Four days had passed since the banquet, and Audrey Pam's voice still echoed in my skull like a wine glass clinking on marble. "You'll never go anywhere if you stay in the same place."
I sat cross-legged on the floor of my studio, wearing yesterday's pajama pants and a satin robe that had seen better days. I hadn't left the room since last night, unless you count pacing to the coffee machine as travel. A pencil was stuck in my bun, another behind my ear, and a sketchpad balanced on my knee like it was clinging to life. The page was blank.
Audrey Pam wanted to fly me to France, set me up in her pristine glass box of a studio, and have me design for her empire. That sounds glamorous, right? It was. Except for the part where I'd stop being me and start being a very well-dressed puppet.
A text buzzed on my phone. CJ.
CJ: "Just read some blogger say you're moving to Paris. How dare you not tell me?"
I rolled my eyes. Of course people were speculating. One cryptic comment from Pam at a public event and suddenly the vultures start circling. I didn't reply. Instead, I stood up, cracked my back like a grandmother in a telenovela, and made my way over to my design wall. It was filled with pinned fabrics, half-formed ideas, color palettes, and coffee stains that were now part of the aesthetic.
"You're being dramatic," I replied back. "France is just a place. People move. Designers move. But do they do it as good as me?" I muttered to myself before sighing. Great. Now I was talking to fabric.
I turned to the mannequin in the corner of the room. It wore one of my favorite original pieces, a structured jacket with asymmetrical lining and hand-stitched embroidery. The sleeves alone had taken twelve hours. This was the piece that got me into the New York Fashion Museum's winter exhibit last year. Not Pam. Not some Parisian studio with a view. Me. My hands. My brain.
Fine. And maybe a small existential breakdown along the way, but still, it was mine.
I sat back down at my work table, pulling a new sketchpad toward me. A celebrity client wanted something bold for an upcoming award show. No theme. Just something that would scream elegance and ego. Naturally, I was the first person on their list.
I drew one line. Then another. Then scribbled them both out.
The designs felt wrong. Too... tame. Too polished. Something Pam would put on a runway with a champagne flute in hand and a painfully sincere speech about "timeless silhouettes." God, I could practically hear it. I tried again. This time I let the lines curve harder, edges sharper, sleeves exaggerated. I added texture. Volume. Glamour.
Hours passed like seconds. I worked through lunch and ignored CJ's dramatic follow-up text, where he claimed he was going to fly to France and drag me back by my ponytail if I even thought about saying yes.
I didn't reply. I was in the zone now.
The studio buzzed with energy. Music played low in the background, something jazzy and nonsensical. I moved between stations like I was conducting a symphony. My hands draped fabric, pinned sections, adjusted collars. The jacket began to take form on the mannequin. Strong shoulders. A cinched waist. A back panel that opened like wings when you moved. Drama without apology.
This was it. This was the work.
By sunset, the studio looked like a fashion apocalypse. Threads on the floor. Chalk on my cheek. Pins in places they definitely shouldn't be. But the design was done. And it was brilliant.
I stepped back, arms crossed, and tilted my head.
"Not bad," I muttered. "Definitely better than anything Pam could pull out of a silk hat."
I grabbed my phone and hovered over Pam's contact. My thumb twitched. I could call her. Tell her thanks but no thanks. Or make a vague excuse about commitment issues and my unhealthy attachment to New York bagels. Instead, I opened Instagram.
I snapped a picture of the jacket and posted it to Instagram with the caption:
"I'm your favorite designer's favorite designer."
Within minutes, likes started pouring in. Comments from celebrities, designers, artists, and a few stylists who definitely owed me favors. One of them simply wrote: "This is why you're the blueprint."
Exactly.
I collapsed on the nearest couch, one leg flung over the armrest. The city twinkled outside my windows, alive and chaotic and mine.
Tony Stark's voice replayed in my head from that night on the balcony.
"No one tells me what to do."
And he was right. Not just because he's a billionaire with an ego the size of Jupiter, but because he knew who he was. And so did I.
I didn't need Audrey Pam's studio. I was the studio. I was the chaos. The mind. The brand.