7. Natalie

7

NATALIE

S erenity is the rasp of tailor’s chalk dragging over wool, the clean, crisp incisions of sharpened scissors slicing through silk as if it’s water.

I stand at the edge of the high table in our light-filled attic studio, white-knuckling the edge and watching with a mixture of nerves and gratification as Evan, our pattern cutter, cuts expertly around the engineered panels printed on sumptuous duchesse satin.

The silk mill has done an incredible job with the print. It’s so flawless it’s as if an artist has taken an actual paintbrush to the fabric, capturing the prettiest daubs of wisteria in all its purple-hued glory, from palest lavender to richest periwinkle.

In actual fact, the flowers were painted digitally and then reworked into shaped panels that exactly fit the pattern of this evening dress, meaning that when the dress is assembled, the wisteria will fall just so, its blooms cascading in the optimum way to complement every pleat. Every dart.

‘Nat,’ Evan says through gritted teeth, his eyes glued to the fabric .

‘Yep.’

‘Kindly bugger off. You’re creeping me out.’

‘No can do. You know this is my therapy.’ I gaze at what will be the front panel for the skirt. It’s simply sublime. It’ll look incredible juxtaposed with the chunky gold hardware that’s one of the features of this collection. Incongruous, but incredible.

I run my fingertips reverently over an unprinted section of the fabric. Duchesse satin is one of my absolute favourites to work with, not only because of its lustre, which hits that exact sweet spot between matte and shine, but because of its weight. It drapes like nothing else. I love that we’re using it outside of bridal wear. My brand may bear the name Gossamer , but I value gravitas in my fabrics just as much, even if the majority of our collection runs towards the diaphanous.

Evan sighs. He’s a couple of years older than me, a great, hulking, fair-haired guy who cuts like an angel. The vision for Gossamer may be all mine, but Evan brings it to life. I have a combined business and fashion degree. I draw, and I can sew, but I certainly can’t cut at the level the brand requires.

For this particular gown, he draped and draped on the mannequin until we’d got every detail right before making up a toile of it in a cheaper polyester satin that mimicked the weight of the duchesse. Only then did Carrie, our print designer and a digital wizard, transfer the dimensions of Evan’s paper patterns into her CAD programme and play with the layout of the print on each pattern piece until her 3D mockup resembled the vision in my head.

No matter how laborious this career, I’ll never, ever tire of that astonishing jolt of creative satisfaction that comes from having a dream made real. Of obsessing over the ephemeral perfection of an idea in my head and being fortunate enough to have a team of talented professionals who can draw it from my mind’s eye and conjure a flesh-and-blood garment before my eyes, even more beautiful than I could have imagined, as if they’re my fairy godmothers.

‘You look like shit,’ Evan says now. ‘You feeling all right?’

‘I’m fine.’

I’m far from fine, but I know from experience that his question pertains squarely to my blood glucose, which is stable despite the punishing vinyasa flow I put myself through first thing this morning. My sleep-deprived body complained the whole time, but I didn’t entertain its whining. It was worth it. The ritual grounded me, reminded me that I am in control. I get to choose how my day pans out.

Not my body.

And certainly not some dickhead whom karma forgot to call on.

Evan makes a clicking sound with his tongue. ‘Want to tell me why you’ve had a face like a slapped arse all morning?’

‘You wouldn’t believe me if I did.’ He wouldn’t, because I still can’t believe it. I mean, what are the chances? What are the fucking chances that my past and my present would collide in Alchemy, the one place apart from this studio that I view as a safe space, manifesting in the physical form of an obnoxiously tall, wholly immoral billionaire?

They should be so close to zero that I never need worry about it happening.

Should .

‘Try me.’ He finishes cutting around the skirt panel and lifts it reverently off the table, laying it over the back of a chair. When he turns back to me, he lifts a quizzical eyebrow. I’m waiting, it says.

I cross my arms. Fine. Let’s see what Evan thinks. Despite the nausea that rolls through my body every time I think of last night—the shock, the humiliation, the outrage—I’m dying to spill the beans. It’s too insane not to talk about. I need to process. Aloud.

‘Who’s my least favourite person on this planet?’ I ask him now.

He narrows his eyes in concentration as his scissors cut down the side of the skirt’s back panel. ‘Um. That guy who ghosted you last summer? Pencil Dick Darren?’

I laugh despite myself. ‘God, no. And we’ve blocked him out, remember? He doesn’t exist.’

‘Poor fucker.’ He’s quiet for a moment, his cutting immaculate, his forehead furrowed, and I know he’s processing as he works.

‘Omar Vega?’

‘Nope. But you’re getting a lot warmer.’ Omar Vega is an obnoxious but hugely talented Spanish designer operating in a similar part of the market to Gossamer. The differences between us are that the trajectory of his eponymous label has been stratospheric and that he’s backed by no other than Adam Wright. Evan and I may or may not take great delight in hate-watching his rising fortunes.

He stops, his head jerking up. ‘The bully.’

Evan’s never met my brother, but he knows my entire backstory with a level of detail only a friend who’s spent every weekday for years with me can.

I nod, and he grimaces. ‘What? Did he make the front pages again?’

It wouldn’t be the first time I’ve turned up for work triggered because Adam Wright’s smug face was staring at me from the front page of someone’s Financial Times on my morning commute.

‘Way worse.’

His eyes widen. ‘Go on…’

I glance around the room. Carrie has her headphones on, and our production manager, Gail, is out at one of our factories doing quality control on the dresses they’re currently working on.

‘He turned up at Alchemy last night. With Gen .’

Evan’s usually unflappable, but his face is an absolute picture. ‘You are shitting me.’ He lets the scissors clatter onto the table and straightens up.

‘Nope. Turns out he’s a friend of Anton’s.’ That memory drags over me again like nails on a chalkboard, and I shiver.

‘Oh, babe.’ He stretches out his arms. ‘Do you need a hug?’

I shake my head furiously, biting my lip and blinking away the moisture threatening to form in my eyes, because if Evan bestows one of his excellent bear hugs on me, I’ll definitely cry.

‘Okay.’ He lowers his arms. ‘Tell me what went down.’

So I tell him about it all. The total horror of seeing Adam. My complete and utter meltdown. Gen being lovely. The curiosity I can’t help but have over what went down after Gen went off to have her “little chat” with him.

And, finally, my nerves now, because she sent me a text first thing this morning, asking if I’d come in an hour early this evening to meet with her and Adam so we could discuss “moving forward”. Her mention that I’d have to sign an NDA before I spoke to them. And her promise that she’d be with me the whole time. That she wouldn’t leave me alone with him.

Fuck fuck fuck .

I wonder if Maddy will be around for a chat later. She’s the social media manager at Alchemy and my friend. She’s also married to Zach, the club’s Finance Director. I’ve told her about Adam before, and she genuinely will not believe it when I fill her in on the latest.

‘Jesus Christ,’ Evan says when I’m done recapping. ‘I can’t believe it. Talk about a bad penny, turning up like that.’

‘Right? It seems ridiculously far-fetched, but I suppose these billionaires all hang out together.’

‘Yeah.’ He scoffs. ‘In the Big Dick club. Do you know why Gen wants to talk to you?’

‘No clue. Maybe she wants to make him apologise to me for all the devastation he’s caused my family? Or maybe he’s angling for an Alchemy membership and she won’t let him in without getting the go-ahead from me.’

Of all the scenarios spinning around in my head, that seems the most likely. Surely he was there last night to check the place out—as well as its female patrons. Yuck.

‘What would you say if that was the case?’

‘God, I don’t know.’ I rub my hand over my forehead. ‘It’s her club. I’m mortified that I’m causing a fuss. It was so embarrassing last night.’

‘You know Gen won’t see it that way,’ Evan says sagely, making quick work of the rest of the rear skirt panel. ‘She’ll have been absolutely horrified on your behalf. He gouged your brother’s eye out, basically. I have no doubt whose team she’s on.’

He’s right, of course. Everything about Gen’s reaction last night tells me she was heading off to give Mr Wright a giant bollocking after she put me in a prepaid black cab. The cab fare home to Seven Sisters was seventy pounds. Seventy pounds! I felt awful about it, but Gen insisted. She really is so lovely .

‘Doesn’t make me any less terrified for this evening,’ I mutter. ‘But that’s six hours away. I have no intention of spending any more time obsessing over it now.’

I can’t. I have fabric orders to put through and a particularly “relaxed” Italian mill to chase up for missing their delivery deadline. I need to price up next season’s collection, which is by far my least favourite part of the job and a task I’ve been putting off and off, and I have a call this afternoon with the woman who does all our social media graphics to discuss the aesthetic for Instagram for the coming weeks.

It’s so much. Too much, really. Too many hats. So many balls in the air that if I stop to think about it, the terror hits me like a wall of freezing water.

But, given the epic size of the horrors that await me this evening, right now it feels like a blessing.