They Gave My Sister My Name, So I Took It Back

Chapter 1

My mother cut my name out of the gown I designed. She stitched my twin sister's name in its place. Then she zipped Sienna into it. Three hundred guests raised their champagne. And my father handed her the company I had kept alive. "Ladies and gentlemen," Dad said into the microphone, beaming under the Plaza's chandeliers. "Please welcome the new Creative Director of Ashford House—my daughter, Sienna Ashford." The applause was deafening. I stood near the back, holding a clipboard, because someone had to make sure the models hit their marks. The ivory silk gown on Sienna's body had taken me four months. Every pleat, every hand-rolled hem. Three days ago, the label inside had read Wren Ashford in gold thread. I'd watched Mom pick it out with a seam ripper. Slowly. Carefully. She hadn't forgotten whose dress it was. She just erased me with her own hands. My brother Grant came down from the stage and held out his palm. "The key." I didn't move. It was my grandmother's brass atelier key. Eleanor Ashford founded this house with one sewing machine and that key. Before she died, she pressed it into my hand and said, You have the gift, sweetheart. Don't let anyone talk you out of it. For seven years, I'd designed every Ashford collection. Every bestseller. Every red carpet look. Sienna couldn't sketch a sleeve. "The key belongs to the person who actually designs," I said, looking at Dad. "Sienna doesn't." Sienna bit her glossy lip. Her voice came out sweet as syrup. "Wren, I'll only hold it for tonight. For the photos. After that, I'll lend it right back." She tilted her head, like she was being generous. "You'll still do all the collections, of course." I almost laughed. "My key. Given to you. Then lent back to me?" Her eyes filled instantly. "I'm just keeping it safe for you. I'd never take something that's really yours." She was wearing my dress. Holding my title. And still waiting for me to thank her. Grant sighed, grabbed my wrist, and pried the key out of my fingers. "It's a photo op, Wren. Stop making it weird." He walked it back up and pressed it into Sienna's hand. She glowed at him through her tears. The crowd whispered around me. "She's had migraines for years from working all night, poor thing." "A natural talent. You can just tell." "Of course it's Sienna. Look at her. She is the brand." My nails dug into my palms. Mom slid beside me, smiling for the cameras. Her lips barely moved. "It's Sienna's night. Fix your face. This is for the Ashford name." Dad leaned in and nodded like she'd said something profound. "Sienna's too delicate for deadlines, Wren. She'll be the face. You'll keep designing in the back. That's how it works best." Sienna's too delicate. I was eleven minutes older than her. When we were nine, Sienna wanted my bedroom with the window seat. Mom said give it up. When I was seventeen, I got into Central Saint Martins in London. Dad said the family needed me home. Sienna went instead—and dropped out after one semester. That same year, I started designing for Ashford. No salary. No credit. "Family helps family," Dad said. "When you turn twenty-five, the Madison Avenue flagship is yours. I promise." I turned twenty-five last month. Nobody remembered. Now Mom was gazing at Sienna like she'd hung the moon. Dad was already signaling the photographer. No one asked me anything. They assumed I'd keep carrying her. Like I always had. My voice cut straight through the music. "I'm done designing for Ashford." The room went silent. Dad's face turned to stone. He walked toward me slowly, the way he did when I was a child and about to be punished. "Excuse me?" "No key. No title. No more collections with her name on them." "You don't get to quit your family." "I built this collection." We stared each other down. Mom rushed between us, her smile cracking at the edges. "Not tonight. We'll discuss this at home. Smile, both of you." The band started again. The spotlight swung back to Sienna. She twirled in my dress, and the room exploded in applause. That night, I didn't go home. I sat in a twenty-four-hour diner with my phone and a business card I'd kept for three years. The name on it belonged to the most powerful man in European fashion. I typed one sentence. "Does Maison Vale hire designers with no name?"

Chapter 2

Three days later, Lucien Vale walked into Ashford House. The CEO of Maison Vale—the oldest couture house in Paris—didn't visit companies. Companies flew to him. Ashford had been begging for a collaboration with Vale for two years. Dad had the entire staff lined up in the lobby like a royal welcome. Sienna stood at the front in a cream suit I'd designed, the brass key hanging around her neck on a gold chain. Her blowout was perfect. She looked born for it. I stood at the back, behind the interns. The elevator opened. Lucien stepped out—tall, dark-haired, charcoal coat, the kind of stillness that made a room rearrange itself around him. Dad shook his hand first. Then Mom. Then Grant. Lucien's gray eyes swept the line. Passed right over Sienna. Landed on me. "Wren." His voice was low, warm. "It's been a while." Every head turned. Three years ago, I'd been in Paris for Fashion Week, an unpaid assistant for Ashford's tiny showroom. Backstage at Vale's show, their closing gown had caught on a rack and ripped from hip to hem—eight minutes before the finale. The seamstresses panicked. I didn't. I rebuilt the skirt with a curtain lining and forty safety pins. The model walked. The press called it "Vale's daring new deconstruction." Lucien had watched me do it from the doorway. Now he looked at the key around Sienna's neck. Something in his jaw tightened. "Ashford's best designer is standing at the back of the room," he said. "Why is that?" Dad laughed too loudly. "Mr. Vale, Sienna is our creative visionary. Wren handles… technical support." "Sienna's been carrying this house for years," Mom added quickly. "Wren just helps occasionally." Grant puffed out his chest. "Sienna works through the night. She's had to see doctors for exhaustion. She never complains." The lies stacked up, one on top of another, until I could barely breathe. Sienna had been to the atelier maybe twelve times in seven years. She cried the first time she pricked her finger with a pin. She called pattern-cutting "math for poor people." If Lucien asked her to sketch a single dress right now, the whole thing would fall apart. But this was my family. This was Grandma's house. I kept my mouth shut. Lucien studied Sienna for a long moment. Said nothing. Then he walked straight through the line of employees and stopped in front of me. "I got your message," he said. "Here's my answer." The lobby went dead quiet. "At Vale, we don't care whose daughter you are. We care what your hands can do." He leaned down, close to my ear. He smelled like cedar and rain. "The spring collection. The bias-cut slip dresses. That's the same hand that saved my show." His voice dropped. "I know exactly who designs for this house, Wren. There's a place for you in Paris. There always was." My eyes burned without warning. He straightened. "Take a few days. But remember—a woman who won't choose herself will always be chosen for." He left before lunch. His words sat in my chest like a lit match. That evening, Sienna finally handed the key back to me in the kitchen. "Here. Like I promised." I turned it over. Engraved into the old brass, fresh and shiny, were two initials. S.A. My thumb traced the letters until the edge bit into my skin. "You engraved my grandmother's key." Mom wouldn't look at me. "The PR team said it would make a nice story. It's just two letters, Wren. It still opens the same doors." I turned to Sienna. "You think your initials belong on this?" Her eyes went red immediately. She grabbed the fabric scissors off the counter. "If it upsets you that much, I'll scratch them off." She held the blade to the brass. "Even if it ruins it. I just don't want you mad at me." The tip barely touched the metal before Mom lunged. "Don't be ridiculous! It's already in the press release!" Grant slammed his coffee down. "Sienna needs this to be taken seriously. Why does everything always have to be about you?" Always about me. I'd never once been about me. I looked at my father. "Then give me the Madison Avenue flagship. You promised it to me when I turned twenty-five." Sienna's hand flew to her necklace. "But—that's supposed to be the Creative Director's store." Dad didn't even pause. "Sienna's the future CEO. The flagship stays with her." Seven years of promises. Just words he never meant. Whatever hope I'd been holding died right there, under the kitchen lights. That night, I emailed Lucien Vale. I've decided. I'm coming to Paris.

Chapter 3

I had three days left. At five a.m., my phone exploded. Rosa, our head seamstress, was sobbing. "Wren, the shipment flooded. Vivienne Cross's gown is ruined. She lands at noon." Vivienne Cross. Oscar winner. The biggest star in Hollywood—and Ashford's most important client. Tonight she was walking the gala at the Met in our gown. If she walked in nothing from Ashford, the contract was gone. And so were the jobs of two hundred seamstresses. By six, my whole family was in the atelier staring at a heap of water-stained silk. Everyone looked at Sienna. She went white. Took half a step back. Then all of them—Dad, Mom, Grant—slid their eyes past her and onto me. "Wren," Mom said softly. "Rebuild it." I crossed my arms. "Sienna's the Creative Director. Shouldn't she?" Grant grabbed my elbow and pulled me into the fabric storage room. The others followed. "This isn't the time for your little protest! You're the only one who can do this!" Dad's voice was flat and cold. "You're an Ashford. You protect this house. Non-negotiable." Funny. The title was Sienna's. The applause was Sienna's. But the moment something broke, it was mine again. Mom took my hand, gentle as a lullaby. "We know you've been hurt, sweetheart. After tonight, we'll make it up to you." A pause. "Not the flagship, of course. But something." Make it up to me. When I lost my bedroom, she promised a trip to Paris. Never happened. When Grant gave Sienna the pearl earrings Grandma left me, he said he'd buy me new ones. Never happened. When I gave up London, Dad promised me the flagship. "I'll do it," I said, pulling my hand back. "But tonight, you tell the press I designed this gown." Mom's face froze. Sienna was already pulling the key off her neck, tears spilling right on cue. "If it means that much to you, take it. Take everything. I'll give up being Creative Director if you'll just save us." Her fingers didn't let go of the chain. Grant snatched her hand away. "Stop it, Sienna." He turned on me with real disgust. "Sienna is the face of this brand. Without her, Ashford is nothing. You'd actually steal her moment? Do you even care about this family anymore?" I laughed. Turned to leave. Rosa was standing in the doorway, sixty years old, eyes swollen. "Wren, honey," she whispered. "If we lose Vivienne, they'll cut the workroom. Half the girls have kids." I stopped. I could walk away from the Ashfords. But not from Rosa. Not from the women who taught me to thread a needle when I was six. I turned back toward the cutting table. Behind me, Mom gasped and swayed into Sienna's arms like she was fainting. Dad's voice cracked like a whip. "Security. Lock her in the atelier. She doesn't leave until it's done." I didn't even get to answer before the steel door slammed shut. I didn't sew for my father. I sewed for Rosa. Nineteen hours. No food. No breaks. Thousands of hand stitches on silk so fine it tore if you breathed wrong. My fingertips split. Blood dotted the lining, and I unpicked it and started again. Around hour sixteen, my right hand started going numb. I sewed with it anyway. At 6:40 p.m., I set the final bead. Then the floor came up and hit me. I don't know how long I lay there. No one came. No one checked. When I finally dragged myself up and stumbled into the hallway, the office TVs were blaring. Vivienne Cross on the red carpet. My gown flowing behind her like liquid moonlight. The reporter shouted, "Who are you wearing?" Vivienne smiled. "Ashford—Sienna Ashford. She stayed up all night for me. She's a genius." Sienna's Instagram post already had two million likes. Blood, sweat, and love, the caption read. At the after-party in our lobby, a reporter turned to me. "You work here? What was it like watching Sienna create—" "I'm the one who—" A hand clamped over my mouth. Yanked me behind a column. Mom. Her voice was ice. "This is Sienna's moment. Don't you dare take it from her." Dad passed by without stopping. "A few headlines. And you still can't see the bigger picture?" I looked at them. No anger left. Just empty. Three more days. They didn't need to know. They didn't deserve to.