Read Chapter 5: MARKET WEEK

The buyers arrived in February carrying tablets, expensive handbags, and opinions formed before they entered the room.

Market week turned Bellwether's showroom into controlled theater. Racks were spaced with intentional care. Samples had been steamed until they appeared untouched by human hands. Sales directors spoke in percentages while designers pretended not to listen.

Camille stood behind a partition with Julian and watched a department-store buyer lift one of her dresses by the hanger.

"Too conceptual," the buyer said.

Julian whispered, "Don't react."

"I am not reacting."

"Your eyebrow is."

"I have expressive eyebrows."

The buyer turned the dress around, found the hidden pleat, and paused.

"Actually," she said, "this moves well."

Camille looked at Julian.

His mouth barely moved. "Still don't react."

The buyer ordered sixty-four units.

Camille waited until they were alone in the sample room before allowing herself to smile.

"Sixty-four."

"Across eight stores."

"Sixty-four."

"Don't become unbearable."

"I learned from you."

The showroom results were better than expected. Not spectacular, but enough to give Evelyn ammunition against Northstar's claim that Bellwether's design identity no longer had commercial value.

Then, on the second afternoon, Northstar sent observers.

Two men and one woman arrived with visitor badges and no interest in pretending to be customers. Their leader, Graham Vale, was in his mid-forties, silver at the temples, wearing a suit so precisely neutral it seemed designed to reveal nothing.

He introduced himself to Evelyn, then Julian, then looked at Camille's badge.

"Paris?"

"Originally."

"Bellwether is importing talent now."

Camille smiled. "New York has a long tradition of it."

Julian coughed into his hand.

Vale inspected the collection without touching anything.

"This house has beautiful bones," he said.

Camille had heard developers say the same thing about old apartments before tearing out the walls.

At dinner that night, Bellwether's senior staff filled the back room of an Italian restaurant in Chelsea. Wine appeared. Everyone was too tired to be cautious.

Camille sat between Mara and a textile designer named Owen. Julian sat across from her.

Vale's phrase remained in her mind.

Beautiful bones.

She watched Bellwether employees laugh, complain, pass bread, debate whether one particular coat should be cut in navy or charcoal. These were the things balance sheets compressed into labor cost.

"You're staring," Julian said.

"At you?"

"At the table."

"Perhaps I am moved by American carbohydrates."

Mara leaned toward Camille. "He hates when people get sentimental about the company."

"I don't hate sentiment," Julian said.

"You become constipated when someone says 'family.'"

"Because workplaces are not families. Families don't put you on performance plans."

"Some should," Camille said.

Julian looked at her and laughed.

It was the first time she had heard the sound without restraint.

It changed his face.

For one second, he looked younger, almost careless.

Camille felt something inside her step toward him.

She immediately drank water.

After dinner, the group scattered toward subways and cabs. Snow had begun, light and dry, turning the sidewalks pale.

Camille stood beneath the awning trying to make her phone recognize her cold fingers.

"Where are you going?" Julian asked.

"Greenpoint."

"Take a car."

"I am capable of using the subway."

"I didn't say you weren't."

"You implied it."

"I implied it's midnight and snowing."

"I am French, not made of spun sugar."

He looked toward Seventh Avenue. "I'm walking east."

"So?"

"So the L train is east."

They walked.

New York after snow surprised Camille. The city did not become quiet, exactly, but the noise softened. Tires hissed. Restaurant windows glowed amber. Steam rose from a grate and swallowed two pedestrians.

Julian put his hands in his coat pockets.

"Why New York?"

She had been asked many times and had developed an answer: opportunity, scale, Bellwether's archive, the chance to work in American ready-to-wear.

She gave him a different one.

"I wanted somewhere nobody knew who I had failed to become."

He glanced at her.

"In Paris?"

"My first job was at Maison Vautrin. I stayed three years. I thought if I worked hard enough, eventually my name would be attached to an idea before the idea was softened into someone else's."

"What happened?"

"I designed a coat for a presentation. The creative director changed one button, called it 'our direction,' and the press loved it."

Julian was silent.

"So I left."

"For that?"

"For three years of that."

They reached Sixth Avenue.

"And Antoine?" he asked.

She stopped walking.

"How do you know Antoine?"

"Your phone lights up on your desk."

"You read my messages?"

"I read a name."

"You are very observant."

"It's my job."

She resumed walking.

"He is irrelevant."

"That sounded convincing."

"He wanted a life I could fit into without making it inconvenient."

Julian nodded as though he understood too well.

"And you?" Camille asked. "Who wanted you to fit?"

His expression closed slightly.

"Someone I almost married."

Camille felt a small, absurd disappointment.

"Almost?"

"She got tired of competing with a company."

"Were you in love with the company?"

"No."

The answer came too quickly.

She looked at him.

He corrected himself.

"Not exactly."

At Fourteenth Street, they stopped near the subway entrance.

Snow had gathered in Julian's hair.

Camille wanted, suddenly and vividly, to reach up and brush it away.

Instead she said, "Good night, Mercer."

"Good night, Laurent."

She descended the stairs.

On the platform, as the train approached, she looked back toward the street entrance.

He was still there.

Then the train arrived between them.