New York Fashion Week filled the VANCE & THORNE showroom with camera flashes, music, buyers, and critics. Less than two months earlier, many of the same people had reported the end of my career. Now they stood shoulder to shoulder around my display.
Mom straightened the silk at my shoulder. Alexander waited several steps away, leaving the center of the room to me.
"It's time," he said.
I walked out of the alcove.
The room quieted when I reached the central case. I wore a deep emerald gown, and the new Phoenix Diamond rested at my throat.
I had cut it from a rough stone Alexander acquired from a newly discovered mine. It was larger and more complex than the Phoenix Liam and Chloe destroyed, with every facet mapped and cut by my own hand.
A senior member of the Gemological Guild tried
