Chapter 3 - The Dress Her Father Never Got Credit For
Back in the ballroom, Rafe Santangelo looked from Billy to Sabine.
“What does she mean?”
“Nothing,” Sabine said.
Billy almost laughed.
Sabine turned toward Puit.
“Remove her.”
Puit approached.
Rafe stepped between them.
“Nobody removes anyone.”
“Rafe!”
“She's made an accusation. She gets to explain it.”
Sabine's voice dropped.
“You're choosing a waitress over your fiancée?”
“No. I'm choosing to hear a sentence before deciding whether it's true.”
Billy looked at the stage.
“May I?”
Rafe nodded.
Billy walked toward the massive photograph of Sabine's signature gown.
She pointed at the reversed bead pattern.
“My father was Owen Ror. He worked in textile construction and pattern development.”
Sabine scoffed.
“Thousands of people work in textiles.”
Billy ignored her.
“In 2018, he developed a method for reversing layered beadwork so reflected light appeared to move against the wearer's motion.”
A fashion editor near the stage frowned.
“That sounds exactly like—”
“My technique,” Sabine interrupted.
Billy looked at her.
“No. His.”
Sabine laughed.
“Prove it.”
Billy had waited four years to hear those words.
She reached beneath the service station and removed a thin plastic folder she had hidden there before the gala.
Sabine's face changed.
Billy opened it.
“Original sketches.”
She placed one page on a table.
“Dated.”
Another.
“Construction notes.”
Another.
“Material invoices.”
Another.
“Correspondence between my father and a development company later absorbed by Second Thread.”
Rafe picked up one page.
Sabine stepped toward him.
“These could be fabricated.”
Billy nodded.
“I expected you to say that.”
Sabine's confidence returned.
“Of course they're fabricated.”
Billy turned toward Priya.
“Your cameras have been recording since 6:15?”
Priya hesitated.
Sabine shouted, “Don't answer her.”
Priya looked at Rafe.
Rafe said, “Answer.”
“Yes.”
“Continuously?”
“Yes.”
Billy looked at Sabine.
“Good.”
Sabine frowned.
“What exactly do you think that proves?”
“Nothing yet.”
Billy pointed toward Sabine's gown.
“But your dress does.”
She approached carefully.
“Inside the left side of the bodice, between the second and third structural seams, there's a reinforcement stitch shaped like an uneven M.”
Sabine's face emptied.
Rafe noticed.
Billy continued.
“My grandmother taught my father that stitch. He used it whenever reverse beadwork put too much tension on silk.”
A fashion editor stood.
“Can that be checked?”
Billy nodded.
“With Sabine's permission.”
“No,” Sabine said immediately.
A murmur spread across the room.
Rafe stared at her.
Sabine recovered.
“I am not allowing a waitress to inspect my clothing in front of three hundred people.”
Billy nodded.
“Fair.”
Then she smiled faintly.
“We can inspect one of the nine dresses backstage.”
Sabine said nothing.
“Unless,” Billy added, “they've all been altered since this afternoon.”
Rafe turned.
“Priya?”
“Yes?”
“Did your crew film backstage?”
Sabine snapped, “Rafe!”
Priya nodded.
“For the documentary.”
Billy looked at Sabine.
For the first time that night, the famous model had nothing to say.
Rafe stepped closer to his fiancée.
“Did you steal Owen Ror's designs?”
“No.”
“Look at me.”
Sabine did.
“No.”
Rafe held her gaze.
Then Billy said:
“My father died believing nobody would ever know.”
Sabine turned.
“Your father died because he couldn't accept that his ideas weren't valuable enough.”
Billy went completely still.
Rafe's jaw tightened.
Sabine realized too late what she'd revealed.
Billy whispered:
May you like
“You knew him.”
---
