Chapter Text
6.50 am
Now Emily didn’t need to worry about how her day was going to go. Andrea was now at her house with the kids, just so someone could oversee them going with Frank since it was his day. But then that all changed when her phone buzzed with a notification.
Her eyebrows scrunched in confusion when she realized it was from Andrea. What could have happened? She had told Andrea previously that she was going to have a meeting with a few high-key stakeholders to discuss the expansion of Coach, and, in the harshest way possible, put Coach back into the minds of people when they listed luxury brands.
Before Emily could send more texts and start her interrogation, she already knew exactly which vase Andrea was talking about. It was the exact vase Andrea had pointed out, the one that had prompted her to comment that Emily’s taste was sophisticated.
Well, even before that, Emily of course knew her taste was immaculate.
But that was not the point.
“Miss Charlton.”
Her chauffeur let her know that they were here at the headquarters, specifically the one that stung just slightly because, across from it, was of course Dior.
Well, it was time to close that chapter, just like how she had to close the horrible ending with Miranda to survive the days without it eating her alive. The conflict itself had been a disaster, and successfully exposed how morally questionable for her to be the one who catalyzed it. She shook her head as she replayed Miranda’s knowing tone.
“Tell her.”
And how she had seen Andrea’s face, oh, her Andrea, just change in an instant.
Remembering it made her sick, even though the Emily at the time had known, too. She had asked Andrea to postpone, only to end up relenting because Andrea simply couldn’t keep it all together. Emily had even sacrificed her discussion time with Donatella, though at least it gave her a small sense of pride that her Italian was actually good.
It was like a fever dream, especially when Andrea agreed to meet up for lunch, twisting her morals just for her.
Just for her.
And it was okay.
Andrea found it okay.
Forgiveness was served as easily as Andrea offering her hand to be held.
Though Emily did refuse to hold it at the time.
Twenty-year-old Emily would have found it childish and refused it out of that alone, but she refused it because—
It was just…
It’s that easy?
Just like how easy it was for Andrea to assume it was a pocket dial.
Twenty years gone down the drain, and she had expected hardship in getting something akin to even the status of good acquaintances. But she got more than that instead.
She even got to know why.
Why did Andrea leave.
She had assumptions. She could have asked Nigel, but, well, she couldn’t get herself to.
“I’m serious. Why did you leave Runway?”
She swallowed her throat, and fear, and pride.
Which was ridiculous.
It was just asking an ex-coworker why they left a job.
So it was very important to her that Andrea didn’t notice how seemingly attached she was to this object called a menu.
“What ultimately made my mind up about it,” Andrea began, “was when I was in the car with Miranda…”
Emily’s attention sharpened.
“I left because…”
Emily found herself very still as she nodded slightly, encouraging Andrea to continue.
“Miranda implied that I had also done what she did to Nigel. To you.”
Paris.
Emily’s lips parted.
A soft breath escaped her.
For a moment, she said nothing.
Just processed.
Then, quietly—
“It already happened before that.”
6.55 am
“I’m so done. I’m screwed.”
Andrea paced as she watched the shattered pieces of the vase scattered across the floor. Maybe, somehow, if she tried to buy the same vase fast enough, she’d be able to switch it out before Emily noticed.
She took out her phone. It was nearly 7 a.m. She couldn’t afford to tell Emily this right before an important meeting, but, oh boy, it had been hard to resist it, and now she knew for sure that she was going to be in serious trouble.
A literal 100 on a scale of 1–10 for the question of how much trouble she’d be in if she had broken the vase.
She unlocked her phone and scrolled through her gallery because she remembered one time she’d taken a selfie and the vase had been in the background. She could reverse-image search it and get exactly the details, then go to Etsy or whatever dodgy website she had to venture into.
Yes.
It might work.
So she scrolled and scrolled.
A picture of Lily with her kids. Okay, swipe.
A picture of the smallest apartment she’d found while surveying. Yikes. New York was tough.
A picture of Roak playing football, one that Andrea had taken so she could send it to Emily.
Aww. So cute.
Andrea zoomed in on the boy’s face, and thank goodness the boy still took more after Emily’s features than the shady excuse for a father he had.
Next.
A picture of Emily.
Okay, well. She had been practicing taking pictures of Emily in the way she wanted. Oh boy, she had trained her. She ran a strict program: angles, camera lenses, lighting, and all.
Next.
Oh. Another picture of Emily.
Well, okay.
Hm.
Another.
Another one.
It took Andrea’s finger doing fifteen swipes to finally find the selfie she was talking about.
“Here we go.”
And not even ten minutes later, Andrea had concluded that maybe she had to try the second plan, though it was high-risk and she was not exactly fluent in gluing pieces of glass together.
Still, she wanted to try.
The upper part was broken into huge pieces. Surely she could do something with that.
She broke it. She had to take responsibility.
And that was on ethics, the same one she wore like armor in journalism.
Though the noise she let out not even five minutes later proved her wrong.
She had been in such a rush, so full of adrenaline and cortisol, that she wasn’t careful. And now, great, she had sliced her palm.
There was a huge red streak across it.
And, of course, it was her right palm.
Her dominant hand.
And then it was followed by the sound of the door creaking open.
Bronwyn.
She was awake, and she was seeing the casualty.
“Andy! What happened? Wait, let me grab—”
Well, at least Andrea knew for sure that Emily had really raised those kids right. Very responsive. Very quick.
“It’s okay, sweetheart. I was just taking these off the floor so that it’s safe for you and your brother.”
The girl, no older than twelve, rushed over with a napkin, and Andrea made sure she didn’t stand too close to the pieces scattered across the floor.
“Why not just sweep it with a broom?”
“Bronwyn, take a very good look at it…”
Her eyes pointed toward the pieces, then the half-broken vase on the coffee table near them.
“You are so cooked, Andy.”
The girl looked haunted as she shook her head, befitting the usage of the slang these kids had been using these days. And thanks to Andrea being around people of all age groups, courtesy of babysitting Lily’s kids, she knew that this was relevant and accurate slang to use in this situation.
“Does Mom know?”
Andrea was about to open her lips to say something along the lines of well, she did… hypothetically, when the girl seemingly remembered something and rushed back toward her room.
“Wait, I’ll tell her that you’re bleeding!”
“Bronwyn, there’s no need for that. Your mother is in a very important meeting right now.”
Andrea was already standing up and going over to catch the girl before she could get her iPad.
“It’s okay. Mom said that no matter how busy she is, it’s very important to her that she knows when the people she cares about are hurt.”
The girl said it casually.
It did not land casually for Andrea.
Andrea was stunned.
First, by the fact that she had always had a certain reverence for Emily for being a working mother while still being there for her kids emotionally.
Second…
She was part of the people she cared about?
Did Emily imply that she was included with the kids, or did the kids just—
Well, there was no use wondering about it because Bronwyn’s iPad lit up and rang.
Emily.
So quick.
Emily really didn’t play when it came to her kids.
“See.”
The kid held up the screen toward Andrea, who was leaning against the doorway.
And before any of them knew it, Emily ended the call, seemingly because she wasn’t getting an immediate response.
Andrea’s phone buzzed inside the pocket of her jeans.
“Pick up, pick up,” she muttered to herself.
After a few more seconds with no answer, Emily finally ended the call and decided to call Andy directly instead. She looked so distressed that even her assistant seemed wary, unsure whether it was a good idea to approach her.
What a morning she was having now.