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. There is no sign, no display window, only polished metal and an intercom that surely costs more than everything in my apartment put together.

My thumb hovers over the buzzer. One minute passes, then another. By the fifth, I've 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 click against the pavement with the confidence of someone who has 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 until a frustrated sigh slips out and I rip it away.

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. 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 go back to the warning text. ‘Walk away from Albert Rossi before he destroys you. This is your only warning.’ I run the number twice. Untraceable, with no name attached. Someone knew enough to warn me and wanted to remain hidden. I barely slept after that.

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

A woman stands there, tall and dressed head to toe in black, her slender legs visible through the split in her dress. Her brown hair is pulled back so tightly that 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 has spread the gossip about my poor decision?

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

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

My sneakers squeak against the marble floor, and I try to soften my steps, but the soles refuse to cooperate. Someone materializes at my elbow with champagne on a silver tray. I take it cause 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."

"W…what?"

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

"I'll be 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, with plush carpet, soft lighting and a velvet bench beneath the full-length mirror. I stand there, 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 held together 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 look at my reflection, at the freckles across my shoulders and the body I've never had the luxury of thinking about in rooms built around expensive clothes. Everything about this place makes me aware of how far outside its world I feel.

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 received a warning text and still showed up.

The assistants work fast, measuring bust, waist, hips and 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 carried for years. "You carry tension in every part of your posture."

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

They discuss my proportions in French. My college French is 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 them. 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 sets each one aside without softening her conclusions.

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

The color pulls green and gold from my hazel eyes that I rarely notice.

"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 looking at me for the first time. "Mr. Rossi has many women who want to be seen with him. Beautiful, high-class women who understand his world."

Ma'am, I don't need more items added to my insecurity list.

"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 strangely. A man like Albert Rossi probably gets bored with people quickly. So what happens when someone actually holds his attention?

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

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

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

"You're afraid."

"Completely." I admit it.

"Of what?"

"That I'll ruin this. Walk around like a chicken in heels. I barely wear those." I exhale and add, "That everyone in that room will know I'm a fraud the moment 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. It has no embellishment or decoration, the kind of simplicity you only recognize once you realize how expensive it looks. The neckline settles cleanly across my collarbones, and the skirt falls below my knees with a subtle slit that suggests without revealing much.

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 me in the mirror. "You have something they do not. Authenticity. Do not lose it while you learn their games."

"Can I really be myself and fit in?"

She considers me, then answers honestly.

"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 with my ringtone, "Idol" by BTS. My hands freeze, the same reaction I had last night while staring at that warning text in the dark.

Unknown number.

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

"Miss Carter."

It's Albert. That controlled tone from the contract signing. He doesn't bother with a greeting.

"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 beat passes. Then I hear it, the faintest trace of amusement in his voice. "I noticed."

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

"I wasn't planning to..."

The line disconnects.

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 and I have a feeling I wouldn't like the answer.

I slip the phone back into my pocket.

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

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