CHAPTER 61
Lauren
Vivian didn’t doanything halfway. The February issue included.
Lauren clutched theDIVORCED AFpiece to her chest as she stepped into the photography studio.
It looked louder under the professional lights.
Brighter. Bolder. Almost indecent.
The coral base glowed. The layered tissue paper shimmered in overlapping patterns. The white letters she’d painted—steady, unrepentant, triumphant—cut through like a battle cry.
Sage spotted her. “Oh good,” she said, sweeping across the room with her camera hanging from her neck. “Our hero object.”
“The Valentine issue is about reinvention,” Vivian said briskly. “What romance looks like when you’re choosing yourself. This piece is the centerpiece.”
Lauren’s stomach swooped. “Centerpiece?”
“Of the entire issue.”
She nearly dropped the plaque.
Wren swooped in to take it from her careful hands, holding it like a holy relic. “Let me set this up,” she murmured, gliding toward the styled display.
Lauren followed automatically.
The set was… beautiful.
And intimidating.
A minimalist pedestal covered in matte black fabric. A spotlight forming a warm circle, precisely where the plaque would sit.
It looked like art. Not a craft project.
Not a joke. Not a coping mechanism.
Art.
Lauren blinked. “I thought the photos you took last week were for the magazine?”
Sage lifted the camera, adjusting the lens. “Those were for your website. Commercial shots—clean, catalog-y, very ‘please commission me.’”
Wren nodded. “Editorial is different.”
Vivian added, “This is the one people will rip out and pin to their inspiration boards. The one that says something.”
Lauren’s throat tightened. “Oh.”
Vivian placed theDIVORCED AFsign on the pedestal and stepped back. “Oh hell yes,” she said under her breath.
Lauren stared.
Her creation looked like a manifesto.
A declaration.
She’d made that plaque when she was still finding her feet as a separated wife.
