Chapter 12 – Tessa
Chapter Twelve
Tessa
This dress costs more than my car insurance, my therapy co-pay, and the late fees I still owe the library.
I shift under the fluorescent lights, which are clearly designed by sadists to expose every pore, and ingrown hair. I tug at the straps, trying to decide if they’re supposed to cut off circulation or if that’s just a fun little bonus feature.
My reflection stares back at me with that same wide-eyed panic I get when the barista asks if I want to try almond milk instead of oat. Like, no. Don’t push me. I’m already hanging by a thread, and apparently that thread is sewn into a $1,200 cocktail dress.
“Can I help you?”
The saleswoman’s voice cuts in from behind the curtain, smooth and overly polite.
I freeze. Because one: I wasn’t expecting company during my mental breakdown. And two: I can practically hear the judgment dripping from her perfectly glossed lips.
“Nope,” I say, too quickly. “I’m good.”
There’s a long pause. The kind that says she’s already written me off as the girl who’s going to sweat all over the merchandise and then put it back on the rack.
Finally, she adds, “Those dresses are usually pulled by appointment. We don’t want pieces mishandled before fittings.”
Mishandled. Like I’m a toddler with sticky fingers instead of a grown woman with a degree and a mountain of debt.
“I wasn’t—” I start, but she isn’t finished.
“If you’re more comfortable, we do have a clearance section in the back. Much more… accessible.”
Accessible. My throat tightens. Translation: You don’t belong here. You don’t belong in this dress.
My eyes flick to the mirror, and suddenly, all I see is the hoodie I shoved into my bag, the messy bun that’s collapsing, the girl who doesn’t know the first thing about designer names or luxury boutiques. I see someone trying too hard to wear a life that doesn’t fit.
I tug the zipper down, skin hot with humiliation, and retreat to the corner of the dressing room. The saleswoman has already moved on, probably calculating her commission on someone who doesn’t flinch when the numbers start with a comma.
I dig for my phone with clumsy fingers. The lump in my throat makes it hard to breathe, let alone speak, but I hit the number anyway.
He picks up on the second ring.
“Rowan.”
The sound of his name nearly cracks me open. “I can’t do this,” I whisper, pressing my forehead against the cool mirror. “They’re looking at me like I don’t belong here, like I should be pawing through clearance racks with my dog hair and student loans. Can I just… can I just go to Target instead?”
There’s a beat of silence. The kind where I know he’s already calculating, already plotting.
Then, flat and unbothered, “Fuck ‘em.”
I bark out a laugh that sounds way too close to a sob. “Oh, perfect. Life advice from Rowan King: just tell the crippling insecurity to fuck off. Why didn’t I think of that?”
“You’re dramatizing.”
“Am I?” My voice cracks, but I push through anyway. “Because the saleswoman basically spat on me. But sure, fuck her. Fixed.”
There’s silence, the kind where I know he’s not actually ignoring me; he’s deciding what to do about me.
“Where are you,” he says finally.
I close my eyes. “Rowan—”
“Where.”
I bite down on my lip because giving him the location feels like handing over the last scrap of control I have. “Elysian Boutique,” I whisper. “Off Fifth.”
“Stay put.” The line goes dead.
I lower the phone, hating the tremor in my hand. Hating that he’s probably already on his way. Hating that part of me wants him to be.
The saleswoman drifts back toward the dressing rooms with an armful of silk and sequins for someone else.
I tug the zipper down the rest of the way. The dress slips off my shoulders and drops onto the bench. I stand there, arms wrapped tight around myself, fighting the heat rising in my chest.
Five minutes pass. Ten. I’m about to shove everything into the bag and leave when the bell over the boutique door chimes. The low murmur of conversation stops. Even the saleswoman pauses mid-sentence.
“Where is she?” Rowan’s voice cuts across the space, dangerous in its certainty.
The saleswoman stammers something. “Sir, may I—”
“No,” Rowan says, moving past her without slowing. “Where?”
A moment later, the curtain pulls back. He’s there, suit perfect, eyes locked on mine.
I fold my arms tighter and lift my chin. “You didn’t have to come,” I say. The words sound small.
He looks past me to the dress crumpled on the bench, then at the saleswoman hovering nearby. “Bag it,” he says. His tone leaves no room for argument. “And bring her the rest of the collection in her size.”
The saleswoman blinks. “Sir, those pieces are—”
“Bag it,” Rowan repeats, gaze steady on mine. “Now.”
Heat climbs up my neck. Humiliation. Relief. Anger. All of it mixed together. He didn’t just come—he took control the second he walked in.
And I hate how much I need that right now.
The saleswoman disappears, heels clicking against the marble, and when she returns, her arms are stacked with silk, satin, and fabric. She won’t look me in the eye. She hangs the dresses on the hook and leaves without a word.
Rowan doesn’t move. He’s leaning against the wall outside the fitting room, hands in his pockets, gaze fixed on me.
“You’re staying?” I ask, narrowing my eyes.
“Yes.”
“You can’t just—”
“I can.” His reply is clipped, final.
He doesn’t say anything else. He just steps aside, one palm sweeping toward the rack of dresses.
So, I do the only thing I can.
I pick the slinkiest, most impractical cocktail dress hanging there.
If I’m going to humiliate myself, I may as well do it in silk.
The dress is champagne-colored and strappy, the fabric clinging in a way that shows everything, and the slit is cut so high I have to steady myself before stepping fully into it.
The back dips low, and I realize I should have brought a different bra, one that doesn’t fight with the design.
I don’t bother with the zipper. I just hold the dress against me and stare at the mirror, taking in the way it hangs and the way I feel in it.
The sight drags me backward. I’m twenty again, standing in a borrowed dress and wondering if Rowan ever saw me as anything more than a challenge he wanted to break.
I remember a night—months before I transferred out of Havemeyer—when I went to one of his dinners.
I wore red, not because I thought it was flattering, but because I wanted to see if he would lose that control he guarded so carefully.
He didn’t speak to me that night. Not once.
But when I left, he followed me. He caught me in a stairwell and kissed me.
I look at myself now—older, harder around the edges, but still the girl who wants to be seen and wanted in a way that means something.
I open the dressing room curtain, my pulse unsteady, and find him exactly where I left him.
Rowan is stretched out on the velvet bench, his phone in his hand, one leg crossed over the other.
He looks up when I step out, and there’s no blink, no smirk, no easy reaction. Just silence. Just him watching.
His eyes drop slowly, taking in every part of me, from my shoulders to my hips, down the half-zipped back reflecting in the mirror and over the slit that bares most of my thigh. His attention lingers, unhurried, and then something in his expression changes.
A small movement crosses his face, the faintest tightening of his jaw, but it’s enough.
He stands, sets the phone down on the bench, and begins to walk toward me.
Each step is unhurried, his focus fixed entirely on me.
My chest rises and falls too fast, my heartbeat loud in my own ears as I watch him close the distance.
“Turn.” It isn’t a question.
I turn, my back now to him, the dress still unzipped, my fingers curling at my sides to keep them steady.
I don’t breathe as his hand reaches up, hovering for a second before taking the zipper.
He pulls it slowly, closing the fabric inch by inch, and his fingers brush my spine as he works.
A shiver runs through me before I can stop it.
“You chose this on purpose,” he murmurs.
“I figured if I was going to be judged, it might as well be memorable,” I say, my voice lighter than what I’m feeling.
“Mission accomplished.” His voice is controlled in the way he gets when he’s holding something back.
I glance at him in the mirror and regret it immediately. His eyes are locked on me, steady and intent, nothing polite or distant in the way he’s looking.
His gaze doesn’t shift from mine in the mirror as he pulls the zipper the rest of the way up in one smooth motion.
He isn’t touching me. He’s choosing not to. And that choice tells me exactly where his head is.
I swallow hard. “You’re going to short-circuit the sales staff if you keep looking at me like that.”
“They deserve it.”
“For what?” I ask quietly.
He holds my gaze in the mirror. “For not recognizing what’s in front of them.”
My breath catches. I turn away first, breaking the contact, because if I don’t, I’m not sure what I’ll say next.
I slip into the dressing room and close the curtain to steady my breathing. The dress clings as I peel it off, the fabric sliding over my skin. My face is hot. I remind myself that this is just a store, just clothes, just a weekend, even as my body disagrees.
I reach for the next dress on the rack. It’s navy, more structured, more coverage. I pull it on, zip it all the way without needing him, and stare at my reflection until my heartbeat slows enough to open the curtain.
He’s back on the bench, the phone in his hand, one leg crossed. He isn’t reading. He’s watching. His stillness is deliberate, his focus unbroken. It makes my stomach tighten.
“Well?” I ask, spinning once. “Do I look like someone who belongs at a high-end law retreat or someone pretending to be the assistant who got upgraded?”
His gaze moves over me slowly, tracing every line of the dress. “You look expensive.”
I lift a brow. “Is that a compliment?”
“It’s a strategy.”
I stare at him, my arms folding without thought.
He sets the phone down again. “Tessa, you’re not there to blend in. You’re there to stand out. That’s what they expect.”
I swallow. “And you?” The question escapes before I can stop it. “What do you expect?”
His jaw tightens, the first crack in the restraint he’s held since walking in. “I expect you to hold your ground.”
I let out a breath I didn’t know I was holding. It isn’t the answer I wanted, but it’s the one I needed. “Okay,” I whisper. “Then help me pick.”
He nods once, a small motion that shifts everything.
I start again, pulling dresses one after the other.
Silk, linen, structured pieces that make my shoulders square.
Long skirts that limit my steps. Something blush that leaves me feeling exposed in a way I don’t want to be.
I step out each time, adjusting a strap or smoothing a seam, and he sits there, silent, watching.
He crosses his legs. Clasps his hands. Taps his thumb against his knee. But I notice the way his throat works when I turn, the way he doesn’t blink when I catch his eye in the mirror and hold it just long enough to see if he’ll look away first. He doesn’t.
By the end, my breathing is uneven, too, not from the dresses but from the weight of being under his eyes, from the heat of being seen and wanted again, even though he refuses to say it.
I pull my leggings and hoodie back on, the only thing that feels safe. The dresses are already bagged and paid for before I can reach for my wallet.
When I turn, he’s at the door, holding it open. We step outside together, and the air hits my face. It feels sharp and too bright.
He slides his sunglasses on and looks at me. “Wear the navy for dinner,” he says. “The champagne for the cocktail hour. I’ll take care of the jewelry.”
I nod because I can’t trust myself to speak, because if I do, I’ll say something I shouldn’t. Like how he still looks at me as if I’m his. Or worse, how I’m not sure I ever stopped being his.