I let her call me trash, because she had no idea whose daughter I was.

They brought the Starlight Gown on a velvet stretcher, carried by four senior seamstresses with gloved hands.

The room held its breath.

I’d only ever seen it behind glass in the family museum. Thousands of hand-sewn crystals caught the light like captured starlight. The silk was the color of midnight, so deep and rich it looked liquid. The train stretched ten feet behind, embroidered with constellations that my grandmother had mapped herself.

Amber couldn’t look away.

Her eyes were wide, disbelieving, glittering with tears that had nothing to do with remorse and everything to do with envy. She was watching the life she thought she deserved get draped over my shoulders.

The head seamstress, Madame Lefebvre, who had barely nodded at me three days ago when I’d asked for extra thread, now curtsied.

“Miss Vaucluse,” she whispered, trembling slightly. “If you would come this way. We have the private dressing suite prepared.”

Miss Vaucluse.

Three days ago, she’d called me “the intern.”

The change in the room was instant, nauseating, and completely predictable.

Stylists who had laughed at Amber’s jokes now rushed toward me with brushes and powder puffs. Assistants who had let me carry their dry cleaning now stumbled over each other to open doors. Photographers who had never bothered to learn my name were already adjusting their lenses, salivating at the exclusive story of the decade.

And Amber?

She stood alone.

The crowd that had surrounded her five minutes ago had evaporated like mist in sunlight. Her entourage? Gone. Her favorite makeup artist? Suddenly very busy organizing lipsticks across the room. Even her agent had found an urgent phone call to take.

I paused before following Madame Lefebvre.

I turned back to look at her.

She met my gaze, and for a second I saw it—pure, unadulterated desperation. She mouthed the words “I’m sorry” over and over again, silent tears tracing paths through her heavy stage makeup.

I felt nothing.

Not forgiveness.

Not pity.

Just a cold, hollow weariness. She wasn’t sorry for what she’d done. She was sorry she’d gotten caught. She was sorry the nobody had turned out to be somebody.

I turned away without a word.

The dressing suite was a world away from the broom closet I’d been changing in for three months. Silk chaise lounges. Fresh orchids. A vanity lined with every product imaginable. A team of five women descended on me like I was royalty.

Which, in this world, I was.

As they fussed over my hair and makeup, my father stepped inside and closed the door. The room emptied instantly at his gesture.

He crossed to me and knelt—actually knelt—so he could look me in the eye.

“My baby girl,” he said, his voice thick. “I saw what she did. I saw every second of it. I wanted to kill her. I still do.”

He reached into his pocket and pulled out my crumpled sketchbook—the one I’d dropped when Amber attacked me. The pages were smudged, a little torn, but intact.

“These designs,” he said, touching the cover reverently. “They’re brilliant. Better than anything this house has produced in twenty years. And that… that animal tried to destroy them because she was afraid you’d outshine her.”

He took my hands in his. His were calloused from decades of sketching and cutting fabric.

“I should never have let you do this,” he said, shaking his head. “I should have protected you.”

I squeezed his hands back.

“No, Dad,” I said firmly. “You did the right thing. I needed to see it. I needed to know who these people really are when they think there are no consequences.”

I looked at my reflection in the mirror. The girl staring back wasn’t the timid intern anymore. Her hair was swept up. Diamonds glittered at her throat. But her eyes—her eyes were the same. Just older now. Harder.

“Amber isn’t the problem,” I said quietly. “She’s just the symptom. This whole house is rotten with people who only respect power. They don’t respect talent. They don’t respect kindness. They don’t respect anything they can’t step on.”

My father stood, his jaw set.

“Then we burn it down,” he said simply. “And build it back better. Starting tonight.”

There was a soft knock at the door.

Madame Lefebvre peeked in. “Miss Vaucluse? It’s time. The presentation is about to begin.”

I stood. The Starlight Gown settled around me like armor. It was heavier than I expected, the weight of generations of Vaucluse women pressing against my skin.

My father offered me his arm.

“Ready?” he asked.

I took a deep breath.

“Ready.”

The walk to the stage was the longest of my life.

I could hear the crowd beyond the curtain—hundreds of voices, glasses clinking, music swelling. And I knew they were all waiting for Amber. The golden girl. The safe choice. The woman they thought they’d come to see.

The announcer’s voice boomed through the speakers.

“And now, the moment you’ve all been waiting for… the Centennial Collection finale, presented by our very own Amber Torres!”

The curtain began to rise.

I stepped out from the wings onto the runway.

The music cut out.

A collective gasp ripped through the entire ballroom.

Camera flashes went supernova.

I walked forward slowly, the ten-foot train of the Starlight Gown rippling behind me like a river of stars. I didn’t look down. I didn’t hesitate. I held my head high and let every single person in that room drink me in.

I saw them.

The investors with their mouths hanging open.

The socialites clutching their pearls.

The editors scribbling furiously in notebooks, already writing tomorrow’s headlines.

And there, in the front row, standing in the wings where she’d been shoved unceremoniously, was Amber.

Her face was a mask of pure devastation.

I stopped at the end of the runway.

The silence stretched.

And then my father stepped out beside me, microphone in hand.

“Ladies and gentlemen,” he said, his voice carrying to every corner of the room. “You have just witnessed the future of Maison Vaucluse.”

He gestured to me.

“May I present my daughter… and the new Creative Director of this house… Elara Vaucluse.”