All Chapters of From Discarded Wife To Billionaire's Queen: Chapter 11 - Chapter 13

The scent of lavender and cold steel filled Isla Merrick’s new studio.Morning light filtered through floor-to-ceiling windows, bathing bolts of fabric in golden hues and brushing across sketches pinned along the wall like battle strategies. The quiet hum of a playlist played low in the background, a rhythm she barely registered. Her fingers moved with instinct now—elegant, precise, relentless.It was barely past dawn, but she was already at work—a tablet in one hand, coffee in the other. Her gaze darted between the illuminated screen and the mannequin in front of her, dressed in half-draped silk like a statue waiting to come alive.Around her, the studio pulsed with possibility.Rolls of rich fabric lay unspooled like banners before war. Needles glinted in their cases. Thread spools gleamed like trophies. This wasn’t just preparation.It was her reclamation.Her fashion house—ASHLINE—was on the edge of something seismic. In less than a week, it would debut its first private collectio

The morning after the Queen’s warning, Isla Merrick arrived at ASHLINE headquarters thirty minutes earlier than usual. The sky still wore the faint violet of dawn, and the city outside was only beginning to stir. But inside her studio, the silence was already loaded with tension. She walked slowly through the workspace, her heels echoing with crisp precision across the polished floor. Twenty designs lined the far wall—her entire private collection, ready to be revealed at the gala in just days. The fabrics shimmered in soft light. They looked perfect. But Isla had learned that perfection could be the most beautiful disguise of all. Her gaze drifted to the crimson gown in the center of the collection—her personal favorite. It had taken twenty-one revisions to get it right. It was structured to evoke power, sensuality, and control all in one cut. Now she looked at it like it might vanish before her eyes. “Everything okay?” Lydia asked, entering with her usual iced coffee and a tabl