Chapter 12
CASSANDRA
Morning finds me alone, a note on the pillow next to me.
Two lines in clean handwriting, the card stock smelling faintly of his cologne.
Breakfast at nine.
Wear the ribbon.
There’s a tiny check mark beside the last sentence, as if he’s grading my obedience.
I touch the silk at my wrist, feeling ridiculous for how cherished it makes me feel.
At the foot of the bed sits a box wrapped in heavy matte paper and a satin ribbon. The tissue whispers when I lift it, revealing a beautiful card with my name.
I slide the tissue aside and catch a flash of Christmas, loud and unapologetic. I smile before I can stop myself, thinking, Is this what the month will be like? Notes on pillows, boxes at my feet, amazing sex?
Then I lift the dress out, smile, and say, “You have got to be kidding me.”
Holiday red and deep evergreen, sequins like sugared berries, lace that looks imported from a fantasy with an age restriction. The cut is ambitious. The neckline is a plunge that would make a priest cross himself.
I hold it up to my body and laugh.
“He’s insane,” I tell the quiet room. “I’m supposed to wear this with my figure?” Sequins wink at me as if to say, Yes, sweetheart, and we’re going to make a scene.
The red pulls the warmth out of my skin while the green makes my dark hair appear auburn. The problem is the fit was clearly made for a tiny figure that survives on air and compliments.
I am not a tiny figure. I am hips and thighs with a bust that likes to be seen and a backside that refuses to apologize. If he wants the room to stop breathing when I walk in, we can do that, but we’ll do it on my terms and with seams that don’t try to kill me.
I ring for Mrs. Koval. She appears after a few moments, posture perfect, eyes taking everything in.
“May I have a sewing kit?” I ask, holding the dress up. “I promise not to butcher anything priceless.”
Her gaze flicks from the dress to me and back, calculating, then she nods once. “Of course.”
She vanishes, then returns with a lacquered box that opens to reveal neat rows of thread, needles, scissors sharp enough to cut glass, and pins corralled like soldiers. She also sets down a tailor’s measuring tape and a small stack of muslin.
“For modesty panels,” she says, as if she can read my mind.
“You’re a saint,” I tell her, and I mean it.
When she leaves, I spread the dress on the bed and start with the tape. Numbers don’t lie. Bust, waist, hip, the distance from shoulder to the place where the plunge becomes dangerous. I mark the illusion mesh with chalk where a whisper of reinforcement will turn indecent into sexy on purpose.
The waist needs a breath—just a quarter inch—so I open the side seam and set my pins like little guardrails.
The slit needs to be dramatic, so I plan a modesty inset of matching lace that will still flash skin but stop at “tasteful scandal.”
I thread the needle and knot it with fingers that remember altered school dance dresses and senior-year projects.
My hands settle into the rhythm I live for, the one I’ve trained for—stitch, breathe, pin, check, consider, restitch. I hum under my breath unintentionally.
I look down at the dress, newly obedient under my needles, and feel a little rush of victory.
If I’m going to wear this, if I’m going to walk into his Christmas party looking like a dream, I’m going to do it in a dress that worships my body instead of insulting it. I anchor the final pin on the new modesty panel and lift the needle again, ready to make this scandal fit me perfectly.