Chapter 3: How to Look Like You Belong

Adeline's POV

Matteo's address leads me to a narrow steel door squeezed between an art gallery and a private bank. No sign. No display window. Just polished metal and an intercom that probably costs more than everything in my apartment put together.

My thumb hovers over the buzzer. One minute. Two. By the fifth, I've already imagined leaving at least twenty different times.

A woman in head-to-toe Chanel glides past without glancing at me, which is the most New York interaction I've had all week, her heels clicking against the pavement with that assurance of people who have nothing to prove.

I look down at my jeans. Yesterday the ripped knee looked effortlessly vintage. Standing here, it just looks like I couldn't afford a pair without holes. My vest has a loose thread at the hem. I tug it and the thread gets longer and longer. A frustrated sigh slips out before I finally rip it off.

The steel door throws my reflection back at me. Ginger hair that clearly lost a fight with my hairbrush. Hazel eyes that have never stopped making bad decisions. I look exactly like the kind of woman who'd pretend a stranger's Mercedes belonged to her.

Albert's voice surfaces. ‘Try not to make me regret bringing you into it.’

Last night I grabbed my laptop and finally put my celebrity-stalking skills to good use. I learned Albert Rossi owned more companies than I knew existed. Every article said the same thing. Billion-dollar acquisitions. Ruthless negotiations. A reputation that made people lower their voices when they said his name. And somehow, every photograph caught that same unreadable expression.

One headline makes me stop scrolling.

FEARED.

Not the respected CEO everyone admires. I click it and immediately wish I hadn't.

Then I went back to the warning text. ‘Walk away from Albert Rossi before he destroys you. This is your only warning.’ I ran the number twice. Untraceable, no name attached. Someone who knew enough to warn me, someone who didn't want to be found. I didn't sleep much after that.

Before I can back out, the door opens. My fingers never graze the buzzer.

A woman stands there, tall, dressed head to toe in black, her slender legs peeking out from the dress’s split. Her brown hair pulled back so tightly I feel sorry for her scalp. Her eyes sweep over me and I feel every flaw surface under that gaze.

"Mon dieu." She circles me, slowly, as if she's deciding whether fixing me is worth the effort. "We have work to do."

Yes, a lot of work indeed.

"I'm Adeline Carter. I have an appointment."

"Oui. I know who you are. You're the girl.”

I blink. “The girl?”

Her mouth twitches. “The one who climbed into Mr. Rossi's lap.”

My face instantly turns red to match my hair. Who on earth had already spread the gossip about my poor decision?

She gestures inside. "I am Colette. Come."

The boutique is all cream silk and blinding light, dresses hanging on the walls. There aren't any price tags which probably means the price would make me cry.

My sneakers squeak against the marble floor and I try to lessen it but the soles don't listen. Someone materializes at my elbow with champagne on a silver tray. I take it because I don't know what else to do with my hands. No way I'm drinking the exquisite liquid given my throat is plastered shut.

"We begin with measurements." Colette snaps her fingers and an assistant appears with a tape measure. "Then we discuss what Mr. Rossi requires."

The way she says requires raises the hair on my arms.

"He didn't really explain," I say.

"He never does." She gestures toward a platform surrounded by mirrors. "Remove your clothes. Everything except undergarments."

I stutter. "What?"

"I cannot work with fabric covering fabric." She tilts her head. "You are shy?"

"I'm wearing underwear in front of strangers."

Colette considers that. "Fair. The changing room is there. Five minutes."

The changing room is bigger than my bathroom at home, plush carpet, soft lighting reflecting on a velvet bench. I stand at the full-length mirror, watching my reflection.

I signed a contract to pretend to be a billionaire's date. Someone warned me to stay away from him. I came anyway.

My hands shake as I pull off my sweater. My jeans pool at my feet, the broken zipper still fixed with a safety pin. My bra is clean but has lived longer than most teens, and I got it in Target, five for twenty dollars.

I stare at myself, pale skin, freckles across my shoulders, a body that works fine for my life but probably reads as a problem in here. I step out without giving myself the chance to change my mind.

Colette points to the platform without a word.

Five mirrors return my reflection from every angle, five versions of the same girl who got a warning text and showed up anyway.

The assistants work fast, bust, waist, hips, inseam. Colette watches, calling numbers in French.

"The waist is fine." She moves around me. "The shoulders need work. Does she always slouch?"

I pull my spine straight. "I'm standing right here."

"Oui. And you are slouching." Her fingers press between my shoulder blades, against the knot I've always carried. "You carry tension like a stone."

She isn't wrong. My shoulders have been up around my ears since last night.

They discuss my proportions in French, my college French rusted over, but what I catch makes heat crawl up my face. Too pale. The hair is lovely but needs proper care. The posture, mon dieu. And those hands.

I look down at my hands, short nails because I bite them when I'm anxious, cuticles I never bother with, knuckles dry from the weather and cheap soap.

"The body is strong," Colette announces. "We enhance. We do not reconstruct." She meets my eyes in the mirror. "You may dress."

When I return, fabric swatches cover a long table. She holds shades against my skin and discards without softening her conclusions.

"The auburn hair." She selects a midnight blue swatch. "Yes. This."

The color pulls colors out of my hazel eyes, green they don't usually show, gold flecks I tend to miss.

"Six events. Six dresses. All must tell the right story."

"What story?"

"That you belong at his side." She sets the swatches down and looks at me directly, really looks, for the first time. "Mr. Rossi has many women who want to be seen with him, beautiful, high class, women who know how to move in his world."

Ma’am, I don't need more lists added to my insecurities.

"Then why me? Since he could easily get those women…"

"Because they know exactly how to impress him."

She looks at me. "You don't.”

The words land wrong. A man like Albert Rossi probably gets bored with people quickly. Which makes me wonder what happens when something actually holds his attention.

We go through six dresses. Every one is art. Every one feels awkward on me.

"You are fighting them," Colette observes. "You wear them like armor."

"Because that's exactly what they feel like."

"You're afraid."

"Completely." I admit.

"Of what?"

"That I'll ruin this. Walk around like a chicken in heels. I barely wear those.” I exhale and add quietly. "That everyone in that room will know I'm a fraud the second I walk in."

"They will know."

My stomach sinks.

Colette shrugs. "Good. Then stop trying to convince them otherwise.” She pulls a midnight blue dress from the rack. I slip it on, the fabric moving over my skin without resistance. It has no embellishment or decoration, the kind of simplicity you only recognize once you realize how expensive it looks. The neckline settles clean across my collarbones, the skirt falling below my knees with a subtle slit that suggests without displaying.

I face the mirror.

The woman looking back is me but not me. The dress pulls color into my hair and skin I didn't know was there. I straighten without thinking. For the first time in a long while, I don't immediately want to look away from my own reflection.

Colette appears behind my reflection. "You have something they do not, authenticity. Do not lose it while you learn their games."

My throat pulls. "Can I really be myself and fit in?"

She is silent, then honest. "That is something you have to figure out."

I could definitely pay her to be my motivation to get through grad school, except I'm broke.

My phone rings out my ringtone “Idol” by BTS. My hands freeze, the same way it did last night, staring at that warning text in the dark.

Unknown number.

I let it ring once, twice. Pick up on the third with the phone pressed to my ear.

"Miss Carter."

It's Albert. That controlled, even tone from the contract signing. Doesn't bother to greet.

"Mr. Rossi."

“Colette says you're giving her trouble.”

I glance at Colette. She studies her nails with complete innocence.

“I prefer to call it having opinions.”

A pause. Then I hear it. The faintest trace of amusement in his voice. “I noticed.”

Through the phone, I hear something hit the floor before he speaks. "Saturday. Six thirty. Don't be late."

"I wasn't planning to..."

The line hangs.

Colette holds out the garment bag. "He called the moment you put on the dress."

I take it without a word.

I don't ask how he knew. I have a feeling I wouldn't like the answer.

I slip the phone back into my pocket.

Albert Rossi already knows more about me than I know about him.

Somewhere out there, someone thinks that's enough reason to run.