Chapter 5 - The Tribute She Never Approved

The draft statement arrived at seven the following morning. It described Isabelle as my inspiration, my guiding presence, the woman whose quiet sacrifices had helped create the Laurent empire. It ended by promising a celebration of our shared legacy. The language was elegant. It was also another attempt to turn her life into a version of my story.

I asked Helena who had approved the release. Nobody had. Our communications director had prepared it in anticipation of questions from sponsors. A journalist had already heard that the retrospective was delayed, and someone had described the review as a personal project undertaken after my wife left.

"We need to contain the rumors," Helena said.

"Then begin by refusing to turn Isabelle into a rumor ourselves."

I told the team to withdraw the statement and send no account of her private life to anyone. There was a difference between correcting the public record of our designs and explaining a marriage the public had no right to examine. I had confused those boundaries for years. I wasn't going to cross them again because a marketing department found it convenient.

The board called an emergency meeting. Several directors worried that the retrospective's sponsors would withdraw. One questioned why an independent review was necessary when the clothes had been sold under the Laurent name for so long. I understood the concern. Our decisions affected employees who had done nothing wrong. But their work deserved a company willing to keep honest records.

"If the attribution is accurate," I told the board, "the review will confirm it. If it isn't, hiding the problem doesn't make it accurate."

I did not tell them about Isabelle's surgery. I did not describe the envelope or the seven boxes. Those were things she had trusted me to see, not assets the company could use to create sympathy for its founder.

By noon, a reporter had contacted Isabelle's workroom asking whether she wished to comment on the planned tribute. She forwarded the email to her lawyer, who sent it to mine with a short instruction: no public statements on Isabelle's behalf without her written consent.

I read the note twice. She was no longer asking me to understand how she'd been hurt. She was setting a boundary designed to prevent it from happening again.

"Tell them we agree," I said.

The next difficult conversation was with Camille.

She had not appeared at the mansion since the days after I discovered Isabelle's farewell video. Our relationship had ended when I recognized that I could no longer sustain it without lying to myself about what I had done. But Camille remained associated with the brand through modeling work arranged before the affair became known to our colleagues.

She came to my office wearing a coat from our current collection and carrying a folder of styling photographs. I had expected anger. What I saw was a woman trying to understand why her career had suddenly become entangled with decisions I had concealed from everyone.

"They're removing the dress from the retrospective," she said.

"Yes."

"You told me I was authorized to wear it."

"I did."

Camille's expression hardened. "Then don't let anyone suggest I took it without permission."

She was right. She had known about my marriage. She had accepted the affair. But I had been the one who controlled the garment, decided to offer it, and then lied to Isabelle about where it had gone. I wasn't entitled to shift that particular responsibility onto Camille because doing so would make my explanation easier.

"You won't be blamed for taking it," I said. "I authorized it. I shouldn't have."

She studied me. "And what happens to me?"

We agreed that future campaigns involving her would be reviewed according to her existing contracts, not settled in anger. There would be no public punishment staged to prove I had become virtuous. Camille and I had made choices we could no longer disguise, but her professional work was not a prop in my apology to Isabelle.

The conversation ended without forgiveness. I didn't expect it. I had spent nine months creating a relationship that relied on secrecy and then acted surprised when honesty made it uncomfortable.

That evening, Helena brought me a revised plan for the retrospective. It would show how designs moved from initial sketches to finished garments. Every documented collaborator would be credited. Missing or disputed attributions would remain out of the exhibition until the review was complete. The plan was less theatrical than the original proposal, and far more complicated to execute.

"There is still a problem," Helena said. "Your name has always been the center of the story. Some sponsors paid for that story."

I looked at the photograph on the binder's cover. It showed a young version of me standing beside an early coat, looking certain of what I had accomplished. Isabelle was outside the frame. Yet the coat's interior structure had been made possible by her hand.

"Then we'll give them the real story," I said. "If they don't want it, they can decide whether to stay."

I expected satisfaction from finally taking a stand. Instead, I felt the weight of how late it had come.

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Before leaving, Helena placed one last document on my desk. It was an old production memo from the year the coat first appeared. My own initials approved the final credit line: Gabriel Laurent, design and construction. The handwriting beside the technical changes belonged to Isabelle, but her name was nowhere in the final entry.

I had not merely overlooked the omission. I had signed the page that made it official.