The meeting happened three days later, in a glass-walled office on the top floor of the Crew Enterprises building, high enough that the entire city stretched out beneath the windows like something small and manageable, an entire world Silveria could suddenly see the edges of.
She sat across from a woman named Adriana, the head of the small fashion label Damien had mentioned, her sketchbook clutched tight against her lap like it might somehow slip away and run if she loosened her grip even slightly.
Adriana was younger than Silveria had expected, sharp-eyed and elegantly dressed, a pair of thin glasses perched on the end of her nose.
“Mr.
Crew says you have talent,” Adriana said, studying Silveria over the rim of those glasses with an assessing look that made Silveria’s stomach twist nervously.
“He doesn’t usually say things like that about people.
In fact, I don’t think I’ve ever once heard him say it before.”
“I don’t know if I’d call it talent,” Silveria said carefully.
“It’s just something I’ve always done.
A hobby, mostly.”
“Show me.”
Silveria’s hands trembled slightly as she slid the sketchbook across the polished glass table.
Adriana flipped through it slowly, methodically, pausing on certain pages longer than others, her expression giving absolutely nothing away.
Silveria watched her for any small sign of reaction, her heart pounding louder with every page that turned.
“This one,” Adriana said finally, tapping a page with a long, structured coat sketched in careful dark ink, sharp lines cutting cleanly across the paper.
“Tell me about this piece specifically.”
“I was thinking about someone who doesn’t want to be noticed,” Silveria said, surprising herself with how easily the words came once she started talking about the work itself instead of herself.
“Someone who wants to disappear into a room full of people, but still wants what they’re wearing to mean something, once someone actually does look closely enough to see them.”
Something in Adriana’s mouth twitched toward a smile.
“That’s a genuinely good instinct.
Most young designers start out loud, trying to shout for attention with every single piece.
You started quiet instead, and somehow made it considerably more interesting because of that restraint.”
“Is that good?” Silveria asked, uncertain.
“That’s rare,” Adriana said simply.
“I want you to design three pieces for our next small collection.
Nothing enormous, understand.
A trial run, essentially, to see how your work translates from paper into something people might actually want to wear.
If it goes well, we discuss something considerably bigger.”
Silveria sat there, stunned into momentary silence, waiting for the inevitable catch, the moment someone explained this had all been some kind of mistake and she should simply go back to hiding her sketchbooks under her bed the way she always had before.
It never came.
“Thank you,” she managed finally.
“I promise I won’t waste this opportunity.”
“I don’t imagine you will,” Adriana said, rising to shake her hand firmly across the table.
“Mr.
Crew was right about you, it seems.”
“He didn’t say much of anything to me about it,” Silveria admitted.
Adriana’s expression softened slightly, something knowing crossing her sharp features.
“That sounds like him,” she said.
“He’s never been a man of unnecessary words.
But I’ve known him a long time, professionally speaking, and I can tell you honestly, he doesn’t make introductions like this lightly.
Whatever he sees in your work, he believes in it enough to put his own reputation behind the recommendation.”
Silveria left the glass office floating somewhere well above the ground, her mind already racing ahead with fabric weights and color palettes and silhouettes, ideas she hadn’t allowed herself to seriously entertain in years suddenly feeling possible again, real again, worth pursuing properly instead of hiding away in the margins of a life that never had room for them before.
For the first time since the entire nightmare of the wedding had begun, she felt like herself again, instead of simply a piece someone else had carefully moved into position on a board she’d never agreed to play on.
She found Felix waiting near the elevator when she finally made her way back down, his expression curious.
“Well?” he asked.
“How did it go?”
“She wants three pieces,” Silveria said, still slightly dazed.
“For a real collection.”
Felix’s face broke into a wide grin.
“That’s fantastic news.
Adriana doesn’t offer that kind of opportunity to just anyone, you know.
She’s turned down plenty of far more experienced designers who came to her with considerably more polished portfolios than a few sketchbooks full of doodles.”
“They’re not just doodles anymore, apparently,” Silveria said, laughing despite herself, something light and buoyant filling her chest for the first time in longer than she could properly remember.
“No,” Felix agreed, smiling warmly at her.
“I don’t suppose they are.”
That evening, she found Damien in his study and knocked lightly on the open door.
“How did it go?” he asked, setting aside the papers he’d been reviewing.
“She wants three pieces,” Silveria said, still barely able to believe it herself.
“A real collection, Damien.
Not just a favor to make me feel useful.”
Something genuine and pleased crossed his face.
“I’m not surprised.”
“You could have told me you were sending me to meet someone that important,” she said, though there was no real accusation in her tone, only lingering disbelief.
“I would have prepared differently, worn something more appropriate, rehearsed what I wanted to say.”
“You didn’t need to prepare,” he said.
“The work spoke for itself.
If I’d told you how significant the meeting actually was, you would have spent days second-guessing every sketch in that book instead of simply showing her what you do naturally.”
She considered that.
“That’s oddly perceptive of you.”
“I pay attention,” he said simply, something almost shy in the admission.
“Thank you,” she said, meaning it for more than just the introduction.
“For believing in this before I fully believed in it myself.”
“You’ll do remarkable things with this opportunity,” he said, something quietly certain in his voice.
“I have no doubt about that at all.”
She left his study that night carrying the warmth of his confidence with her, turning it over in her mind long after she’d climbed into bed, still hardly able to believe that her quiet, private hobby had somehow become something real enough to matter to someone else.
She lay awake a while longer, replaying Adriana’s careful, considering questions about her design process, the particular way the older woman’s expression had shifted from professional courtesy to genuine interest the moment she’d properly looked through the sketchbook.
It was such a small thing, being taken seriously.
And yet it felt, in the quiet of her borrowed bedroom, like the first proper foundation stone of a life she might actually choose for herself, rather than one simply handed to her by other people’s decisions.
She thought, too, about Damien’s quiet confidence in her, so different from the careful, transactional distance he’d maintained during their very first conversations.
Something had shifted between them these past weeks, gradually and then all at once, and she found herself no longer entirely certain which version of their arrangement she was currently living inside: the cold business deal outlined so carefully in that contract, or something else entirely that neither of them had properly named yet.
Whatever it was, she decided, drifting finally toward sleep, she wasn’t in any particular hurry to untangle it.
Not tonight, at least.
She woke early the next morning, before her usual hour, and found herself sketching new ideas before she’d even properly gotten out of bed, the excitement of the previous day’s meeting refusing to let her mind properly settle into anything else.
By the time she made her way downstairs for breakfast, she had three new concepts roughed out, each one considerably different from what Adriana had already seen, each one feeling somehow more genuinely her own than anything she’d shown at the actual meeting.
Damien was already at the table, and something in his expression told her he’d noticed the sketchbook tucked under her arm before she’d even properly sat down.
“More ideas?” he asked, something warm in his tone.
“I couldn’t properly sleep,” she admitted, sliding into her chair.
“My mind kept working through possibilities even after I’d gone to bed.”
“May I see?”
She hesitated only briefly before sliding the sketchbook across the table toward him, something in her having grown considerably more comfortable sharing this particular part of herself with him over these past weeks.
He studied the new pages carefully, the same serious attention he’d given her work in the garden weeks earlier.
“This one,” he said, tapping a sketch of a structured jacket with an unusual asymmetric closure.
“Tell me about this.”
“I was thinking about how strange it feels, being pulled in two directions at once,” she said slowly, surprising herself with how easily the honesty came.
“The asymmetry felt right for that.
Nothing about my life right now sits evenly balanced.”
Something shifted in his expression at that, thoughtful and slightly complicated.
“Do you mean this arrangement?
Or something else entirely?”
“Both, maybe,” she admitted.
“I don’t think I’ve properly sorted it out myself yet.”
“Take your time sorting it,” he said gently.
“There’s no particular rush to have all the answers figured out immediately.”
She looked up at him properly then, something warm and grateful rising in her chest at the quiet patience in his voice.
“Thank you,” she said softly, and meant it for considerably more than simply the conversation about her sketches.