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Eighty eight

Author: Ranya Vale
last update Last Updated: 2025-08-06 12:30:45

The boutique had been quiet all morning. Not empty. Just still in that way a room can be before something begins. The windows were polished, the displays reworked, and the air carried that faint scent of fresh linen and cedar that always came with new fabric shipments. No one rushed. No one whispered. There was a sense of breath being held, but not in fear. In readiness.

This was not a reopening. It was not a rebrand. It was something else. Something slower, deeper. The kind of change that does not arrive with loud declarations but with the deliberate act of choosing a new name and standing inside it.

The invitation had gone out under a name that did not belong to one woman alone. It was not Juliana Cross. It was not Noelle Vale. It was Noelle Juliana.

Two names. One stitched from the past. One born of everything it took to reclaim it.

The collection was not housed in lookbooks or digital slideshows. It lived in the space itself. Garments arranged on mannequins spaced across the bouti
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  • He Chose my Cousin, so I Chose Revenge   Chapter 151

    The light in the boutique felt different that morning. It was softer somehow, spilling through the front windows in a way that made the fabrics on the racks look almost weightless. I was rearranging a display near the register when Lena walked in with her tablet in hand.She didn’t even take off her coat before speaking. “We need to talk about the emails.”I set the hanger back on the rack. “Which ones?”“The ones from investors. More this week than we’ve had in the last three months combined. Some are from names you’d recognise.” She placed the tablet on the counter, the screen bright with a neatly organised list of offers.I didn’t look right away. I had learned over the years that the longer I kept my eyes on the work in front of me, the steadier my thoughts stayed. “And what’s your feeling about them?” I asked.She gave me a careful look. “That depends on yours.”Julian arrived a moment later, holding two coffees. He caught the edge of Lena’s expression and raised his brows at me.

  • He Chose my Cousin, so I Chose Revenge   Chapter 150

    After Julian went back to his book, I stayed at the table. The sketch was still wrapped in its paper, sitting between two pools of light from the overhead fixture.I unwrapped it again, slower than before. The paper fell open until the frame lay bare.My eyes went straight to the fabric swatch. Pale gray silk. The kind that seemed to hold light inside itself. The edges were frayed, the weave loosened with time. My fingers hovered over it. I did not want to risk pulling a single thread loose.The memory arrived before I could stop it.I was at the narrow desk in my old apartment, the one with the window that barely opened. Rain had been falling for three days. The air smelled of damp plaster. My cup of tea sat too close to the corner of the desk. The swatch slid across the paper until it felt right against the neckline I had drawn.The pencil lines were softer then. My hand was less sure. I had been imagining how the dress would move when someone turned their head or lifted their arm.

  • He Chose my Cousin, so I Chose Revenge   Chapter 149

    The package stayed on the dining table overnight, untouched. I passed it twice before bed, resisting the urge to undo the twine. In the morning, the first thing I saw when I came into the kitchen was the brown paper catching a thin strip of sunlight through the blinds. The light made the paper look softer, almost worn, and the twine cast a neat, straight shadow across it.Julian had already left. His coffee cup sat rinsed and upside down by the sink. On the counter was a note in his handwriting — Meeting early. See you later. The apartment was still. I could hear the faint hum of the fridge and the occasional groan of the old pipes when the building shifted.I made coffee and sat at the table, turning my chair slightly so I wouldn’t be looking directly at the package. I didn’t want it to pull at me before I was ready.By the time I reached the boutique, the workroom was alive. Claudia was leaning over the cutting table, scissors making their clean, deliberate sound through a length of

  • He Chose my Cousin, so I Chose Revenge   Chapter 148

    We arrived earlier than we needed to. Julian said it was better to get the feel of the room before things started, and I agreed, even though it meant more time to think about what we were here to do. The building looked ordinary from the outside, just another narrow front on a quiet street. Inside, the air felt different. It was warm and still, and it smelled faintly of polished wood and something floral that I could not place.I had dressed in a way that I hoped would draw no attention. A simple black dress, a long coat, my hair pulled back low at the nape of my neck. Julian looked me over before we left the apartment.“You look like someone who could buy the whole building,” he said.“That is not the goal,” I told him.“Still,” he smiled, “if that is how you blend in, I am not going to complain.”The auction staff showed us to a lounge where bidders could wait. It was quieter than I expected. People sat in deep chairs, flipping through catalogs printed on heavy paper. The photograph

  • He Chose my Cousin, so I Chose Revenge   Chapter 147

    Julian was still asleep when I came into the kitchen that morning. The card Marco had given me was exactly where I left it on the table, like it had been waiting for me to admit that I was already thinking about it. I made coffee and stood with my hands around the mug, letting the heat seep into my fingers before I even took a sip.The name on the card was printed in gold, the kind that looks confident without trying too hard. I turned it over slowly, as if the back might tell me more than the front. It didn’t.Julian came in, rubbing the back of his neck, hair still sticking up from sleep. He reached for a mug from the shelf.“Morning,” he said, voice still thick.“Morning,” I replied.He nodded at the card. “That’s the guy from yesterday?”“Yes. His name’s Marco. He says he’s seen some of my old work. From the Noelle years.”Julian sat across from me, cradling his mug. “Old work like…?”“My earliest designs,” I said. “The ones I drew in that tiny apartment. He says they’re going to

  • He Chose my Cousin, so I Chose Revenge   Chapter 146

    That afternoon was quiet enough that I could hear the hum of the lights above the cutting tables. I was sorting through a stack of fabric swatches when Lena called my name from the front. There was a different tone in her voice, one that made me look up immediately. When I stepped into the front of the boutique, a man stood near the door, hat in his hands, the faint weight of travel in the way he carried himself.It took a few seconds before I placed him. Time had added lines to his face, softened the edges I remembered, but the eyes were the same. Marco. Years ago, during the Noelle years, he had been one of the few people who treated me like I wasn’t invisible. He had supplied me with materials when no one else wanted to risk associating with me. We had lost touch without words, as if silence was easier than goodbye.He smiled, tentative, as though unsure if I would welcome him or ask him to leave. I felt an unexpected mix of warmth and wariness. I asked him to sit. Lena quietly sli

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