The Maison AVA, the one Elias had leased on the quiet, stone-paved street, was no longer an empty, echoing room of potential.
It was a factory.
And it was, Aurora had begun to fear, a beautiful, light-filled, thriving prison of her own making.
Three months had passed since she had sold her first piece to Celine D'Albret. Three months since the "Phoenix Rising" collection had, with Elias's masterful, invisible guidance, become the quiet, explosive secret of the Paris fashion elite.
The myth of "Ariane Rousseau," the mysterious, unseen protégée of the legendary Elias Ward, was a wildfire.
Celine's boutique had sold out. Orders had come from Milan, then London, then New York. New York. That one had sent a jolt of pure, cold terror through her, a fear that she was building a beacon, not a
