Chapter 6
The First Fight
The kiss changed everything. The world, once sharply divided into office and not-office, blurred into a continuous, thrilling landscape where Luca existed.
Their relationship became a secret masterpiece, curated with the same precision they applied to a photoshoot.
It lived in the margins: early mornings in his flat overlooking the Thames, his kitchen filled with the smell of coffee and the quiet rustle of the weekend papers; late nights in hers, takeaway containers on the floor, talking about everything but work.
It was perfect. Until it wasn't.
The problem was a feature on emerging British designers. Isla had championed a young, avant-garde designer from Glasgow, Rhiannon, whose work used recycled plastics in breathtakingly delicate ways. Luca was skeptical.
“It’s a gimmick, Isla. The ‘eco-warrior’ angle is played out. The construction is weak,” he declared in a Monday morning meeting, tossing the lookbook back onto the conference table.
Isla felt the critique like a physical blow. “It’s not a gimmick, it’s her philosophy. And the construction is innovative. It’s meant to be fragile, to comment on disposability.”
“Chroma isn’t an art school thesis. It’s a fashion magazine. We need to sell clothes, not concepts.” His tone was the one he used with junior vendors, dismissive and final.
“Since when is fashion not about concepts?” she shot back, her voice rising. The other editors around the table had gone very still. “Since when did we stop leading and start following?”
Luca’s eyes narrowed. “We lead by setting a commercial standard, not by indulging every half-baked idealist with a sewing machine.”
The word “indulging” hung in the air, poisonous and cruel. It reduced her professional opinion to a personal fancy, a whim he was tolerating.
“Right,” she said, her voice dangerously quiet. She stood up, gathering her notes. “I see.”
She didn’t look at him for the rest of the day.
He tried to catch her eye, sent a terse email about another project, but she ignored it all.
The thrill of their secret romance curdled into a sickening feeling.
In his office, he was her lover. In a meeting, she was just another employee whose ideas could be publicly dismantled.
That evening, he was waiting for her outside her building, leaning against the brick wall, hands in his pockets. The spring evening was soft, a stark contrast to the tension between them.
“Isla.”
She tried to walk past him. “I’m not in the mood, Luca.”
He fell into step beside her. “That was work. You can’t separate the two?”
She whirled on him. “Can you? Because from where I was sitting, it felt very personal. ‘Indulging’? You made me sound like a child.”
“I was making a business decision!”
“You were being a condescending bastard! My idea had merit and you shredded it because it didn’t fit your narrow view of what Chroma should be. You didn’t even try to see it.”
“My narrow view is what keeps this magazine at the top!” he retorted, his own temper fraying.
“And my ideas are what will keep it there in the future! Or did you forget that the ‘love letter to architecture’ concept you loved so much was mine?”
They stood on the pavement, breathing heavily, two rivals in a silent London square. The romantic partner she knew was gone, replaced by the immovable Creative Director.
“I can’t do this,” Isla said, the fight draining out of her, leaving only a hollow ache. “I can’t have a relationship where I have to fight for my professional dignity in front of our colleagues. Where my boyfriend is also my… my general.”
The word from their rooftop truce landed like a brick. Luca flinched.
“So that’s it?” he asked, his voice low. “One fight and you’re done?”
“It’s not about the fight, Luca. It’s about the hierarchy. And in that room, I was at the bottom of it.” She turned and walked towards her door, her key already in her hand. “Don’t follow me.”
She didn’t look back. Upstairs, in the silence of her flat, the absence of him was a physical pain. The secret masterpiece of their relationship had its first, deep crack, and she had no idea if it could ever be repaired.