The sun had already spilled across the curtains when Juliette stirred, her eyes still heavy from a night that hadn't felt like rest.
The room was too still, too perfect. Every corner of it gleamed, untouched like a photograph that didn't belong to her.
She sat up slowly, the silk sheets slipping down her bare shoulders. Her reflection in the mirror caught her attention hair messy, eyes shadowed, lips pale. For a moment, she just stared.
It was strange, the way this house could make her feel both seen and invisible.
On the nightstand lay the black card Cassian had given her elegant, weighty, with her name engraved in silver letters. No limit. No boundaries. Just another reminder that she was now part of a life that came with too much of everything and too little of herself.
Her fingers brushed the card's edge. The memory came back easily his voice, smooth and distant:
"If you're going to be my wife, Juliette, you can't keep showing up in the world looking like you don't belong to it."
He hadn't said it unkindly.
That was the problem.
He'd said it like a statement of fact the same way one might describe the weather or the color of marble floors.
And yet, he had stood beside her in that boutique all six-foot-something of him, commanding and quiet while she tried on dresses she could never have afforded in her old life.
He had personally chosen a few.
Not because he cared, she reminded herself. Because he wanted her to look the part.
Still, the way his gaze had lingered not quite cold, not quite curious had done something dangerous to her.
She pushed the thought away, rose from the bed, and crossed to the wardrobe.
Today, she chose something simple a cream satin blouse tucked into high-waisted charcoal trousers, paired with small gold hoops. Nothing too loud. Nothing that screamed for attention.
Her perfume was soft vanilla and gardenia, barely there.
Her hair she tied into a low knot.
From the jewelry box, she picked a thin diamond bracelet one of the many things Cassian had told her to "wear often." She slipped it on anyway, even though it felt like a shackle.
When she finally looked at herself again, she looked polished. Controlled. Someone who could survive the day.
But her chest still ached with the echo of his last words from two nights ago:
"You're free to work, Juliette. But you come home every night. Or you quit."
And now, as she stared at the untouched breakfast Maya had left on the table, she wondered which choice was safer quitting or pretending
At the Boutique
The boutique smelled of roses and starch and pressure.
Juliette arrived late. Again.
The receptionist looked up from the counter, her expression hesitant. "Good morning, Juliette. Mrs. Ajayi has been asking for you since ten."
Juliette's pulse quickened. "Is she in?"
"She's waiting."
Every step toward that office felt heavier than the one before.
Mrs. Ajayi was at her desk, glasses perched low on her nose, flipping through a file. She didn't look up when Juliette entered.
"You're late again," she said.
"I'm sorry, ma," Juliette murmured. "
"Don't," Mrs. Ajayi interrupted, lifting her gaze. "You've been distracted for weeks. You were one of my best designers, Juliette. I don't know what's happening to you, but you can't keep working like this."
Juliette swallowed hard. "I'll do better. I promise."
"I hope so," Mrs. Ajayi said quietly. "Because if not, I'll have to make it official."
The words stung more than they should have.
When she returned to her sewing station, Zina leaned close. "You okay? She looks ready to explode today."
Juliette forced a faint smile. "I'll survive."
Her hands found the fabric she'd left half-pinned the day before emerald velvet, soft beneath her fingers. But her concentration slipped every few minutes.
Cassian's face. His words. The memory of that quiet, expensive store. The way the salesgirl had smiled at him like she already knew who he was and who Juliette wasn't.
Her world was splitting at the seams, and she was holding the needle.
By afternoon, the mistake was undeniable a sleeve cut unevenly, the gown ruined.
Mrs. Ajayi's tone had gone from controlled to cold.
"You'll fix it," she said. "Tonight. Before you go."
"Yes, ma," Juliette whispered.
When everyone left, she stayed. The boutique grew quiet around her just the hum of the fluorescent lights, the hiss of the iron, the sound of thread pulling through fabric.
Her fingers hurt. Her eyes burned. But she finished.
When she was done, a brown envelope sat on the table beside her a query letter, formal and final.
She didn't open it. She didn't need to.
By the time she got home, it was dark.
Maya met her at the door, concern soft in her eyes. "You didn't eat all day, ma'am. Should I bring something?"
Juliette shook her head. "Not tonight."
She dropped her bag on the couch and collapsed beside it. The smell of his cologne lingered faintly in the air he must have been home earlier.
Her gaze drifted to the black card again, sitting innocently on the table.
No limit, it promised.
And yet, she'd never felt more restricted in her life.
Her phone rang.
"Mama," she said softly, forcing a smile she didn't feel.
"Ah, my daughter. You didn't call me back yesterday. How are you?"
"I'm okay, Mama."
"You sound tired. You're not skipping meals again, are you?"
Juliette closed her eyes. "No, Mama."
There was a pause, then her mother's sigh. "Juliette… about the rent. The landlord came again today.
Her throat tightened. "I'll send something tomorrow."
"Are you sure? I don't want you stressing yourself. You're still working at that boutique, right?"
"Yes." The lie was soft. "I'm still there."
After the call, she sat there for a long time, the query letter still unopened beside her.
The house was silent, the kind of silence that only wealth could buy cold and echoing.
Juliette reached for her sketchbook, flipped to a blank page, and began to draw lines that didn't make sense threads, faces, ghosts of fabric she could never touch again.
And in the middle of it, her own reflection stared back from the glass pale, tired, halfway between two worlds that didn't want her whole.
"Sometimes, it wasn't the lies that destroyed you.
It was the quiet truth that you no longer knew where you belonged."