Chapter 2: Eleven Nights to Build a Future
I stared at the name until the paper softened between my fingers.
Adrian Vale.
I knew the name.
Everyone who followed fashion knew the name.
He was the founder of Vale Atelier, a couture house whose gowns appeared on movie stars, royalty, and women who paid more for a single dress than my entire family spent on a car.
He was also famously private.
He rarely gave interviews, never attended public events without a reason, and had a reputation for recognizing extraordinary craftsmanship from across a room.
But I had never met him.
I didn't know why a man like that would send a warning to a seventeen-year-old girl living outside Boston.
And I certainly didn't know how he had learned about my stolen design.
I checked the hallway again.
“Who's there?”” I called.
No answer.
I locked my bedroom door, photographed the envelope, and placed it inside my sketchbook.
Then I sat down at my laptop and searched his name.
Articles filled the screen.
Adrian Vale had built his company from a small workshop into an international couture house. He had rejected offers from luxury conglomerates, donated millions to fashion education, and established a scholarship for young designers whose talent had gone unnoticed.
One article described his search for a missing child seventeen years earlier.
The child had disappeared from a hospital after a serious family emergency. The family had offered a reward, hired investigators, and searched across several states.
But the article was old.
The photograph was grainy.
And the child's name had been withheld.
I closed the page.
Whatever his reasons for contacting me, I couldn't afford to waste another night wondering about them.
My competition was in three weeks.
My original gown was ruined.
And if I wanted to beat Brianna, I needed a new dress that no one could claim belonged to her.
I spread my sketches across the desk.
The first design had been built around winter.
The second would be built around survival.
I chose deep wine-red silk, garnet embroidery, and thousands of tiny ruby crystals I had purchased over the previous year from fabric suppliers and online clearance sales.
I would call it The Phoenix Garden.
The gown would not look like a damaged version of Winter's Promise.
It would look like a completely different world.
At midnight, I began cutting the fabric.
By two in the morning, my fingers were cramped.
By four, the machine jammed.
I removed the bobbin, cleared the thread, and tried again.
At six, I heard Vanessa's footsteps outside my room.
I switched off the lamp and lay still.
The door handle moved.
Then came a soft knock.
“Nia?”” Vanessa called.
“Are you awake?””
I didn't answer.
“I know you're upset about what happened yesterday. But you need to understand something. Brianna has opportunities you don't.
She has the confidence to present herself properly. You should learn from her instead of competing with her.””
My fingernails dug into my palm.
She had ruined my dress, slapped me, and stolen my opportunity.
Now she wanted me to thank her for the lesson.
“I have school,” I called through the door.
“Then get ready.””
Her footsteps moved away.
I waited another minute before turning the lamp back on.
The silk glowed beneath the light.
I touched the fabric and pictured my father's hands guiding mine.
Beautiful things take patience.
I would give the dress patience.
But I would not give my family another chance to destroy it.
The next afternoon, I visited a small fabric store in Cambridge, where an elderly tailor named Mrs. Alvarez had been helping me repair clothes since I was fourteen.
She examined the sketches I spread across her counter.
“Red silk,” she said.
“Garnet embroidery. That's ambitious.””
“I know.””
“And you have eleven days?””
“Eleven nights,” I corrected.
She looked at my face.
Then she noticed the faint mark on my cheek.
“What happened?””
“Nothing.””
“Nia.””
I lowered my eyes.
“It's complicated.””
Mrs. Alvarez didn't push me.
Instead, she unlocked a cabinet and removed several rolls of fabric.
“This silk has been sitting here for years,” she said.
“I bought it for a client who changed her mind. It's not enough for the entire skirt, but it will work for the bodice and upper layers.””
I checked the price tag.
It was far beyond what I could afford.
“I can't pay for this.””
“I didn't ask you to pay today.””
“I can't take charity.””
Mrs. Alvarez tapped my sketch with one finger.
“Then don't call it charity. Call it an investment in a young designer who refuses to quit.””
My throat tightened.
“How do I repay you?””
“When you have your own atelier, you let a young girl with no money borrow your scraps.””
I nodded.
“Deal.””
She wrapped the silk in brown paper and added a box of garnet beads.
Before I left, she caught my wrist.
“Listen to me. A beautiful dress can make people look at you. But only the truth can make them believe you.””
“I know.””
“Do you? Because I've watched you apologize for other people's mistakes since you were fourteen.””
I couldn't answer.
Mrs. Alvarez softened.
“You don't have to become cruel to stop being a victim, sweetheart. You just have to stop helping people hurt you.””
I carried the fabric home beneath my coat.
For the first time in weeks, I felt something close to hope.
Then I stepped into the kitchen and found Brianna sitting at the island with my sketchbook open in front of her.
She had removed several pages and arranged them beside a pair of gold scissors.
My heart stopped.
“Put that down.””
Brianna lifted one of the sketches.
“This is the new dress?””
I rushed toward her.
She held it above her head.
“Red? Really? Are you trying to look like a discount movie villain?””
“Give it back.””
She examined the drawing.
“You've got some nerve entering the competition after everything that happened.””
“You stole my first design.””
“I was given permission to use it.””
“By whom?””
Brianna's smile widened.
“Mother.””
I turned toward the doorway.
Vanessa stood there holding a cup of coffee.
“Your sister is entering the championship,” I said.
“She stole my work.””
Vanessa took a sip.
“You are making an accusation you cannot prove.””
“I have photographs of the dress before she touched it.””
“And Brianna has submitted her own paperwork. The judges will decide.””
“Then why are you letting her take my sketchbook?””
Vanessa set down her cup.
“Because you left it in a shared room.””
“My bedroom is not a shared room!””
“Lower your voice.””
Brianna began tearing the corners from the sketch.
“Stop!””
I grabbed the paper.
She pulled in the opposite direction.
The page ripped down the center.
Something inside me went still.
Not calm.
Not peaceful.
Still.
I carefully took the remaining pages from her hand and placed them in my bag.
Then I looked at Vanessa.
“You can take my money. You can take my clothes. You can lie about what happened to my first dress.””
My stepmother's eyes narrowed.
“But you cannot make me stop designing.””
Brianna laughed.
“Who do you think you are?””
I met her gaze.
“Someone who doesn't need your permission.””
For one second, neither of them spoke.
Then Vanessa stepped toward me.
“If you insist on entering this competition, don't expect us to support you.””
I picked up my bag.
“I never did.””
I worked every spare minute.
I went to school during the day, altered clothes for neighbors after class, and sewed through the night. I ate toast over my sketchbook and drank cheap coffee until my stomach hurt.
My fingertips split.
I wrapped them in tape.
The sewing machine broke twice.
I repaired it both times.
On the fourth night, the bodice finally took shape. The garnet embroidery curled around the waist like branches reaching toward the sun. I placed each ruby crystal individually, stepping back after every few rows to check how the light moved across the fabric.
On the sixth night, I finished the first skirt layer.
On the seventh, I attached the train.
On the eighth, I added a series of tiny embroidered flowers in dark red thread, almost invisible until the light struck them.
They were the part I loved most.
They reminded me of the flowers I had embroidered on Winter's Promise.
The flowers that had survived beneath the paint.
At three seventeen in the morning, I heard a soft scratching sound outside my bedroom.
I stopped sewing.
Someone was moving in the hallway.
I switched off the lamp and approached the door.
A shadow passed beneath it.
Then I heard the unmistakable click of a camera.
I yanked the door open.
Brianna stood several feet away, holding her phone.
“What are you doing?””
She lowered it.
“Nothing.””
“You were taking pictures of my dress.””
“I was checking whether you were still awake.””
“With your camera pointed at my work?””
She rolled her eyes.
“You are so paranoid.””
I stepped into the hallway.
“Delete the pictures.””
“No.””
“Brianna.””
She raised her phone.
“Make me.””
I reached for it.
She jerked backward and nearly fell into the wall.
“Mom!”” she screamed.
“Nia is attacking me!””
Vanessa's bedroom door flew open.
“What happened?””
“She tried to grab my phone!””
“Because you were photographing my dress!”” I said.
Vanessa looked at the unfinished gown on the mannequin behind me.
Then she looked at Brianna's phone.
“Brianna, go to bed.””
“But—”
“Now.””
Brianna walked away, her lips pressed into a thin line.
Vanessa turned to me.
“Lock your door if you're so worried about people seeing your work.””
“I do lock it.””
“Then stop inventing problems.””
She returned to her room.
I stood in the hallway, listening to the door close.
Something was wrong.
Brianna had never cared about my unfinished designs before.
She had only cared about things she could take.
I returned to my bedroom and checked every window.
Then I moved the gown into the small storage closet and locked it inside.
Before sunrise, I backed up every photograph to an online account and sent copies of my sketches to a new email address.
I didn't know whether Brianna had already copied the design.
But I was done making it easy for her.
On the ninth night, a package arrived at the house.
It was addressed to me.
Inside was a pair of professional fabric shears, a small silver thimble, and a handwritten note.
For the final stitches. Keep going.
There was no return address.
Only the initials A.V.
I sat on the edge of my bed, holding the thimble.
Adrian Vale.
I considered calling the number on the envelope.
Instead, I typed a message.
Who are you, and how do you know about my competition?
The reply arrived less than a minute later.
Someone who has seen what happens when a talented young person is forced to give up before the world discovers them.
I stared at the screen.
Did you send the package?
Yes.
Why?
There was a pause.
Then another message appeared.
Because you should have the tools to finish what you started.
I looked at the silver thimble.
It was old-fashioned, with a tiny bird engraved along the rim.
Something about it made my chest ache, though I couldn't explain why.
Have we met? I typed.
This time, the reply took longer.
Not yet.
I waited for another message.
None came.
I put the thimble on my desk and returned to the dress.
By midnight, the final crystal was in place.
The Phoenix Garden stood beneath the lamp, every garnet bead catching the light.
I had done it.
Eleven nights.
One broken machine.
A hundred tiny decisions.
And a dress that belonged to no one but me.
I slipped it onto the mannequin and stepped back.
For the first time since my father's death, I felt as though I had created something that could carry me somewhere new.
Then I noticed the closet door.
It was open.
I was certain I had locked it.
I rushed across the room.
The original white gown was gone.
Not the ruined fabric.
Not the scraps.
The entire dress, which I had carefully preserved after the paint incident, had disappeared.
I searched beneath the bed, inside the storage boxes, and behind the hanging clothes.
Nothing.
Then my phone buzzed.
A message from Brianna.
It contained a photograph of Winter's Promise.
Clean.
Restored.
Beautiful.
She had somehow removed the paint, or found a way to hide the damaged section beneath a new layer of fabric.
The caption read:
Can't wait for everyone to see my masterpiece.
Beneath it was another message.
You should stay home, Nia. You don't want to embarrass yourself.
I stared at the photograph.
Then I looked at the red gown waiting beneath the light.
Brianna had stolen my original design.
But she had made one mistake.
She had assumed that the only way I could win was by wearing the dress she had taken.
I opened my laptop and printed the competition's official registration form.
My name was already there.
So was my design title.
And beside the signature line, I wrote the words I should have written months ago.
*Nia Carter — Original Designer and Sole Creator.*
I would walk into that championship.
I would wear the red gown.
And I would make sure the judges saw both dresses.
But the following morning, when I arrived at the school office to submit my final documentation, the administrator handed me a letter.
My entry had been placed under review.
The complaint had been filed by Brianna Hayes.
May you like
The accusation?
That I had stolen her original design.
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