Page 5 of The Russian's Revenge Bride

I rubbed my temples, feeling the familiar throb of a headache building behind my eyes. The stress was eating me alive from the inside out, but I couldn’t stop. Couldn’t slow down. Not when everything I’d worked for was riding on this one moment.

“Just tell me about the seating arrangements,” I said, reaching for my coffee again. It had gone cold, but I drank it anyway. Caffeine was caffeine.

Zara sighed and pulled out her tablet, swiping through what looked like a complex seating chart. “Okay, front row. We’ve got Anna Wintour confirmed, which is huge. Suzy Menkes, obviously. The entire Vogue team, Harper’s Bazaar, Elle. The influencers are trickier.”

She started rattling off names, and I tried to focus, but the words seemed to bounce off my skull without sticking. Influencers with millions of followers who could make or break a career with a single Instagram post. Fashion editors who could launch you into the stratosphere or bury you so deep you’d never dig yourself out.

“Are you listening to me?” Zara’s voice cut through my mental fog.

“Yeah, sorry. Just thinking.” I forced myself to focus on her face, on the slight crease between her perfectly sculpted eyebrows that meant she was worried. “Continue.”

“Eleanor, I need you to understand something.” Her voice was softer now, less PR professional and more best friend. “This show is either going to crown you as fashion royalty, or it’s going to destroy everything you’ve built. There’s no middle ground here.”

I knew that. God, did I know that. The fashion industry didn’t believe in participation trophies or second chances. You either won everything, or you lost it all, and the wolves were always circling, waiting for you to stumble.

“I can handle the pressure,” I said, but even I could hear how hollow the words sounded.

“Can you? Because right now, you look like you’re about to collapse, and if you pass out during your own show, all the positive PR in the world won’t save you.”

My phone buzzed on the desk, the screen lighting up with an incoming call. Mom. Of course. I stared at the screen, watching it ring, knowing exactly what would happen if I ignored it.

“You going to answer that?” Zara asked.

“If I don’t, she’ll drive down here and drag me out of this office by my hair.” I swiped to accept the call. “Hi, Mom.”

“Eleanor Grace Beaumont, where the hell are you?” Ruth’s voice came through the speaker crystal clear, that particular tone that meant I was in trouble. It was the same voice she’d used when I was sixteen and decided to skip AP Calculus to hang out at the mall.

“I’m at the studio, Mom. Working.”

“It’s seven o’clock on a Thursday night. Normal people are home eating dinner with their families.”

“We’re not exactly a normal family.” The words slipped out before I could stop them, and I immediately regretted the sharpness in my voice. Zara raised an eyebrow but didn’t comment.

There was a pause on the other end, and when Mom spoke again, her voice was gentler. “Honey, when’s the last time you came home? Had a real meal? Slept in an actual bed?”

“I’m fine, Mom. Really.” I wasn’t fine. I was the opposite of fine. But admitting that felt like admitting defeat, and I wasn’t ready to wave the white flag yet.

“You’re not fine. You’re exhausted and stressed and probably living on nothing but coffee and stubbornness.” She knew me too well. “I’m worried about you.”

At least someone was. Dad probably hadn’t even noticed I’d been gone. He was too busy with his construction empire, building his legacy one concrete foundation at a time. I could disappear for a month, and he wouldn’t bat an eye, as long as his morning paper was still delivered and his coffee remained hot.

“The show is in three days,” I said. “After that, I’ll sleep for a week. I promise.”

“Eleanor—”

“Mom, I have to go. Zara’s giving me the death stare, which means we have work to do.”

That was only partly true. Zara was giving me a look, but it was more that of a concerned friend than a demanding business partner.

“Just…take care of yourself, okay? You’re all I’ve got.”

The line went dead, and I stared at the phone for a moment. Mom was the only one who worried about me, the only one who cared if I ate or slept or remembered to be human. Dad loved me in his own distant way, I think, but love and attention were different things entirely in the Beaumont household.

“Your mom?” Zara asked.

“Yeah. She thinks I’m going to collapse from exhaustion.”

“She might be right.”