Chapter 5: The Name Regina Feared
For years, I had trained myself not to react when people dismissed my mother’s name.
Eleanor Reed had once been whispered about in workrooms with admiration. Then she became a lawsuit, a rumor, a failed independent designer who supposedly stole from people richer than she was. By the time she died, the fashion world remembered only the version Regina Vale helped publish.
Desperate.
Unstable.
A thief.
But Augustus Alden did not hear her name that way.
He heard it like a wound reopening.
“You are Eleanor’s daughter,” he said.
It was not a question.
Regina stepped in quickly. “Mr. Alden, I’m sure this is emotional, but we should move Celeste inside.”
“For whose comfort?” he asked.
Regina’s mouth closed.
Celeste looked from him to me. “Dad, you knew her mother?”
Augustus kept his eyes on me. “Eleanor saved my first foundation gala from disaster thirty-one years ago. A model fainted. A gown tore. Everyone panicked.” His gaze dropped to the shears. “She fixed it with those.”
The crowd had stopped pretending not to listen.
“My mother said a rich man once paid her fairly when no one else would,” I said. “She never said his name.”
Augustus’s expression shifted with grief. “I should have done more than pay her.”
Regina’s laugh came out wrong. “This is charming, truly, but irrelevant to tonight’s assault.”
“Then let us discuss tonight,” Augustus said. “My daughter was humiliated and harmed in front of witnesses. My client manager blamed the only person who helped her. Why?”
Lucas backed toward the bar.
Regina saw him move. “Lucas made a stupid joke. It went too far. That has nothing to do with me.”
Celeste stiffened. “You told me to smile after he grabbed me.”
“That is not what happened.”
“You told me a bruise could be covered.”
The guests murmured.
Regina’s assistant, a small woman named Priya, looked at the floor.
Augustus noticed.
“Do you have something to say?”
Priya’s face went pale. Regina turned slowly toward her. “Careful.”
That word did something to Priya. Maybe it broke the last string.
“She ordered the gown altered after final fitting,” Priya whispered.
Regina’s voice dropped. “Priya.”
“She said Celeste looked too strong in the original. She wanted the dress tighter, more helpless, more red-carpet fragile. The workroom said the structure would fail if she moved too much.”
Celeste stared at Regina. “You made me less safe because it photographed better?”
Regina’s silence answered.
I thought that would be the end of it.
It was not.
Priya reached into her clutch and pulled out her phone. “And Lucas was supposed to spill champagne, not push her.”
Lucas exploded. “Shut up.”
The room gasped.
Regina’s head snapped toward him.
Augustus’s security guards moved closer.
Lucas raised both hands again. “It was a prank. Regina said controversy would bury the bad fitting. Everyone would talk about Celeste’s comeback look later.”
My stomach turned.
Celeste’s hand flew to her mouth.
Regina’s eyes darted between Augustus, the cameras, and the pool, calculating which lie had the best chance of surviving.
Then she chose the ugliest one.
“She agreed,” Regina said.
Celeste whispered, “What?”
Regina lifted her chin. “Celeste wanted attention. She has been terrified of losing relevance. I have messages.”
Augustus’s face became stone.
Celeste shook her head, trembling again.
I stepped closer to her. “Don’t let her put her voice inside your memory.”
Regina turned on me. “You do not speak to my client.”
“She is not your client anymore,” Augustus said.
That was when Regina understood something worse than humiliation was happening.
Loss.
Her title, access, and power were sliding away in public.
But she was not finished.
She looked at my torn sketchbook pages hidden in Celeste’s new dress, and her eyes sharpened with sudden recognition.
“You,” she said softly. “You came here for more than a cleaning job.”
I said nothing.
May you like
Regina smiled.
And in that moment, I knew she had realized exactly which page she had failed to tear.
