One Night in Valeria - Chapter 19: Chapter 19

Liam didn’t knock.
He stepped into Smith Delacourt’s office like a man walking into a battlefield not loud, not hurried, just deadly sure of why he was there.
Theo didn’t even look up.
“I wondered how long it would take before you came storming in,” he said, fingers tapping lazily against his glass of brandy. “How poetic. You always did prefer drama over logic.”
Liam shut the door.
“You went too far.”
Theo laughed. “You’ll have to be more specific. I do that often.”
Liam dropped the security report on his desk. The folder snapped as it landed.
Jessica’s studio. The slashed gowns. The inked message.
Theo’s smirk didn’t falter.
“You think I did that?”
“I don’t need to think. I know.”
Theo finally looked up, his smile colder now.
“You used to be smarter, Liam. I have eyes, yes. Ears. Influence. But breaking into a woman’s studio and ripping up her fabric? That’s not my style. I ruin legacies, not textiles.”
Liam’s jaw flexed. “You’re obsessed with her.”
Smith stood slowly. “I’m obsessed with balance. You’re the golden boy of Velaria, and she’s your red-dressed guilt. I’m the one who sees the game board for what it is.”
“She’s not a pawn,” Liam snapped.
“No,” Smith agreed. “She’s the fire that’s going to burn this house down.”
He stepped closer, voice low and sharp.
“You’re protecting her, but you haven’t asked the real question yet, Liam.”
Liam frowned. “What question?”
Smith leaned in. “Why now? Why is everyone suddenly so interested in a woman who was invisible six months ago?”
Liam stilled.
“Because someone’s stirring the water,” Smith said. “And you’re too busy falling for her to see who’s already drowning.”
Meanwhile, Jessica stood in front of a full-length mirror in her studio, dressed in a muslin mockup she’d re-stitched overnight. The original was gone. But the new version?
Sharper. Cleaner. Angrier.
This wasn’t just fashion anymore.
This was war with a hemline.
Celeste came in quietly, holding two envelopes.
“One’s from the gallery,” she said. “You’ve been offered a featured slot in the Midwinter Showcase. And the other…” She hesitated.
Jessica raised a brow. “And the other?”
Celeste handed it over without another word.
Inside was a single photograph.
Her mother. Younger. Standing beside a man Jessica didn’t recognize. Not Dorian. Not Liam. Not Smith.
Someone else.
On the back, in clean pen:
“Ask your mother’s friend about Alex Devane.
Ask her why she erased him.”
Jessica blinked, her fingers tightening.
The name again.
She looked at Celeste. “Mara. I need to see her.”
Celeste nodded. “I’ll call her.”
Jessica looked down at the photo again. She suddenly understood something Smith said something Liam had yet to.
This wasn’t about scandal.
This was about history.
And someone wanted hers rewritten… before she could write it herself.