My Boss's Hidden Heir (Elara and Marcus) novel Chapter 208

Chapter 208-

Chapter 208

Elara’s POV

The Vogue studio was on the fourteenth floor of a building in Midtown and it was nothing like Elara had imagined.

She’d pictured something sleek and intimidating, all glass and white walls and people who made you feel underdressed just by existing near them. And it was those things, absolutely, but it was also chaotic in a way that made her feel slightly better. Racks everywhere, assistants running between rooms, someone shouting about a reflector panel in a language that was half fashion jargon and half actual emergency.

“You okay?” Marcus said beside her.

“I’m fine.”

“You’re doing the thing with your hands again.”

Elara looked down. She was twisting the strap of her bag in both hands like she was trying to wring water out of it. “I’m fine,” she said again, and made herself stop.

Christine Park appeared from somewhere in the organized chaos looking exactly like her voice sounded. Sharp, put- together, the kind of woman who’d decided at age twelve what she wanted and had simply never deviated. She was probably fifty and looked forty and carried herself like she knew it.

“Elara.” She took Elara’s hand in both of hers. “I’ve been looking forward to this since I saw what you did with that Emmy gown. The back construction on that dress made me actually stop scrolling, which almost nothing does anymore.”

“That’s incredibly kind-”

“It’s not kind, it’s accurate. I don’t do kind, I do honest. Come, let me show you what we’re working with today.”

She swept them through the studio, talking at a pace that suggested she billed by the minute. The shoot concept was built around Elara’s own pieces, six looks from the boutique arranged around her like a visual story of her journey. The photographer was a small intense Frenchman named Olivier who shook Elara’s hand and immediately started circling her like she was architecture he was planning to photograph.

“The bone structure is excellent,” he said, to no one in particular. “The eyes will do the work. We won’t need much.”

“Much what?” Elara asked.

“Intervention.” He said it like it was a compliment and walked away.

Marcus leaned down to her ear. “I think he likes you.”

“He just called my face low maintenance.”

“In French photographer language that’s basically a declaration of love.”

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The makeup artist arrived and Marcus retreated to a chair in the corner where he sat with his phone and his coffee looking completely out of place among the fashion chaos and completely unbothered by it. Every time Elara looked over at him he was already looking at her.

It helped more than she expected.

The interview happened first, Christine sitting across from her while a recorder sat on the table between them.

–

fell me about your uhmm your marriage,” Christine said and gestured with her hands.

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Elara had known this was coming, after the scandal went viral about her and Marcus, literally everyone is always asking. She’d rehearsed an answer in the shower that morning, something polished and careful that told the truth without telling everything.

But sitting here under Christine Park’s particular brand of attention, the rehearsed answer dissolved.

“I needed help as you know from the blogs,” Elara said simply. “Marcus needed something specific and I needed stability and we made an arrangement that made sense at the time.”

“And somewhere in that arrangement you fell in love.”

“Somewhere in that arrangement I stopped pretending I hadn’t.”

Christine smiled for the first time, small and genuine. “That’s the line. That’s what goes in the piece.”

“Please don’t lead with it.”

“I’m leading with it.”

The shoot itself took four hours. Olivier was exacting in a way that should have been exhausting but was actually clarifying, because he knew exactly what he wanted and communicated it precisely.

“Chin down slightly. No, not that much. There. Don’t smile, just think about something you love.” A pause, a click. “Perfect. Whatever that was, stay there.”

Elara had been thinking about Marcus’s letter. The thing I’d burn everything else down for.

During a break Christine appeared beside her while the team adjusted lighting. “You’re not what I expected,” Christine said.

“What did you expect?”

“A billionaire’s wife who dabbles in fashion. Pretty designs, nice boutique, pleasant interview.” Christine looked at her directly. “Instead I’m getting someone who actually has something to say. Your clothes have a point of view. Women look at them and feel something. That’s rarer than you’d think.”

Elara thought about her mother wearing the same coat for seven winters because there was no money for another one. About the way clothes either made you feel invisible or seen and how she’d always known the difference even when she couldn’t afford the latter.

“I design for women who’ve had to be practical their whole lives,” Elara said. “Women who deserve to feel extraordinary and know exactly what that costs.”

Christine stared at her. Then she turned to her assistant. “Get that quote. Word for word.”

Marcus appeared at her elbow during the last lighting change, handing her a bottle of water. “You’re killing it,” he said quietly.

“You can’t even hear what we’re talking about from over there.”

“I can see your face. You’re not performing. You’re just talking.” He touched her hand briefly. “That’s when you’re most yourself.”

“Stop being lovely, I need to concentrate.”

“My apologies. You’re completely average and I feel nothing.”

lara bit down on a smile and walked back to her mark.

The magazine came out a few days later, which was on a Thursday morning six weeks later.

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Elara was in the boutique when Priya called her to the front, holding up her phone with an expression that mixed professionalism and absolute hysteria in equal measure.

The cover.

Elara in a deep emerald wrap dress she’d designed two years ago and never thought much of, Olivier having somehow found the soul of the garment that Elara herself had missed. The headline beside her face read: The Woman Dressing the Women Who Run the World.

“Oh my God,” Elara said.

“It’s been live for forty minutes,” Priya said. “Our website has crashed twice. I have seventeen missed calls from stylists and I’ve responded to exactly none of them because I’ve been standing here refreshing our Instagram which has gained four thousand followers since breakfast.”

Elara’s phone was vibrating continuously in her hand, notifications stacking faster than she could read them. Messages from people she hadn’t spoken to in years. Designers she’d admired from a distance. Three separate journalists requesting interviews.

And Mimi. Forty–seven messages from Mimi in a group chat that was just the two of them, beginning with ELARA THORNE and escalating from there.

Marcus called at noon. “Have you seen-”

“Yes.”

“The cover is-”

“I know.”

“You look-”

“Marcus.”

“Unbelievably beautiful and also completely terrifying in the best possible way.”

“Thank you.”

“Orders?”

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