Page 48 of Mister St. James

The junior’s eyes go wide. Diane does not dignify the threat. Instead, she reaches across the table and slides a glossy folder to me, her nail tracing the gold-embossed logo. “I’ll need you both at Maison Elan tomorrow at noon for wardrobe. Best foot forward.”

Aiden moves. Not fast but measured, predatory, like he’s stalking prey at a conference table. He unbuttons his jacket as he sits next to me, every motion deliberate and slow, like he knows he’s being watched. He reaches inside the pocket, pulls out his wallet, and lays a matte-black card on the table in front of me. It lands with a sound that isn’t quite a thud, but it’s loud enough to freeze Diane mid-sentence.

“Get whatever you want,” he says, quiet, eyes fixed on my face.

I look at the card. I pick it up between two fingers, just for show, then set it down on top of my notepad, its edges aligning perfectly with the legal lines. I don’t look at him when I say, “I have my own money.”

Aiden doesn’t blink. “Consider it a line item in the budget,” he says. “Or don’t.” His voice is soft, but it carries. “Either way, the dress is non-negotiable.”

The PR team has gone very still, like a pair of hunted animals, except it’s hard to tell who’s the predator and who’s the prey. I wonder what the word for this is. When everyone in the room realizes you just dropped the script and set it on fire. Aiden never raises his voice. He doesn’t need to. He just waits, like gravity, for things to fall his way.

Diane looks down at her tablet, flicks her stylus, and resumes talking as though nothing has happened. “Maison Elan is under NDA,” she says, “so the fitting will be private. Afterwards, we’ll brief you both on messaging. Two hours, tops.” She glances at the junior, who’s typing so fast his fingers are a blur.

I tap my pen once against the pad, letting the silence stretch. I can see the faintest muscle twitch at Aiden’s jaw, a tell I’m not supposed to know about. I’m still pissed, but I’d be lying if I said the attention doesn’t feel like a drug.

Diane packs up with the efficiency of a surgeon closing up a chest. She stands, gives a precise nod, and says, “I’ll follow up by EOD.” Then she and the junior vanish, leaving a wake of static and corporate perfume.

The door hisses shut behind them. Aiden doesn’t move. The card is still there, a wedge of black between us.

“You didn’t need to do that,” I say. I mean it to sound like a reprimand, but it comes out softer than I want. He’s impossible to read. A single, perfect eyebrow lifts above the gold circle of his glasses.

“I wanted to,” he says.

A beat passes. I could let it go, but that’s not my nature. “People will think you’re buying me,” I say. It’s petty, but true.

He shakes his head, just once. “No,” he says, and this time he leans in, both hands braced on the table, his words for me alone. “They’ll think nothing because you are mine.” His eyes are on mine, pinning me to the moment.

I stare at him, the card, the city lights bleeding into the room. I want to say something clever, something that will make him regret trying to one-up me. Instead, I just…stop. I let the moment sit. It feels dangerous, in the way that cliff edges and livewires feel dangerous.

“Fine,” I say, and pick up the card. It’s heavier than it looks, cool and almost silky to the touch. I put it in my blazer pocket without another word. Aiden gives a small, almost imperceptible nod, and stands, already switching gears.

He’s halfway to the door before he looks back. “Don’t be late,” he says, like it’s an inside joke just for me.

I watch him go. When the room is empty, I set my pen down, close the legal pad, and press my fingers to the spot where the card sits in my pocket. For the first time all day, my hands are steady.

Outside, the city glitters with all its usual threats and promises. I look at my reflection in the glass, hair too big for a boardroom, mouth still red from my morning lipstick, eyes that have never learned to flinch. I think about all the stories I’ve told myself about power and armor and how to survive, and how none of them ever mentioned what to do when someone sees straight through it.

I square my shoulders and leave the conference room behind, the echo of his words buzzing under my skin.

Maison Elan is one of those boutiques that could get away with not having a sign. The glass is so clean it seems theoretical, like if you leaned on it you’d fall right through into a dimension where dirt doesn’t exist. The window display features exactly one dress on exactly one mannequin, lit so it glows like an idol. The sidewalk outside smells faintly of roasted chestnuts, but inside it’s all lemon polish and clean linin.

A woman in a cream blazer and no name tag, because why bother, greets me by name before I can introduce myself. She has the kind of bone structure I associate with Italian heiresses or FBI agents, but her smile is warm and practiced and exactly two seconds long. “Ms. Vaquer,” she says. “We’ve been expecting you.” I almost check over my shoulder, expecting to see someone more important behind me, but nope, she’s looking at me like I am the important thing.

She steers me to the back, where a fitting room awaits. A three-way mirror, ivory walls, a velvet bench the color of midnight, and a tiny vase of peonies that probably cost more than my rent. The overhead lights are recessed and low, the kind that make skin look luminous instead of exhausted. A second staffer appears with a flute of champagne, places it silently on a pedestal next to me, then disappears. There’s a hanger with my name on it, looped in navy silk ribbon.

I take the glass and hold it, feeling the cold seep into my palm. In the mirror, I watch my reflection run through a dozen expressions, amusement, calculation, mild contempt, before landing on a neutral mask. I set the champagne down, uncap my pen, and write a single word in the margin of my brain, surreal.

I know, down to the decimal, how much Aiden has in his accounts. I’ve reconciled his receipts, scheduled his wire transfers, triaged his cash flow when one project spiked and another stalled out. For months, the money has been an abstraction, just zeroes, just data, nothing to do with me. But now, with the champagne and the marble and the dress in the window, the abstraction starts to crystallize. It becomes real in the way that gravity is real, and just as indifferent to your feelings about it.

The first dress the attendant hands me is coral and lace, and it reads as decoration. The next is sheer and sparkly, the kind of thing you wear if your goal is to be Instagrammed, preferably from behind. Both go back with a polite smile. I work through four more options, each more expensive and less relevant than the last, dismissing anything that might be mistaken for a trophy, anything that would get me mistaken for arm candy instead of arsenal.

The deep-cut crimson number almost makes the cut. When I step into it, the room’s light slants across my collarbones and I see, for one hungry moment, what Aiden must see when he looks at me. It’s not the color or the cut. It’s the way the fabric dares the world to look away. For thirty seconds, I stand in the center of the room, wondering if that kind of audacity is something you can wear like a second skin. I decide it is, but not tonight. I shake my head and hand it back.

The one I finally choose is emerald green satin, floor-length, with an off-center halter that leaves my shoulders and entire back bare. No embellishment. No apology. It fits like it was waiting for me. I turn once in the mirror, then again, and see a woman who could set a room on fire just by entering it, no spectacle required. “This one,” I say, and my voice sounds different, even to me.

At the register, the attendant slides the dress into a garment bag, folds it with reverence, and offers the card reader with a gesture as smooth as her matte maroon lipstick. I pull out Aiden’s card. I feel like it weighs more than my entire wallet, and for a second I consider making a joke about how it could double as a weapon in a pinch. I don’t. Instead, I look the attendant dead in the eye and hand over the card, like it’s the most natural thing in the world.

She doesn’t blink. The transaction pings, approved before I even have time to process the number. I tuck the card away, thank her, and walk out with the bag over my arm.