Semua Bab He Chose my Cousin, so I Chose Revenge: Bab 121 - Bab 130

The morning after the white silk line sold out, the boutique felt different. Not loud different, not like a room full of clapping hands or flashing lights. It was the sort of different that slips into a space without announcement, the kind you feel in your shoulders before you notice it anywhere else. A kind of unclenching.The air seemed warmer, though the heat hadn’t been turned up. It smelled faintly of brewed coffee drifting from the back and of silk that had been unpacked from its storage just days before. The light coming through the front windows was soft and a little hazy, the kind of light that made the bolts of fabric look as if they were breathing.There were no signs on the door telling the world what had happened yesterday. No photos taped to the glass, no sales numbers scribbled on a board. The white silk line had sold out in under two hours, but here inside, the energy was quiet and deliberate. Simone was at the central table, folding tissue paper around orders with the

The boutique had emptied hours ago, but I could still feel the day inside the walls. The mannequins stood quietly by the windows, dressed in what remained of the white silk pieces, but most of the racks were bare. The air still held traces of cinnamon from the cookies Simone had brought in for the staff, mixed with the sharper scent of packing tape from the shipping station we had set up in the back.The white silk line was gone. Not gone as in forgotten — gone as in claimed, in homes now, in closets, in garment bags headed for who knows where. In less than two hours, everything had sold. Lena had stood behind the counter with her laptop, eyes wide, refreshing the numbers like she didn’t believe them. Simone had moved between the front and the packing area, humming under her breath, the way she does when she’s both tired and happy. Even Claudia, who rarely let herself get too excited, had leaned in to show me her phone, a post from a major magazine editor wearing one of our silk blous

The week after the white silk line sold out, the boutique settled into its usual rhythm. Orders were still coming in steadily, but the loud rush had softened into a calmer flow, the kind that didn’t have us checking the numbers every few hours. I liked it better that way. The hum of the sewing machines, the soft scrape of fabric scissors on the cutting tables, the gentle sound of pages turning in the design books on the shelves. The air felt steady.Yet, steadiness in the space didn’t always mean the people inside it were steady too.It was a Wednesday morning when I first noticed it. Simone was at her workbench, shoulders slightly hunched, her hands moving slower than usual over a length of ivory linen. She wasn’t humming like she normally did when she worked. Normally, she kept up a quiet tune that matched the movement of her hands, but today there was only the small sound of her scissors and an occasional sigh she didn’t seem to notice herself making.Across the room, Claudia was m

The next morning began in the kind of quiet that doesn’t belong to a sleeping city but to one that has just begun to stretch. The street below was not yet filled with the impatient hum of traffic, only the occasional car passing and the soft rhythm of footsteps heading toward early shifts. The light through the kitchen window was pale and a little hesitant, as though it was not quite ready to declare itself daytime. I stood at the counter with a mug of coffee warming my hands, letting the stillness of it seep into me before the day began in earnest.The lunch with Simone and Claudia the day before had done more than I expected. The air in the boutique felt lighter afterward, as though unspoken things had finally been given room to breathe. We had not solved everything — no conversation could erase every layer of tiredness or stress — but we had made it easier to carry. I thought of Simone’s expression when she admitted how stretched thin she felt, and Claudia’s relief when she realize

The news did not come in the form of a headline or a glossy fashion write-up. It arrived in the small hours of the morning, when the boutique was still quiet and the light outside was grey with that hesitant winter sun. Claudia had been in early, checking fabrics and unpacking new stock from the back, when she paused at the counter with her phone in her hand. She was not scrolling for entertainment. Her brows were drawn, the way they get when she is reading something that does not sit well with her.I was in the workshop, going over an order that had come in overnight. A client from Paris wanted three custom silk jackets, each stitched with a pattern we had debuted only two months ago. It was not the kind of piece that could be rushed. The cuts had to be precise, the lines in the embroidery clean and deliberate. I was bent over the table, checking the measurements again, when Claudia called for me.“You should see this,” she said.Her voice had none of the casual lilt she uses when it