CHAPTER 22
Title: Thread by Thread
POV: Florida Smith (Present Day)
The pearls still sat on her vanity.
Mocking her.
Florida stared at them in silence, the dim bedroom light washing them in gold. They were beautiful — flawless, expensive, cold. A gift from Bryant's mother, accompanied by a single sentence she couldn't forget:
"A wife of this house wears the family's dignity around her neck."
That was three months ago.
She hadn't worn them since.
Bryant hadn't returned home in days.
After the brunch. After Liza's surprise entrance. After the whispers, the photo, the press.
Nothing.
No calls. No messages. Not even a driver.
Just silence — thick, intentional silence that sat heavy in every room she walked through.
And maybe that was supposed to break her.
But Florida had already been broken. The day she was chosen. The day her father handed her over like luggage.
"You're the one no one would miss."
Vivienne's voice still haunted her sometimes, wrapped in sugar and venom.
But Florida didn't cry anymore.
She didn't even flinch.
She reached beneath the mattress and pulled out her sketchpad. Her fingers brushed across the cover as if touching something sacred.
Page after page flipped open — designs sharp, elegant, dangerous. They were nothing like the girl her family discarded.
They were pieces of the woman she was becoming.
Each one bore the same quiet signature in the corner:
FLD.
Her phone buzzed once beside her.
Noir Texture Studio – Final Interview Notification
"Congratulations. You've been shortlisted. Final stage interview next Friday, Lancaster City. In-person only."
Her breath caught.
Lancaster. That was far. Too far for "just an outing."
Too far for a wife on contract. Too far to return unnoticed.
She should delete the email.
She should forget it ever came.
But instead, her fingers tapped open a browser tab.
She searched for train schedules.
Marked one early. Marked a return.
Then cleared her history.
Again. And again.
Just in case.
She didn't notice how fast her heart was racing until she looked up and caught her reflection.
Wide eyes. Tight shoulders. A storm building behind them.
"You weren't born to want. You were born to settle."
The words had been Vivienne's, but they were stitched into the house itself.
Into the contract she never signed.
Into the man who'd made rules but offered no refuge.
A car door slammed.
She moved to the window.
Bryant.
Dark coat, sharp jaw, talking into his phone. His brows were drawn, jaw tense. But he didn't look toward the house.
He just walked in — like he always did.
As if no one inside mattered.
Florida didn't move from the window.
She didn't go downstairs.
She didn't pretend.
She just watched him disappear into the mansion… and felt something twist inside her — not longing.
Not fear.
Just decision.
Back in her room, she opened the drawer and lifted the pearls once more.
Then closed them inside.
Buried.
Done.
That night, in the quiet dark, she whispered into the shadows:
"If Bryant finds out?"
"I don't care. Not tonight."
And beneath her pillow, her dreams waited.
Thread by thread.
She was sewing her way out.
(End of Chapter 22)