One year. Three hundred and sixty-five days to dismantle a lie and build a truth.
The air in the Grand Palais in Paris was thick with anticipation, a heady perfume of money, power, and expensive florals. Backstage, it was a different kind of intensity—a controlled chaos of hushed French, the swish of silk, and the electric hum of a thousand lightbulbs framing mirrored vanities. This was the pinnacle. Paris Fashion Week. The moment a brand is either consecrated or forgotten.
A year ago, I had been a ghost in a basement, my world defined by the hum of a sewing machine and the four walls of my self-imposed prison. Tonight, my name—my real name, Elena Vance—was emblazoned in elegant, backlit letters above the runway entrance: VANCE. Not Thorne. Never again.
My lead assistant, a sharp young
