Chapter Text
The first sign that Emily Charlton’s day was going to become unbearable arrived at exactly 7:12 a.m., in the form of a spilled yogurt pouch.
“Mummy, Roark did it on purpose!”
“I did not,” came the deeply offended response from somewhere underneath the kitchen island. “It exploded.”
Emily stood in the center of the disaster wearing four-hundred-thousand-dollar Valentino dress and absolutely no patience.
The kitchen of her townhouse looked like a war crime. One child crying. One child sticky. Coffee rapidly cooling beside her untouched laptop. A calendar notification blinking violently on her phone about a board review she had absolutely forgotten existed until thirty seconds ago.
Wonderful.
“Roark,” Emily said with terrifying calm, “why are you under the counter?”
Her seven-year-old son peered up at her with the solemn expression of a Victorian orphan.
“Because Browyn said she was going to kill me.”
“That was figurative,” Emily snapped automatically, already crouching to grab paper towels. “And if anyone is dying this morning, it will be me.” she adds, closing her eyes briefly.
There had been a time in her life when mornings involved silent penthouses, espresso machines, and judging people in Coach from the backseat of a town car. Now they involved bribing children into wearing shoes and googling whether consuming glitter glue required medical attention.
The fact that the presumed dad of the kids did not pay much attention to them could only make Emily's life more complicated, but honestly, on the other side of the same coin it was a victory not having to see that man.
Her phone buzzed against the marble countertop.
Amari.
Emily answered immediately, pressing the phone between her shoulder and ear while cleaning yogurt off the floor.
“You have precisely twenty seconds before I decide to move to another continent.”
“Good morning to you too,” Amari replied dryly.
Unlike Emily’s previous assistants over the years, most of whom lasted somewhere between three weeks and six months, Amari possessed the rare combination of competence and fearlessness. Twenty eight, impeccably dressed, sharp eyed, and impossible to intimidate, she treated Emily less like a terrifying boss and more like a particularly aggressive weather pattern.
Which, frankly, was fair.
“Your nine o’clock got moved to ten-thirty,” she continued. “Miranda requested all senior department heads at Runway by eleven.”
Emily paused, that alone was strange, as everyone knew, Miranda Priestly did not “request.”
“And?”
“And,” Amari said carefully, “there are rumors.”
Emily straightened slowly and Roark used the opportunity to steal half a banana from the counter.
“What rumors?”
There was a beat of silence.
“Apparently,” Amari said, lowering her voice despite being nowhere near her, “Runway is receiving outside investment.”
Emily’s stomach tightened instantly, that was impossible. Runway didn’t take outside money. Miranda would rather set herself on fire than surrender even partial control of the brand.
“How much?”
“No one knows yet. But enough that everyone’s panicking.”
Interesting, Emily thought as she grabbed her coffee and finally took a sip. Cold.
“Who’s funding it?”
“That’s the part nobody knows. But the board’s calling it an expansion opportunity.”
Emily’s expression darkened immediately. Expansion opportunity euqals orporate language for restructuring. For leverage. For war.
“Who else knows?”
“Everyone important.”
Which meant everyone was already strategizing.
Fashion directors. Creative leads. Digital executives. Communications departments. Advertising teams. Every ambitious parasite attached to Runway would already be trying to figure out how to position themselves before the official announcement.
Emily thrived in environments where people underestimated how ruthless she could become.
“Mummy,” Browyn announced suddenly, “Roa is feeding waffles to the dog.”
Emily inhaled sharply through her nose.
“Amari.”
“Yes?”
“Reschedule everything after six.”
“You have the charity dinner tonight.”
“Cancel it.”
“You’re receiving an award.”
“Then they can mail it to me.”
A pause.
“You sound stressed.”
“I am one spilled dairy product away from institutionalization.”
Amari laughed quietly.
Emily rarely noticed when people found her funny. Mostly because she usually wasn’t trying to be.
“I’ll have the car waiting at ten,” she said. “And Emily?”
“Yes?”
“You should probably be prepared.”
“For what?”
“For Andrea Sachs being there.”
Silence. Emily’s grip tightened slightly around the coffee cup. Andrea, of course.
Because apparently God had looked down upon her already disastrous morning and decided there still wasn’t enough suffering involved.
Emily hadn’t seen Andrea properly in nearly eight months. Not in any meaningful sense, anyway. They crossed paths occasionally at industry events, fashion weeks, galas, launches but always briefly. Always professionally.
Always carefully. Andrea Sachs had become infuriatingly successful over the years.
What began as cultural journalism had evolved into something sharper, smarter, more dangerous. Andrea wrote essays now that people actually cared about. Pieces dissecting labor exploitation in luxury brands. Media manipulation. The economics of image-making. The psychology of fashion. And the worst part? She was damn good at it, annoyingly good.
Andrea had somehow managed to become respected both inside and outside fashion media, which almost nobody accomplished without becoming completely unbearable.
Emily hated that she admired her for it, more accurately, Emily hated that some part of her had never quite stopped paying attention.
“You’re quiet,” Amari observed.
“I’m contemplating murder.”
“That’s reassuring.”
Emily hung up before he could continue.
Across the kitchen, Browyn narrowed her eyes.
“You made your angry face.”
“I do not have an angry face.”
“You do,” Roark said helpfully from beneath the table. “It’s the one where you look like you’re gonna sue someone.”
Emily stared at her children for a long moment, pinching the bridge of her nose.
“Please,” she said tiredly, “put your shoes on before I abandon this family entirely.”
—
Across Manhattan, Andrea Sachs was ignoring approximately forty-three unread emails and pretending she had not slept on her office couch. Again.
The newsroom floor of The Thread buzzed around her in organized chaos—phones ringing, keyboards clicking, editors yelling across glass partitions about deadlines and layouts. Andrea barely noticed any of it. She sat cross-legged in her chair with a half-finished article open on her screen, hair falling messily over one shoulder, coffee balanced dangerously close to expensive equipment.
“Andy.”
No response.
“Andy.”
Still nothing.
“ANDREA.”
Andrea jumped slightly as Jin appeared beside her desk holding two iced coffees and an expression of profound disappointment.
“You’re impossible,” Jin declared.
Andrea blinked at her assistant. “I was working.”
“You were staring at the same paragraph for twelve minutes.”
“That’s called editing.”
“That’s called psychological deterioration.”
Andrea accepted the coffee gratefully.
Jin had started working for her almost two years ago and somehow evolved from assistant into part-time emotional support system. Twenty-four, brilliant, sarcastic, and terrifyingly observant, she possessed the unsettling ability to detect Andrea’s moods before Andrea herself could. Which was inconvenient.
“You slept here again,” Jin accused.
Andrea took a long sip. “Allegedly.”
“You own an apartment.”
“Debatable.”
Jin dropped a folder onto her desk.
“You’re going to need caffeine for this.”
Andrea frowned slightly.
“That sounds threatening.”
“It is.”
Andrea opened the folder, her expression changed almost immediately. Runway, investor briefing, expansion proposal, projected restructuring plans.
Andrea sat up straighter.
“What is this?”
“Apparently,” Jin said, leaning against the desk, “Runway is about to receive an enormous investment from some billionaire media foundation that wants to modernize the brand.”
Andrea scanned the documents quickly.
The proposal outlined two possible expansion routes:
Luxury fashion and visual media.
Or investigative journalism and communications.
“They can only fund one side fully,” Jin continued. “Which means every executive at Runway is about to start stabbing each other.”
Andrea felt something sharp and electric settle low in her stomach. Competition, she knew this game and hated how much part of her still enjoyed it.
“Who leaked this?”
“One of Miranda’s assistants apparently had a nervous breakdown.” Reasonable.
Andrea kept reading.
Projected growth.
Digital media expansion.
Editorial restructuring.
And then, her eyes narrowed slightly.
Fashion Division Lead:
Emily Charlton.
Andrea leaned back in her chair. Of course, because apparently the universe had also decided she wasn’t suffering enough lately.
“Uh oh,” Jin said immediately.
Andrea glanced up. “What?”
“That face.”
“What face?”
“The one you make whenever Emily Charlton’s involved.”
Andrea scoffed. “I do not have a face for Emily Charlton.”
“You absolutely do.”
“I don’t.” Andrea rolled her eyes and looked back at the papers. Emily Charlton.
Still somehow haunting her life after all these years, it would’ve been easier if Emily had become irrelevant. Easier if she’d faded into the background of Runway’s history like so many others. But Emily had done the opposite, she’d become more powerful, more composed, more untouchable.
Andrea still remembered the first time she saw Emily after years apart—a runway show in Paris, both of them older and sharper around the edges. Emily standing beneath flashing lights in an ivory suit, issuing commands without raising her voice, entire teams rearranging themselves around her gravity.
Andrea remembered hating how breathtaking she looked.
“She’s divorced, you know,” Jin said casually and Andrea’s head snapped up.
“I’m sorry?”
Jin blinked innocently. “What?”
“How do you know that?”
“Everyone knows that.”
Andrea hated the immediate flicker of concern that moved through her chest and she pushed it away instantly. Not her business, not relevant and not important.
“I am going to review this and we will talk about it later. Go do actual work.” Andrea says.
“Yes, ma’am.”
But even after Jin disappeared across the newsroom, Andrea found herself staring at Emily’s name again. Fashion Division Lead. Competitive, demanding, brilliant Emily Charlton. Andrea could already imagine the meetings.
The arguments, the sharp little smiles Emily wore whenever she was preparing to destroy someone professionally and somewhere beneath the dread, something else stirred too.
This was going to be a disaster.
—
By eleven o’clock, the executive conference floor at Runway resembled the opening minutes of a political coup.
Assistants moved at impossible speeds carrying tablets and coffee trays. Editors clustered together whispering theories. Department heads performed the social equivalent of circling each other with knives hidden behind their backs.
Emily stepped out of the elevator wearing Dior and exhaustion. After three outfit changes and having to drop two kids at school.
Conversations shifted instantly, not stopped, people at Runway knew better than to visibly react to power, but redirected subtly toward her arrival. Emily ignored all of itand Amari fell into step beside her immediately.
“You’re late.”
“I have children,” Emily replied flatly. “That is now my permanent excuse for everything.”
“You also have three missed calls from the Milan office.”
“They can perish.”
Amari handed her a tablet.
“Updated projections.” Emily scanned the numbers while walking, the investment was even bigger than she expected.
This wasn’t expansion money, it was takeover money.
“They’re serious about splitting the divisions,” she murmured.
“Yes.”
“And Miranda approved this?”
“No one knows.” Which meant Miranda was allowing uncertainty intentionally.
“Who’s representing communications?” she asked, though she already knew the answer in the morning, making Amari give her a look.
“You know who.” Emily hated unresolved things and Andrea Sachs had always felt unresolved. She had walked away from Runway years ago and somehow still remained tangled in its orbit. In Emily’s orbit.
The conference room doors opened ahead and there she was.
Andrea stood near the far end of the room speaking to another editor, one hand wrapped around a coffee cup, dark blazer sleeves rolled slightly upward, older now, sharper somehow. More confident in her body than she’d been years ago.
Emily noticed immediately that Andrea still talked with her hands when she got passionate about something. Some things never changed.
As though sensing her presence, Andrea looked up and froze, just slightly, but enough. The noise of the room seemed to blur strangely around them for one suspended second.
Emily had forgotten those eyes. Warm brown, intelligent. Infuriatingly expressive.
Andrea recovered first, expression smoothing carefully into professional neutrality. Emily did the same. Years of experience made both of them experts at pretending.
“Emily.”
Andrea’s voice carried easily across the room. Still low, still steady, still annoyingly capable of affecting Emily’s nervous system.
“Andrea,” Emily replied coolly.
People nearby immediately started pretending not to listen.
Andrea stepped closer slowly.
“You look well.”
Emily almost laughed at the sheer audacity of that statement considering she’d slept four hours.
“So do you,” Emily said instead and Andrea’s mouth twitched faintly dangerously
For one terrible moment, Emily became aware of everything at once:
Andrea’s perfume, the tension in the room, the fact that Andrea was standing too close and the memory of a hundred unfinished conversations between them.
Then Miranda Priestly entered the room, and the atmosphere changed instantly, silence spread like a blade. Miranda moved toward the head of the table with impossible elegance, silver hair immaculate, expression unreadable.
Everyone sat immediately. Emily took one side of the table, Andrea took the other.
Miranda folded her hands calmly.
“I assume,” she began smoothly, “that all of you have heard the rumors by now.”
No one answered and Miranda’s gaze swept across the room.
“The Elias Foundation has offered Runway a substantial investment opportunity. Enough to expand this company globally beyond anything we’ve previously attempted.”
A screen behind her illuminated with projections. Numbers, growth charts, expansion models. Power.
“The foundation,” Miranda continued, “has made one condition clear. They will fully fund only one primary division.” Silence deepened.
“Fashion and luxury media,” Miranda said, glancing briefly toward Emily, “or communications and journalistic expansion.”
Her eyes shifted toward Andrea adn there it was, the line drawn directly between them.
Emily leaned back slightly in her chair adn Andrea crossed one leg over the other. Neither looked away.
“The board,” Miranda said calmly, “expects proposals from both divisions within six weeks.” Jesus.
“Convince them,” Miranda finished, “that your vision is the future of Runway.”
And just like that, war officially began. Around the table, people immediately started calculating alliances, opportunities, risks. Emily barely noticed any of them because Andrea was looking directly at her now. Not hostile, not friendly either, something sharper than that. Challenge.
Emily felt her pulse quicken slightly. Andrea gave the faintest smile.
Small.
Dangerous.
Infuriating.
Let the games begin.