Chapter 6 - The Paris Atelier
The ballroom erupted into a chaotic storm of indrawn breaths, whispering dowagers, and flashing camera shutters from the balcony press pool.
Adrian whipped around, his dark eyes wide with disbelief as he stared at his mother. Evelyn had frozen in the front row, her manicured hand still hovering mid-air where she had been smoothing Vanessa’s stolen train. The midnight-blue velvet of her dress seemed to shrink around her as the full weight of public exposure settled on her shoulders.
Vanessa shook her head frantically, stepping backward until her heel caught in the heavy lace of the cathedral train. "This isn't what it looks like! Adrian, she’s manipulating you—she edited those tapes—"
"You’re right," Claire said, her voice ringing out with terrifying calmness as she glided past Adrian toward the trembling figure of her sister. "It’s worse."
Claire crossed the polished marble floor, her rose-pink satin rustling like dry autumn leaves. She stopped two feet away from Vanessa, who looked like a trapped animal cornered in a butcher’s shop.
Vanessa instinctively tried to crush the white orchid bouquet between her trembling fingers, scattering bruised petals across the pristine ivory silk of the skirt.
"What did you do to this dress?" Vanessa hissed, her voice rising into a shrill, hysterical pitch.
Claire didn't answer with words. She reached out, slipped one finger beneath the heavy, hand-embroidered floral vines near the hemline of the train, and located the first of the four hidden brass clasps.
"Claire," Evelyn snapped from the front row, her voice losing its aristocratic polish for the first time in thirty years. "Don't pull that."
For the first time all evening, Evelyn Vance sounded genuinely, fundamentally afraid.
Claire pulled the clasp.
With a soft, metallic snap, a hidden panel of heavy silk lining unfolded across the polished floor like an unfurled parchment.
Gold stitching—gleaming under the spotlights in unmistakable, microscopic precision from the finest atelier in Paris—flashed across the ivory fabric.
Vanessa looked down. The first line of the embroidered text was right at her feet.
May you like
Every trace of color vanished from Vanessa’s face, leaving her looking like a corpse exhumed from a damp grave.
Adrian stepped closer, his boots clicking sharply against the floor. His eyes followed the golden words, reading the neat, looping script that no guest could miss from the front three rows, then lifted slowly, heavily, to his mother.
