Chapter 3 - The Ghost in the Lining
My breath caught in my chest.
Claire.
Claire Bennett. My mother.
Julian Vance was the head designer for the Westbridge Opera House—and my mother’s closest friend and mentor before he moved his atelier to New York fifteen years ago.
This wasn't a random estate-sale dress.
This was my mother’s custom wedding reception gown—the legendary champagne silk dress she had designed alongside Julian, a dress that had disappeared from our attic six months after Mom died.
Alexis hadn't bought this dress at a thrift store. She had taken it from our storage, covered it in cheap, ugly mustard brocade, sewn crooked layers of stiff tulle over the skirt to ruin its silhouette, and presented it to me as a insult.
She had attempted to humiliate me using my own mother’s priceless heirloom.
Tears spilled over my eyelashes, falling onto the cool champagne silk. But they weren't tears of sadness. For the first time in three years, the fog of grief inside me cleared, replaced by a white-hot, furious clarity.
Alexis thought I was an ungrateful child who didn't know anything about fashion. She thought I would wear the ugly outer shell, hang my head in shame, and stay in Brianna's shadow forever.
May you like
She had no idea who my mother was. And she had no idea what my mother had taught me.
I stood up, locked my bedroom door, and turned on my sewing machine.
