Read Chapter 7: A Public Splinter

The presentation room at Maison Lumière smelled of cold coffee and old wood polish. Meiling had laid out mood boards along the long oak table—flat-lays of campaign imagery, mock Instagram grids, and a single slide she’d spent three hours perfecting: projected ROI from a micro-influencer launch timed to Paris Fashion Week.

“Forty-two percent of luxury buyers under thirty discover brands through social media,” she said, tapping the slide. “We don’t need a celebrity. We need ten girls with twelve thousand followers each who look like they already live in our clothes. We give them access—atelier tours, early looks—and they give us desire.”

Antoine didn’t look at the slide. He looked at her, arms folded, collar of his navy sweater high enough to nearly graze his jaw. “Those girls will post a photo of our jacket next to a cheap handbag and a bowl of avocado. What do you think that does to the brand?”

“It makes us relevant.”

“It makes us common.”

Clothilde, seated at his right, tilted her head but said nothing. Her silence was a language Meiling was still learning—every pause held a paragraph.

“I’m not suggesting we give away the house,” Meiling pressed. “I’m suggesting we change the door we let people enter through. The archive is full of stories. The atelier is full of hands. We show people the hands, and they’ll pay for what those hands make.”

Antoine’s jaw tightened. “You’d turn my grandfather’s atelier into a sound stage for someone’s selfie.”

“Your grandfather’s atelier is bleeding money.” Meiling kept her voice calm, deliberate—she’d read his file, she knew the numbers, and she knew the debt wasn’t the only hole in the boat. “Exclusivity is a tax, Antoine. It only works if people are willing to pay it. Right now they’re not.”

The words landed. She saw it in the flicker behind his eyes, the way his shoulders squared. He turned to the board members arrayed down the table—three investors, two legacy directors, all of them silent, all of them waiting for someone to blink.

“We’ve survived two hundred years without chasing algorithms,” Antoine said, quieter now, aimed at her alone. “We’ll survive until we don’t. If that’s the price of remaining true to what this house is—then I’ll pay it.”

Meiling held his gaze. “You’d rather go bankrupt with your principles intact than be solvent for another century.”

“I’d rather die as Lumière than live as a hashtag.”

The meeting ended without a vote. Meiling knew what that meant: no consensus, no movement, and Antoine had effectively killed her proposal by refusing to put it to the floor. She packed her mood boards slowly, letting the silence drain out of the room before she spoke.

Clothilde lingered by the door. “He’s not wrong, you know. Exclusivity built this house.”

“And debt is demolishing it.”

Clothilde touched the frame of a photograph on the wall—a young Henri Lumière, smiling with bolt of silk under his arm. “Some people inherit buildings. Antoine inherited a religion.” She left without waiting for a response.

Meiling was last out. The hallway was empty, and the only sound was the click of her heels against the marble. She was halfway to her office when Léa appeared from the stairwell, jacketless, carrying a stack of muslin swatches.

“I heard about the meeting,” Léa said.

Meiling stopped. “News travels.”

“The atelier has its own telegraph.” Léa shifted the swatches to her other hip. “He won’t say yes to anything that feels like a compromise. But he might say yes to something that feels like a secret.”

“Like what?”

Léa glanced down the hallway before answering. “The house doesn’t have a social media account. But it does have a private salon client list from the ’80s—women who bought from Lumière before it was called vintage. They’re still alive. They still wear the clothes.” She met Meiling’s eyes. “Phones with good cameras. A private showing. You don’t need influencers if you animate the ghosts.”

Meiling opened her mouth to respond when the elevator chimed. A woman in a trench coat stepped out, phone pressed to her ear, and Meiling registered the press lanyard too late.

“I’m sorry,” the journalist said, lowering her phone, her smile sharp as a blade. Her badge read *Fashion Press Daily*—the same outlet that had run three negative stories about Lumière in the last year. “I didn’t mean to interrupt. Are you the new American?”

Meiling’s name had been in the press that morning. The invitation to speak before the board had been leaked, the headline reading: *Lumière’s Last Hope—Or Its Final Betrayal?* She’d ignored it.

She’d made a mistake.

“You’re the one pushing the digital campaign,” the journalist continued, light, friendly, a trap on springs. “Word is the heir isn’t a fan.” She angled her phone toward Meiling without asking. “Any comment?”

Meiling held up a hand. “No. Off the record.”

“Everything’s off the record until it’s on it.” The journalist’s grin widened. “I already got what I needed.”

She meant it. That afternoon, at 3:47 PM, an article went live.

**“MAISON LUMIÈRE IN CIVIL WAR: New American Strategist Clashes with Heir Over Future of the House—Sources say the board is split, the bank account is not, and the tradition-bound Antoine Lumière is fighting his own advisors to keep the company’s ‘soul’ from being sold for likes.”**

Within the hour, it was shared by three major fashion accounts. By six, it had been picked up by two international papers. By nine, Meiling’s phone was a silent scream of notifications—requests for comment, invitations from competitors, and a single message from an unknown number:

*Careful, Meiling. You’re not the only one watching what happens at Lumière.*

She deleted it, but the words stayed with her as she walked home along the Seine. The city lights trembled on the water. She stopped at the Pont Neuf and looked back toward the atelier’s steep roof, a dark silhouette against the pale sky.

Antoine would see the article. He would read her name beside the word *civil war.* And he would think she’d planted the story herself.

She hadn’t.

She checked the unknown number again, but it was already gone from her deleted messages, the thread erased. Whoever had texted didn’t want to leave a trail.

Meiling stood on the bridge a long moment, the cold air cutting through her coat, and she understood that her careful calculus had just been interrupted by something she couldn’t chart—someone else was moving pieces on this board.

And they wanted her to know it.