CHAPTER ONE
MAE
The first thing I noticed that night was the lights…
Crystal chandeliers shimmered across the ballroom while camera flashes burst endlessly around wealthy guests dressed in designer gowns and expensive suits. From a distance, the Luxe Fashion Gala looked glamorous. However, the backstage was chaos; nervous models adjusting dresses with trembling fingers, overheated makeup artists, and assistants carrying dress bags through crowded hallways.
“Mae!” Mia called. “The models are lining up already!”
“I know!” I answered, dropping beside a gown to repair a loose hem. My hand slipped and the
needle pierced my finger.
“You’re bleeding;”
“At this point, I’m honestly worried you’re going to collapse before your collection even reaches the runway.” Mia teased.
“That would actually be less embarrassing than having a zipper explode in front of half the city,” she smiled immediately, but her eyes softened when she looked at me closely…
“Mae, breathe, you’ve barely slept for weeks.”
Tonight mattered too much for me to breathe normally; for six exhausting months, I had worked nonstop on this collection while juggling side jobs just to survive, and every sketch spread across my tiny apartment floor, every bead sewn into delicate fabric under cheap midnight lighting, and every stitch pressed into those gowns represented a dream I refused to let poverty destroy…
“Normal people would’ve quit after the third breakdown you know.” Mia said.
“Good thing I’m not normal.”
“No, you’re terrifying,” she laughed softly before straightening the sleeve of one of the dresses;
“But your designs are beautiful, Mae, stop looking at them like they’re mistakes.”
I wanted to believe her, but this world belonged to rich and powerful people; people like Patrick Sterling…
I spent most of my life far away from places filled with crystal chandeliers and billionaires. Saint Mercy’s Orphanage had been the only home I remembered growing up in, and while other children dreamt about becoming doctors, singers, or teachers, I spent hours sketching dresses on scraps of paper beside the elderly sisters who repaired torn clothes for the younger children…
“You’re always drawing dresses;” Sister Agnes used to tease gently.
“One day you’ll make something important.” She would encourage me.
At the time, I used to laugh because dreams felt expensive; that was where my love for fashion began. Years later, after finishing secondary school, Mother Superior used the orphanage savings to send me to fashion school in the city.
“This is your chance,” she had whispered while holding my hands tightly the day I left.
“Don’t come back afraid of the world.”
I never forgot those words. Fashion school was the first place I heard the name Blythe Luxe. In the fashion industry, people spoke about the company with admiration and fear, and above every conversation stood one man – Patrick Sterling. People spoke about him the way they spoke about storms...
A commotion near the entrance pulled me from my thoughts. Patrick Sterling had arrived. Cameras flashed. Conversations shifted. Executives rushed to greet him. Meanwhile, I was praying my collection get noticed tonight.
“Mae,” Mia whispered suddenly.
I looked up immediately. Ella Mayfield had entered the designer section; beautiful, wealthy, yet drunk.
“This gala is boring,” she announced with a champagne glass in her hand.
“Did they drag these designers out of a discount market?”
Nobody looked comfortable; yet they laughed nervously. Ella moved from display to display, criticizing everything she saw.
“Did a child make this?” Ella pointed toward one display.
“This color is disgusting.” She said referring to another.
With all these hurtful remarks, nobody stopped her. I hate the way powerful people could humiliate others publicly while everyone else stood there smiling nervously like cruelty was some kind of entertainment.
Then she reached my collection; For a second, her expression softened while she studied the cream-colored gown beneath the spotlight. Hope flickered inside me. Maybe she liked it. Then she laughed.
“Six months wasted.”
Humiliation burned through me.
“Please don’t touch the dresses,” I said carefully.
“Or what?”
Before I could answer, she grabbed the gown — RRRIP. The fabric tore straight down the side.
“Stop!”
“You call this fashion?” she laughed.
She reached for another dress, and something inside me finally broke. Maybe it was exhaustion; or maybe knowing nobody else would defend my work; so I did. I grabbed her wrist, the room went silent.
“Take your hands off me.” She winced.
“Take your hands off my work.” I snapped back.
“Do you even know who I am?”
“A spoiled drunk destroying things she didn’t work for.”
Gasps erupted around us; Ella raised her hand, but my instinct moved faster than fear — SLAP.
Complete silence followed, and then chattering immediately filled the place.
“This lady is really in for big trouble.” Someone from the crowd mumbled in disbelief.
Ella stared at me in disbelief while camera flashes exploded wildly around us, and only then did reality finally crash into me because I had just slapped one of the richest socialites in the city directly in front of celebrities, investors, reporters, and almost every important name in the fashion industry.
“Oh my God,” somebody whispered nearby.
Panic surged through me. I gathered my sketches and fabrics and turned toward the exit.
Then I suddenly felt someone watching me...
Through the glass of the executive suite above the ballroom, I saw him; Patrick Sterling. His dark eyes locked onto mine. He didn’t look angry. He didn’t look shocked; If anything, he looked interested.
Like he had discovered something unexpected in a room full of predictable people.
Heat rushed through me, and reality slammed back into me. I quickly broke eye contact with him, and hurried into the cold night air. I should have been thinking about Ella, the cameras, and the disaster waiting for me tomorrow. Instead, I kept thinking about Patrick Sterling and the look in his eyes like I was the most interesting thing in the room...
