Chapter 312: Fashion is Art

The elevator doors slid open with a soft ping.

Aria, Zoe, and Coco stepped out into the foyer of the Sinclair penthouse, practically floating. The sixty-minute pure oxygen facials had done wonders. Aria’s skin was impossibly plump and glowing, Zoe looked like she had slept for twelve uninterrupted hours, and Coco was humming a Beyoncé track, swinging his neon yellow Balenciaga jacket over his shoulder.

"I feel like a newly birthed infant," Zoe sighed happily. "My pores have literally never been this empty. I am ready to be perceived by the masses."

"Told you," Coco beamed, strutting into the living room. "Now, we just need to get Aria taped into the velvet, work on the lip combo, and—"

Coco stopped dead in his tracks.

His sneakers squeaked against the marble floor. The yellow jacket slipped off his shoulder, hitting the ground with a soft thud.

Aria and Zoe bumped into his back, peering around him to see what had caused the sudden halt.

The penthouse was dead silent.

But right in the center of the room, hanging on the velvet-lined display rack, was a massacre.

The obsidian-black velvet gown, the custom, breathtaking, hand-sewn masterpiece that was supposed to break the internet tonight, was unrecognizable. It had been brutally shredded. Jagged, gaping slashes tore straight down the corseted bodice. The delicate silk lining was ripped into ribbons, and thousands of shattered, mirrored crystals littered the rug like a dusting of tragic, sparkling snow.

For three seconds, no one breathed.

"No," Coco whispered. His voice was a thin, high-pitched squeak of grief. "No, no, no, no."

Coco fell to his knees on the rug. He reached out with trembling hands, gently touching a severed strip of black velvet dangling from the hanger.

"My masterpiece," Coco sobbed, a heartbreaking tear spilling over his lower lash. "It took over two hundred hours. Everything was flawless!"

Zoe’s eyes blew wide, quickly scanning the room. The silver fabric shears were lying carelessly discarded on the glass coffee table.

Zoe saw red. She immediately knew who the culprit was.

"That bitch!" Zoe shrieked. "That miserable, bitter, old woman! I am going to kill her!"

Zoe immediately lunged toward the guest corridor, her hands curled into fists, prepared to drag Diana out of her room by the roots of her hair.

"Zoe, stop!" Aria ordered.

Aria darted forward, grabbing Zoe by the back of her top and yanking her to a halt before she could reach the hallway.

"Let me go, Aria!" Zoe yelled, fighting against her grip. "She destroyed your dress! The red carpet opens in three hours! You have nothing to wear! I am going to rip the wheels off her chair!"

"Her door is locked, Zoe!" Aria reasoned, her voice steady as she held her best friend back. "She’s hiding. She knows exactly what she did, and she is sitting in there right now, waiting for us to lose our minds. Do you really want to give her the satisfaction of hearing us scream through the wall?"

Zoe stopped struggling, her chest heaving as she glared down the empty corridor.

"She wants a reaction," Aria stated, her emerald eyes darkening as she stared at the shredded velvet hanging on the rack.

Aria walked slowly toward the display. She picked up the silver shears from the coffee table, her fingers tracing the cold metal.

Diana wanted Aria to walk onto that red carpet tonight looking defeated. She wanted Aria to panic, to cry, to scramble into a safe, boring, off-the-rack backup dress that didn’t fit right.

"Call Damien," Zoe panicked, pacing the living room. "He can have a designer from Fifth Avenue rush over here with ten new options in twenty minutes!"

"No," Aria vetoed instantly, tossing the shears back onto the table. "I am not calling Damien to fix a wardrobe malfunction caused by his jealous sister," she said firmly.

Aria turned back to the rack. She looked at the ruined gown, and then she looked down at Coco, who was still kneeling on the rug, mourning the loss of his creation.

"Coco," Aria said. "Get up."

Coco sniffled, wiping his eyes with the back of his hand. "I can’t. My heart is broken."

"Get up," Aria repeated, stepping over the shattered crystals to grab his hands and help him to his feet.

Aria looked him dead in the eye.

"You are not just a stylist," Aria told him fiercely. "You are an artist. You are a genius. This dress was gorgeous, yes, but it was just fabric. You are the magic that put it together."

Coco sniffled again, his lower lip trembling, but he stood a little straighter.

"Diana wants me to walk out there tonight looking like a sad, defeated backup plan," Aria continued, her eyes flashing with spite. "She wants me to look basic. And I would literally rather walk out onto that carpet completely naked than give her what she wants."

Aria pointed to the rolling rack of backup dresses shoved against the far wall. There were dozens of garments: vintage slips, silk skirts, sheer tulle overlays, and structured corsets...all pieces Coco had pulled for the initial fittings over the past few weeks.

"Look at that rack, Coco," Aria challenged. "Look at all that expensive, designer fabric. Tell me you can’t make something better."

Coco blinked, his tear-filled eyes shifting from Aria to the rolling rack.

He stared at the materials.

He walked slowly over to the rack. He grabbed a vintage, sheer crimson silk slip dress, holding it up to the light. He dropped it. He grabbed a structured black satin corset by the strings. He ran his fingers over a voluminous skirt made of blood-red tulle.

"The obsidian velvet wasn’t all that," Coco muttered to himself, his hands flying across the hangers. "It was beautiful, but I can do much better."

"Exactly," Aria grinned, stepping up beside him.

"Zoe!" Coco snapped, the tears gone now. He spun around, pointing a finger at the coffee table. "Hand me those shears!"

Zoe gasped, sprinting over to grab the silver scissors and slapping them into his palm like a surgical instrument.

"If she wants to play dirty with scissors, we can play dirty too," Coco declared, a wild, brilliant smile stretching across his face.

He grabbed a stunning, expensive dark red archival Valentino gown off the rack. It was beautiful, but far too traditional for what they needed.

Without a second of hesitation, Coco took the shears and violently sliced straight up the side seam, cutting the skirt entirely open to create a daring, dangerously high slit.

"Oh my god," Zoe whispered, stunned, watching the expensive fabric fall perfectly into a new, dramatic drape.

"Aria, strip," Coco commanded, tossing the ruined Valentino bodice aside and holding up the newly slashed red silk skirt. "Put this on. Zoe, grab my sewing kit from the bag. Get the fashion tape and the safety pins."

Aria didn’t hesitate. She threw her sweatpants and top off, standing in the middle of the living room in her underwear.

Coco went to work.

He was a blur of motion. He took the structured black satin corset and pinned it tight against Aria’s waist, snatching her silhouette until she could barely breathe. He took the slashed red silk skirt and draped it expertly over her hips, using fashion tape and hidden safety pins to secure the daring, thigh-high slit exactly where he wanted it.

"More texture," Coco muttered, stepping back. He grabbed the shears again and attacked a pile of black, sheer silk chiffon. He sliced it into jagged, asymmetrical ribbons.

He draped the sheer black ribbons over the red silk skirt, letting them fall like dark shadows over the vibrant crimson.

"It’s giving vampire queen," Zoe hyped from the sidelines, tearing off pieces of double-sided tape and handing them over like a scrub nurse.

"Tilt your chin up!" Coco ordered, leaning in with a needle and thread, literally stitching the fabric directly onto Aria’s corset right on her body. ℯℯ𝘭.𝘤ℴ𝘮

For the next hour, the penthouse living room was transformed into a couture atelier.

Coco didn’t just style a look; he sculpted it. He took three entirely different, expensive designer pieces and Frankenstein-ed them together into a singular, cohesive masterpiece.

When he finally tied off the last thread and stepped back, his chest heaving, the room fell silent for a second time.

Aria turned slowly to face the full-length mirror leaning against the wall.

Her jaw dropped.

The black satin corset pushed her breasts up flawlessly, contrasting with the blood-red silk skirt that hugged her hips and flared out at the floor. The jagged, sheer black ribbons draped over the red skirt gave the illusion of smoke. The thigh-high slit exposed her entire left leg, elongating her frame to supermodel proportions.

It was...stunning.

"Coco," Aria breathed, her hands hovering over the flawless draping. "You are a literal genius."

"I know," Coco panted, dropping the shears onto the floor and aggressively fanning himself with a Vogue magazine. "I just upcycled sixty thousand dollars’ worth of vintage couture in under an hour. Anna Wintour would weep. Now, sit down. We have forty-five minutes to do the makeup, and I am putting a dark, glossy, blood-red lip on you to match that skirt."

Aria looked at her reflection in the mirror. She had survived death itself. She wasn’t about to let a miserable, bitter sister-in-law with a pair of scissors steal her moment.