CHAPTER 3: Fit For His World

Adeline's POV

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City noise fades the second I step off the sidewalk, the address Matteo texted leading to a door tucked between a gallery and a private bank. There's no sign, no window display, just gleaming steel and a small intercom button that costs more than my laptop did.

I stop in front of the door with my thumb hovering over the buzzer. Five minutes pass. Five whole minutes. I could've walked away at least twenty times by now.

A woman in head-to-toe Chanel glides past without glancing at me, which is the most New York interaction I've had all week, her heels clicking against the pavement with that assurance of people who have nothing to prove.

I glance down at my jeans, the rip in the knee that used to feel vintage now feeling cheap. My sweater has a loose thread at the hem. I tug it and the thread gets longer and longer. A frustrated sigh slips out, I basically rip off the thread.

The steel door throws my reflection back at me. Ginger hair that lost the argument with my hairbrush this morning. Hazel eyes that scream "I make questionable decisions." And skin pale enough to advertise vitamin D supplements.

Albert's voice surfaces. ‘Try not to embarrass yourself.’

That's what I've been doing for years, apparently. What can I say, I'm a walking magnet.

Last night I grabbed my laptop and finally put my celebrity-stalking skills to good use. I got back a profile of Albert Rossi, CEO of Rossi International. Pages of results piling long, covering Forbes profiles, Financial Times coverage, acquisitions that reshaped entire industries overnight, a man who moved through boardrooms the way weather moves through cities. You don't just see it coming and you only understand it after.

Feared. That was the word one article used. Not the respected CEO everyone admires. 

One photo caught me longer than the rest, a charity gala three years ago, him standing at the edge of the frame, not posing but watching, the kind of man a room adjusts itself around without realizing it's happening.

I stared at that photo longer than I should have.

Then I went back to the warning text. *Walk away from Albert Rossi before he destroys you. This is your only warning.* I ran the number twice. Untraceable, no name attached. Someone who knew enough to warn me, someone who didn't want to be found.

I didn't sleep much after that.

Before I can back out, the door opens. My fingers never graze the buzzer.

A woman stands there, tall, dressed head to toe in black, hair pulled back so tightly I feel sorry for her scalp. Her eyes sweep over me and I feel every flaw surface under that gaze.

"Mon dieu." She circles me, the way you examine something broken before deciding if it's worth fixing. "We have work to do."

Yes, a lot of work.

"I'm Adeline Carter. I have an appointment."

"Oui. I know who you are." She gestures inside. "I am Colette. Come."

The boutique is all cream silk and blinding light, dresses hanging on the walls, not a single price tag visible, because if you have to ask, you definitely cannot afford them.

My sneakers squeak against the marble floor and I try to lessen it but the soles don't listen.

Someone materializes at my elbow with champagne on a silver tray. I take it because I don't know what else to do with my hands. No way I'm drinking the exquisite liquid given my throat is plastered shut.

"We begin with measurements." Colette snaps her fingers and an assistant appears with a tape measure. "Then we discuss what Mr. Rossi requires."

The way she says *requires* raises the hair on my arms.

"He didn't really explain," I say.

"He never does." She gestures toward a platform surrounded by mirrors. "Remove your clothes. Everything except undergarments."

I stutter. "What?"

"I cannot work with fabric covering fabric." She tilts her head. "You are shy?"

"I'm human."

Her lips twitch. "The changing room is there. Five minutes."

The changing room is bigger than my bathroom at home, plush carpet, soft lighting reflecting on a velvet bench. I stand at the full-length mirror, watching my reflection.

I signed a contract to escort a billionaire I barely know, a man the internet barely has information about, a man someone felt the need to warn me about.

My hands shake as I pull off my sweater. My jeans pool at my feet, the broken zipper still fixed with a safety pin. My bra is clean but has lived longer than most teens, and I got it in Target, five for twenty dollars.

I stare at myself, pale skin, freckles across my shoulders, a body that works fine for my life but probably reads as a problem in here.

I step out without giving myself the chance to change my mind.

Colette points to the platform without a word.

Five mirrors return my reflection from every angle, five versions of the same girl who got a warning text and showed up anyway.

The assistants work fast, bust, waist, hips, inseam. Colette watches, calling numbers in French.

"The waist is fine." She moves around me. "The shoulders need work. Does she always slouch?"

I pull my spine straight. "I'm standing right here."

"Oui. And you are slouching." Her fingers press between my shoulder blades, against the knot I've always carried. "You carry tension like a stone."

She isn't wrong. My shoulders have been up around my ears since last night.

They discuss my proportions in French, my college French rusted over, but what I catch makes heat crawl up my face. Too pale. The hair is lovely but needs proper care. The posture, mon dieu. And those hands.

I look down at my hands, short nails because I bite them when I'm anxious, cuticles I never bother with, knuckles dry from the weather and cheap soap.

‘Walk away from Albert Rossi before he destroys you.’

I curl my fingers in.

"The body is strong," Colette announces. "We enhance. We do not reconstruct." She meets my eyes in the mirror. "You may dress."

When I return, fabric swatches cover a long table. She holds shades against my skin and discards without softening her conclusions.

"The auburn hair." She selects a midnight blue swatch. "Yes. This."

The color pulls colors out of my hazel eyes, green they don't usually show, gold flecks I tend to miss.

"Six events. Six dresses. All must tell the right story."

"What story?"

"That you belong at his side." She sets the swatches down and looks at me directly, really looks, for the first time. "Mr. Rossi has many women who want to be seen with him, beautiful, high class, women who know how to move in his world."

Ma’am, I don't need more lists added to my insecurities.

"Then why me? Since he could easily get those women…"

"Because they bore him." She cuts me off. "You do not. That is worth more than all their polish combined."

The words land wrong. A man like Albert Rossi gets bored fast. But the things that hold his attention don't tend to walk away from it intact.

We go through six dresses. Every one is art. Every one feels awkward on me.

"You are fighting them," Colette observes. "You wear them like armor."

"Because that's exactly what they feel like."

"You're afraid."

"Completely."

"Of what?"

"That I'll ruin this. That everyone in that room will know the second I walk in."

"They will know."

My stomach sinks.

Colette shrugs. "Good."

I blink.

"People who belong become invisible." She smooths the sleeve. "You won't.”

She pulls a midnight blue dress from the rack. I slip it on, the fabric moving over my skin without resistance. It has no embellishment, nor decoration, what you only recognize when you realize how effortless it looks. The neckline settles clean across my collarbones, the skirt falling below my knees with a subtle slit that suggests without displaying.

I face the mirror.

The woman looking back is me but not me. The dress pulls color into my hair and skin I didn't know was there. My posture reads like a choice, not survival. I square my shoulders without thinking, reaching toward a version of myself this dress seems to already believe exists.

Colette appears behind my reflection. "You have something they do not, authenticity. Do not lose it while you learn their games."

My throat pulls. "Can I really be myself and fit in?"

She is silent, then honest. "That is something you have to figure out."

I could definitely pay her to be my motivation to get through grad school, except I'm broke.

My screen lights up. My hands freeze, the same way it did last night, staring at that warning text in the dark.

Unknown number.

I let it ring once, twice. Pick up on the third with the phone pressed to my ear.

"Miss Carter."

It's Albert. That controlled, even tone from the contract signing. Doesn't bother to greet.

"Mr. Rossi."

"Colette tells me you're difficult."

I glance at Colette. She studies her nails with complete innocence.

"I prefer selective."

"Saturday. Six thirty. Don't be late."

"I wasn't plan..."

The line hangs.

Colette holds out the garment bag. "He called the moment you put on the dress."

I take it without a word.

I don't ask how he knew. I'm not sure I want the answer to how many eyes are on me.

I slip the phone back into my pocket.

Albert Rossi already knows more about me than I know about him.

Somewhere out there, someone thinks that's enough reason to run.