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Benita’s posture instantly shifted. Her shoulders tensed, and a sudden wave of nervous sweat broke across her brow. She nervously clutched her sketchpad against her chest, her fingers twitching over the spiral binding.

”I... I don’t know, Ethan,” she mumbled, looking down at her sneakers. ”Maybe I should take a few days to think about it? We can start laying down the actual line next week once I’ve had time to really refine things...”

”No way. Not next week—we start drafting right now,” I said, leaning back in my chair. ”I need you to throw some raw ideas on paper so we can map out the core direction for this showcase.”

”Let me see what you’ve got in that pad right now,” I said gently, extending a hand across the heavy mahogany desk. ”Don’t hide it.”

Hesitantly, she slid the sketchbook across the wood. She cleared her throat, trying to force an enthusiastic smile that didn’t reach her eyes.

”I mean... tada!” she squeaked out, pointing at the page. ”I was thinking something like this for the lead look...”

I pulled the sketchbook closer and examined the page.

The technical drawings were pristine—Jean-Luc’s structural training was already showing in her clean, sharp pencil strokes. It was a sleek, perfectly tailored midnight-black evening gown with a high slit and a classic sweetheart neckline. It was elegant. It was balanced. It was expensive.

And it was completely, painfully safe.

The wild, rebellious soul she had poured into those $100k archival canvases yesterday was entirely missing. The chaotic, pinned pleats, the daring razor-sharp drapes, the raw industrial edge that made her work feel like wearable, high-value art—all of it had been sanitized away into a standard red-carpet dress that any second-tier luxury house could have put on a hanger.

I looked from the sketch up to Benita. She was biting her lower lip, anxiously scanning my face for a reaction like a student waiting for a grade.

I closed the sketchbook with a soft thud and slid it back across the desk toward her.

”It’s clean,” I said evenly, staring straight into her eyes. ”And it’s completely wrong for you.”

Benita flinched slightly, her eyes widening. ”Wrong...? But... but the proportions are correct! The seams—”

”The proportions are safe,” I interrupted smoothly, my voice calm but unshakeable. ”You got nervous the second I mentioned the word ’runway.’ You started thinking about what critics, buyers, and traditional judges expect to see, so you stripped away everything that makes you a 9.9 genius and drew a dress meant to fit in.”

She dropped her gaze, her shoulders slumping as the truth landed. ”I... I just didn’t want to get laughed at,” she admitted softly, her voice barely a whisper. ”What if I put out those crazy, deconstructed pieces and everyone thinks I’m just a messy amateur who doesn’t belong there?”

”Let them talk,” I said, leaning forward and resting my forearms on the desk. ”We are not entering this showcase to ask for their permission to exist. We are entering to force them to acknowledge a revolutionary. If you play it safe, you’re just another girl in a pretty gown. If you go wild, you’re an icon.”

I stood up, picked up a heavy charcoal pencil from my desk organizer, and tossed it into her hands.

”Tear that page out,” I commanded with a slow smirk. ”And draw me the piece that frightens you.”

She ripped out the safe page and went back to work, but the next sketch was still holding back. It was better—sharper—but it was still playing by the rules. Then she flipped through her pad and pulled out an old drawing from her factory days, trying to present that instead.

I shook my head, tapping the mahogany surface between us. ”Nope. That’s who you were when you had nothing to lose. Give me who you are now—with all this power, all these resources, and a point to prove. Show me you.”

Benita leaned back, resting her head against the leather chair, completely drained. She closed her eyes, letting out a long, heavy sigh that rattled her chest. The pressure was heavy, but as that breath left her lungs, something unlocked inside her.

She snapped her eyes open. Her posture straightened, her hand grabbed the heavy charcoal pencil, and she leaned over the desk.

The pencil didn’t just glide—it flew across the paper like she was completely possessed. The scratch of charcoal against grain filled the quiet office as bold, violent lines bled across the page. She stopped overthinking. She stopped calculating. She just poured raw, unadulterated instinct directly onto the pad.

Architectural shoulders that defied gravity. A deconstructed, liquid-metal drape cascading into asymmetrical silk. Exposed structural bone-wiring mixed with raw, distressed hemline drapes that looked impossibly dangerous, impossibly high-end, and violently original. It was an absolute riot of haute couture rebellion.

She slammed the pencil down, breathing heavily, sweat glinting on her forehead.

I pulled the sketchbook toward me, staring at the page in awe. It wasn’t just good—it was a breathtaking, revolutionary masterwork. It was pure, unfiltered Benita Young.

”Now that,” I said quietly, a massive, proud smirk spreading across my face as I looked up at her, ”is an empire.”

Benita slumped back into her seat, letting out a long, deep breath of pure, sweet relief. The tension melted right out of her shoulders, and a genuine, radiant laugh bubbled up from her chest as she stared at what her hands had just created.

”Great...” I said, admiring the chaotic beauty on the page before setting the pad down.

As she sat there recovering her breath, I noticed the faint red spots on her fingertips—tiny pricks and dried drops from where the dressmaker needles had bitten into her skin during her late-night sessions. The dark circles under her eyes proved she hadn’t been resting as much as she claimed.

I leaned against the corner of the desk, softening my tone. ”Look at your hands, Benita. You’re pushing yourself to the bone. Maybe I need to go a little softer on you.”

She blinked, surprised by the sudden shift. ”I’m fine, Ethan. Really—”

”You’re stressed,” I cut in gently. ”How about a massage? Get those knotty shoulders worked on.”

Her eyes went wide with a sudden, shy panic. ”Uh... what?”

I chuckled, waving a hand. ”Not from me, obviously. A professional spa team, or maybe some private yoga sessions to get your mind clear and keep your hands nimble.”

She looked down at her lap, her fingers rubbing together awkwardly. ”Is... is that something I should really be doing? It feels so wasteful when I have so much to learn.”

”Self-care isn’t wasteful when your mind and body are your primary tools,” I said smoothly, taking a seat in the chair across from her. ”Speaking of learning, how’s the technical side going with Jean-Luc? Really tell me.”

Benita let out a soft, defeated sigh, leaning back into the cushions. ”He’s... he’s incredible, but it’s overwhelming. Yesterday he started showing me this classic French moulage technique—draping directly on the form without standard flat patterns. He kept going on and on about how it took him decades in Paris to master the grain lines and bias tension. Ethan... he made it sound impossible. I kept looking at his hands and thinking, there’s no way I can absorb decades of French couture mastery in a few weeks. It’s just so hard.”

”Nope,” I said firmly, leaning in so she had to look me in the eye. ”Drop that mindset right now. You don’t need to copy his decades of rigid tradition to be brilliant. He’s teaching you the rules so you know exactly how to break them. You don’t have to be Jean-Luc, Benita. You just have to be you.”

Before she could answer, the heavy double doors of the office clicked open. ℴ

Jean-Luc strolled in, carrying a fresh roll of unbleached Italian muslin and a box of specialty brass pins. His wire-framed glasses were polished, and his mustache was waxed to a sharp point.

”Ah, bonjour, Mademoiselle! Monsieur Ethan,” Jean-Luc announced with a theatrical sweep of his hand, completely unaware of our conversation. ”I hope you are rested, Benita. Today, we pick up right where we left off on the French bias drape. The real trial begins!”