal recognition.
“The resources…” Finn began, his mind racing over practicalities. “The sponsorship is gone. The materials, the seamstresses…”
Élise waved a dismissive hand. “The house will provide. Consider it an advance against your future. A gamble we are choosing to make.” Her gaze was unblinking. “The question is not about resources. It is about stamina. Of the spirit. Can you dive back into that darkness and pull beauty out of it? Now? Under this pressure?”
Finn looked from her steely expression to Amélie’s encouraging nod. He thought of Liam, sitting in the silent lobby twelve floors below, waiting for him to walk out. He wasn’t waiting for a victim. He was waiting for Finn.
A strange calm settled over him. The fear was still there, a cold pool in his gut, but it had edges now. It had a purpose.
“Yes,” Finn said. The word wasn’t loud, but it was solid. “I can handle it.”
Élise studied him for one more long moment, then gave a single, satisfied nod. “Good.” She stood, a sudden motion that ended the conversation. “You will work directly with Amélie. The atelier is yours after hours. Start today.”
The meeting was over. Finn stood on legs that felt like vapor. He shook Élise’s offered hand, her grip firm and dry, then Amélie’s, which squeezed his with palpable excitement. He moved through the goodbyes as if in a dream, the details of logistics and timelines becoming a distant hum.
He walked out of the office, past the impeccable assistant, into the sterile hallway. The elevator doors slid open with a hushed sigh.
The descent felt slower than the ascent. His reflection in the polished doors was a ghost with a technicolor eye, looking back at him with an expression he couldn’t name. Promoted. Main feature. A full collection. Toxicity. Beauty. The words collided in his head, forming a terrifying, exhilarating blueprint.
The doors opened on the lobby. The polished concrete, the hushed air, the stern receptionist. And there, perched awkwardly on the edge of a minimalist bench too small for his frame, was Liam. He was scrolling absently on his phone, but his head snapped up the instant Finn stepped out.
Liam’s eyes scanned him, looking for damage, for defeat. He saw Finn’s pale face, the vivid bruise, but also a new, sharp focus in his one good eye. He stood up, shoving his phone into his pocket.
“Well?” Liam asked, his voice low, bracing for impact.
Finn stopped a few feet from him. The lobby was so quiet he could hear the hum of the lights. He felt the weight of the offer, of the brutal honesty in that office, of the weeks of sleepless nights stretching ahead. He looked at Liam’s worried, familiar face, the tape on his knuckles, the steady presence of him.
A slow, disbelieving smile spread across Finn’s lips. It pulled at the swollen tissue around his eye, a fresh, bright sting.
“I,” Finn said, his voice clear in the silent expanse, “am going to need so much more coffee.”