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Chapter 15: Establishing Boundaries
publish date:
2026-08-29 20:03:23
Latest chapter
My Statue Husband Chapter 63: Advancing the finals
Vivian povThe harsh glare of the stage lights felt less like illumination and more like an interrogation. I stood on the polished mahogany floor of the Vanguard Auditorium, my knees locked to keep my legs from shaking. Seventy-two hours. That was how long I had been awake, surviving on stale black coffee, pure adrenaline, and a desperation so thick it tasted like copper in the back of my throat.Out of the hundreds of designers who had entered the qualifier, only five of us remained on this stage. And in exactly three minutes, only two of us would be moving on to the Grand Expo.I pressed my fingernails into the fleshy part of my palm, welcoming the sharp sting. It grounded me. It kept my eyes from darting toward the woman standing exactly three feet to my right.Zara Sterling.Even at the end of a grueling, multi-day design sprint that had left the rest of us looking like hollowed-out ghosts, Zara looked like she had just stepped out of an editorial spread. Her white silk blazer did
My Statue Husband Chapter 62: Breathtaking Runway
Vivian povThe backstage area of the Grand Palais smelled of expensive hairspray, scorched silk from steam irons, and the coppery, metallic edge of pure panic.At twenty-four, I had learned that high fashion wasn’t built on glamour. It was built on adrenaline and blistered fingers."Vivian, two minutes!"My assistant, Clara, was practically trembling as she held open the heavy velvet curtain that separated our chaotic backstage world from the blinding light of the main runway. Beyond that curtain sat five hundred of the most ruthless eyes in the fashion industry—critics who could destroy a decade of work with a single sentence, investors who held my family’s crumbling design house by a thread, and my father, who had made it crystal clear that if tonight failed, the Rousseau name was finished."Where is Michelle?" I demanded, my voice tight as I made a final adjustment to the seams of my showstopper piece."She’s—she’s on her mark, Vivian. But are you sure about the lighting adjustment
My Statue Husband Chapter 61: The Magic Tapestry
Vivian povThe backstage of the Grand Palais smelled of burnt hairspray, ozone, and impending ruin.Around me, models floated past like tall, elegant ghosts, wrapped in silk and organza, their steps practiced and hollow. Down the long, fluorescent-lit hallway, the muffled roar of the crowd sounded like a hungry ocean waiting to be fed. In less than two hours, the Paris Fashion Week showcase would begin. This was supposed to be the coronation of my career—the culmination of seven sleepless years, ruined relationships, and cold cups of coffee at three in the morning.Instead, I was staring at a corpse.My fingers trembled as I reached out to touch the hem of the show's centerpiece gown. The dress—a custom gown woven from a rare, metallic silk blend meant to look like liquid starlight under the runway lamps—was disintegrating.There was no other word for it. The fibers, once tight and shimmering, were fraying before my eyes. Small, fine cobwebs of silver thread hung limply from the waist
My Statue Husband Chapter 60: Zara’s Bribe
Vivian povThe scent of scorched lavender and scorched silk was the first thing that warned me something was wrong.In high fashion, fabric didn’t just carry a color—it carried a soul. The Charmeuse silk I had sourced from the Lyon mills for the Final Showcase of the Apex Design Competition was supposed to feel like liquid glass, heavy enough to drape like water, light enough to breathe with a woman’s pulse.What lay spread across my cutting table did neither.I reached out, my fingers trembling slightly as I pinched a swatch of the ivory bolt between my thumb and forefinger. I didn’t even need to burn a scrap thread to test it. The texture was static, artificially slick, emitting a subtle, acrid chemical odor that set off an immediate alarm in the back of my mind.It was a synthetic blend. A cheap, highly flammable polyester-nylon compound that looked identical under the harsh fluorescent lights of the contestant prep hall, but would melt under the heat of a runway spotlight—or worse
My Statue Husband Chapter 59: Inspiration from Stone
Vivian povThe metallic tang of ozone hung thick in the air, biting at the back of my throat as the shattered glass from the water pitchers glinted on the studio floor. Nobody dared to move. The silence across the cavernous room was heavy, almost suffocating, punctuated only by the erratic, dying buzz of the overhead lights.My fingers remained frozen over the cutting table, pressed against the warm, thrumming metal of the copper chest-piece. The single drop of my blood had already vanished into the tarnished surface, and where red had met dark metal, tiny, spider-web fractures were creeping across the metal.Across the aisle, Stan stood motionless beside the judges' dais.For the first time since I’d known him, his unyielding composure had shattered. The deep golden light in his eyes flickered, darkened by a raw, visceral fear that made my stomach drop into a hollow pit. He hadn't come here to ruin my chances. He hadn't stepped onto this stage to humiliate me or treat me like a thief
My Statue Husband Chapter 58: The Semi-Final Challenge
Vivian povThe fluorescent lights of the studio hummed with a low, grating vibration that seemed to settle right behind my teeth. On the cutting table before me lay six yards of midnight-blue raw silk, smooth as liquid shadow, beside a tangle of weathered metallic thread—the few scraps of my grandmother’s estate I had managed to drag across borders and through years of desperate starting over.TIMELESS HERITAGEThe theme was etched onto a glass display board at the front of the hall, glowing in sharp, unforgiving white LED light. To the twenty-one other designers sweating through their linen shirts in the arena, it meant archives, antique lace, and clever reinterpretations of Victorian corsetry. To me, it felt like an invitation to dig up a grave.Around me, the frantic scraping of heavy steel shears against oak tables and the sharp clack-clack of tailor's chalk filled the cavernous room. Across the main aisle, Julian—the golden boy whose family owned half the silk mills in Lombardy—w
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