13. Lucille
— ? —
Lucille
Two weeks until my debut showcase, and I’m running on caffeine and desperation.
The studio has become a controlled chaos of fabric bolts and half-finished garments and mood boards covered in fabric swatches.
Ten pieces. Ten looks that need to be perfect, that need to announce Adler Design to the world as a label worth paying attention to.
Everything I’ve been building toward for months comes down to one night, one runway, one chance to prove that I’m more than Hugo Kensington’s estranged wife.
The gossip from the wine incident has mostly died down.
A few blog posts, some social media chatter, Ginny’s tearful Instagram story about “toxicity in the industry” that generated sympathy for approximately forty-eight hours before everyone moved on to the next scandal.
The “volatile wife” narrative exists, but it’s small, background noise in a city that churns through drama faster than I can track.
More importantly, Sandra placed an order. Six pieces for her Northern California boutiques, with an option for more if they sell well. It’s not life-changing money, but it’s real. It’s validation. It’s proof that I can do this.
Hugo still shows up every morning.
The lily appears at my door like clockwork, and twice a week he appears with it, never pushing, never demanding, just present. He brings coffee sometimes. Asks about my work. Offers help I consistently refuse because accepting it feels too much like admitting what I’m not ready to admit.
The divorce papers remain unsigned.
I’ve stopped asking my lawyer about them. I’ve stopped thinking about what it means that he won’t let go, won’t give up, won’t accept the ending I tried to give us. I don’t have the bandwidth for that question right now. Right now, I have ten pieces to finish and a showcase to survive.
Everything else can wait.
***
The crisis begins at 2 p.m. on a Tuesday.
My phone buzzes with a text from Elias, my male fitting model: Food poisoning. Can’t make it. So sorry.
I stare at the message, willing it to change. Elias was supposed to be here in two hours. The seamstress I’ve contracted to help finish the menswear pieces is coming at four, and she needs final measurements confirmed today, today, or the garments won’t be ready in time.
I call Elias. Voicemail.
I call my backup model, a guy named James who I’ve used for smaller projects. He answers on the third ring.
“Lucille! Hey, what’s up?”
“James, I need you. Today. Two hours from now.”
“Oh, man.” His voice goes apologetic. “I’m in San Francisco. A last-minute catalog shoot. I won’t be back until Friday.”
“Friday is too late. I need measurements confirmed today or…”
“I’m really sorry. I had no idea. Can you find someone else?”
Someone else. In two hours. With the exact measurements I need for three menswear pieces that form the backbone of my collection.
I hang up without answering and sink onto my studio couch, my head in my hands.
This is it. This is where everything falls apart. Two weeks of eighteen-hour days, months of planning and saving and hoping, all of it crumbling because one model ate bad sushi and another took a job in San Francisco.
I could postpone. I could push the showcase back, buy myself more time, explain to the boutique buyers and industry contacts that I need another few weeks.
But I can’t. The venue is booked. The invitations are sent. Sandra is flying down specifically to see the collection. If I postpone now, I look like an amateur. I look like someone who can’t handle the pressure.
I am someone who can’t handle the pressure.
I press my palms against my eyes and try to breathe through the panic building in my chest.
A knock at the door.
“Go away,” I call without lifting my head. “Whatever it is, I can’t deal with it right now.”
The door opens anyway.
“You look like you could use this.”
Hugo’s voice. And the smell of coffee, the good kind, from the place three blocks over that does the lavender latte I mentioned once, months ago, and apparently never forgot.
I look up. He’s standing in the doorway holding a to-go cup, the flower tucked into his jacket pocket like always, his expression shifting from warm to concerned as he registers my face.
“What happened?”
“Nothing. Everything.” I laugh, and it sounds unhinged. “My fitting model canceled. Food poisoning. My backup is in San Francisco. And my seamstress needs measurements confirmed today or three of my pieces won’t be finished in time for the showcase.”
Hugo sets the coffee on my desk and crosses the room to where I’m slumped on the couch.
“What measurements do you need?”
“Male. Chest, shoulders, inseam, waist.” I wave a hand. “But it doesn’t matter. I don’t have anyone who matches Elias’s build, and I designed the pieces specifically for…”
“What’s Elias’s build?”
“Six-one, forty chest, thirty-two waist, thirty-four inseam.” The numbers come automatically, drilled into my head from weeks of fittings. “But I can’t just grab someone off the street. The proportions need to be close or the whole silhouette is wrong.”
Hugo is quiet for a moment.
“I’m six-one,” he says. “Forty-two chest, but I’ve lost weight recently. Probably closer to forty now. Thirty-two waist. Thirty-four inseam.”
I stare at him.
“I’m the right build,” he says simply. “I’ll stand still. Use me.”
“Hugo…”
“Do you have another option?”
I don’t. He knows I don’t. And the terrible thing is, he’s right, his measurements are close enough that with minor adjustments, it could work. I’ve been altering his clothes for two years. I know his body better than I know my own.
The thought sends a flush of heat through me that I immediately suppress.
“This is a bad idea,” I say.
“Probably.” He shrugs off his jacket and sets it on the back of a chair. “But your showcase matters. And if I can help, I want to help.”
He’s already rolling up his sleeves, and I watch his forearms emerge, tanned, corded with muscle, familiar in a way that makes my chest ache. I’ve touched those arms a hundred times. I’ve felt them wrap around me in bed, brush past me in hallways, rest on my waist at industry events.
I’ve missed them.
The thought surfaces before I can stop it, and I shove it down hard.
“Fine,” I say, standing and grabbing my measuring tape from the worktable. “But this is strictly professional. You stand where I tell you. You don’t move unless I say so. You don’t…”
“I’ll be good.” His mouth quirks. “I promise.”
The way he says it makes my stomach flip.
Strictly professional. Right.
I start with the easy measurements.
Height, confirmed, six-one. Shoulder width, eighteen inches, same as Elias. I can work with this. I can absolutely work with this.
“Arms out,” I say, and he extends them obediently.
I wrap the tape around his chest, standing behind him to read the number. The fabric of his shirt is thin, expensive, and I can feel the warmth of his body radiating through it as I position the tape just below his armpits.
“Breathe normally,” I instruct.
“I’m trying.”
My fingers brush his ribs as I adjust the tape, and his breathing changes, a slight catch, a subtle tension that ripples through his back. I feel it against my knuckles, and my own breath stutters in response.
“Forty and a half,” I announce, stepping back quickly. “Close enough to forty. I can adjust.”
“Good.” His voice is rougher than it was a moment ago.
I move to his shoulders, standing behind him to measure the span from one edge to the other. This close, I can smell him, that familiar mix of cedar and warmth underneath, the scent I used to breathe in when I buried my face in his neck at night.
I lean in to check the tape placement, and my breath hits the back of his neck.
Goosebumps roll down his skin.
I see them appear, watch them spread from his collar down to where his shirt covers them, and I feel an answering shiver run through my own body.
“Hold still,” I say, and my voice comes out breathier than intended.
“I’m trying.” His hands have curled into fists at his sides. “You’re making it difficult.”
“I’m measuring you. There’s nothing difficult about it.”
“There’s everything difficult about it.”
I step back, putting distance between us, and scribble the number on my notepad. My handwriting is shakier than usual.
“Waist next.”
He turns to face me, and his eyes are darker than I’ve ever seen them, not angry, not sad, just intense. Focused. Like I’m the only thing in the room worth looking at.
I’ve wanted him to look at me like that for two years.
Now that he is, I’m lost.
“Arms up,” I manage.
He raises his arms, and I step close to wrap the tape around his waist. This means standing nearly chest to chest with him, my arms reaching around his body, my face inches from his.
His jaw is tight. A muscle ticks near his ear.
“Thirty-two exactly,” I say, but I don’t step back immediately. I can’t seem to make my feet move.
“Lucille.” His voice is barely above a whisper.
“Don’t.” I finally step away, my heart pounding. “We’re almost done.”
“We’re not almost anything.”
“Hugo…”
“I’m just standing here. You’re the one who keeps looking at me like…” He stops, shakes his head. “Never mind. What’s next?”
Inseam.
The word sits in my mind like a live wire.
I have to kneel. I have to put my face level with his hips and run a measuring tape along the inside of his thigh. There is no way to do this that isn’t intimate.
“Inseam,” I say flatly.
His expression doesn’t change, but I see his throat move as he swallows.
“Okay.”
I grab the tape and kneel in front of him, keeping my eyes fixed firmly on his feet. Expensive shoes. Italian leather. He always had good taste in shoes, even when his taste in priorities was terrible.
“Stand with your feet shoulder-width apart.”
He adjusts his stance.
I position the end of the tape at the junction of his inner thigh and begin to extend it downward, toward his ankle. My fingers brush the fabric of his trousers, and I feel the muscle beneath tense.
“Lucille.”
“Hold still.”