Chapter Text
November
Miranda woke up warm. That was her first warning.
There was no reason for her to feel warm in the mornings—not in that bed, not in that room, not in that body that had trained itself for movement before feeling. She was not a woman who luxuriated.
But that morning?
She lay still.
There was sunlight on her cheek.
She didn’t know where her phone was—and, curiously, she didn’t care.
Miranda exhaled. Slowly. Her limbs felt loose beneath soft white sheets. She turned her head and saw Andrea—barefoot, in a worn gray pajama top, hair mussed and lips parted in a smile that Miranda had never seen in the office, nor in Paris.
Andrea walked into the bedroom with a small espresso cup. She placed it gently on the bedside table. She didn’t say anything. She didn’t need to.
Miranda knew she would come back to bed.
She always did.
And then Miranda woke up.
The sunlight had been fake. Only her dream. Outside, Manhattan stirred under November’s cold air. There was no breeze. No espresso. No Andrea.
Just the faint sound of the girls moving around downstairs and the sharp pang of grief in her throat that made absolutely no sense.
Her alarm hadn’t gone off. Her phone was on the floor. She had slept through it.
“Christ,” she whispered, and sat up.
She stared at the ceiling before bracing herself for the day.
“Morning, Mom,” Caroline said as Miranda walked into the kitchen, fully dressed, makeup flawless.
Cassidy eyed her warily from the breakfast bar but looked quickly back down at her phone.
Miranda made coffee she wouldn’t drink. She sliced into a grapefruit she didn’t want.
She had waited—almost clinically—for a sign of grief in them. A tantrum. A sulk. A question.
But the girls, like always, had adapted before she did.
They had folded the loss into their lives with startling ease. They didn’t miss him.
Miranda didn’t know if she was proud or disturbed.
Later, in the car, she stared at her reflection in the black glass of the window.
Andrea’s face flickered behind her eyes.
She shook it off.
At Runway, Miranda stormed into the office like nothing had happened.
Emily had spoken to her at the elevator, rattling off appointments. Miranda nodded, sharp and distracted.
She didn’t remember what half the meetings were about.
The dream was still there. She could feel it in her chest like a memory that wanted to be real.
She sat down at her desk and opened her email.
There was a pitch from editorial. A color story waiting for approval. A calendar notice for yet another dinner with a potential Art Director candidate.
She deleted it.
Then restored it from the trash.
Then stared at it.
Her fingers hovered over the keys.
And then she opened her phone.
Andrea’s number was still there.
Miranda locked the screen.
She did what she always did: she went home. She had dinner with her daughters. She reviewed the Book.
And when she settled in for the night, it took longer than usual to fall asleep.
She dreamed it again.
This time, the villa was brighter. The sheets smelled like citrus and Andrea’s skin.
Andrea brought the coffee. She smiled.
Miranda reached for her hand.
And woke up.
She swore she could still feel the sunlight on her face. She tried to enjoy the feeling until her alarm cut through it.
She hadn’t felt lonely in years. Not even when Stephen left.
But now?
Now, there was something missing, and she couldn’t stop picturing a cup of coffee sitting untouched on a nightstand that didn’t exist.
That weekend, the girls were at a friend’s house. Miranda woke early and made her own espresso.
It tasted wrong.
She sat in the library, trying to read the newspaper, but she couldn’t finish a single article.
Andrea’s voice was in her head—not speaking, just… narrating. Laughing. Asking.
That night, she dreamed again.
This time, Andrea climbed back into bed.
Miranda woke with a gasp.
The sheets were damp. Her hands were clenched.
She lay back, staring at the ceiling.
And then, to no one, barely above a breath, she said it aloud:
“Oh, I miss Andrea Sachs.”
Before the girls came home, Miranda googled The Mirror.
She found her byline. Not under fashion.
Under culture.
She read four pieces before realizing she was crying.
She missed Andrea. She thought she had to test the fact.
She opened Andrea’s contact again.
She typed:
“I dream about you.”
Then deleted it.
The Week After
She told Nigel she was canceling the candidate interviews.
He eyed her. “And?”
“And I’ll talk to Emily next week.”
Nigel smiled.
“I’ll prepare her.”
Miranda wanted to ask if Andrea had been in contact with him. If he knew where she’d gone. Who she was seeing.
But she didn’t ask.
Because she wasn’t sure she was ready to hear the answer.
The dreams came every night, now.
Sometimes it was the villa.
Sometimes it was her own bedroom.
Sometimes Andrea was reading in bed.
Sometimes she was curled under the sheets, humming.
But always—always—she looked at Miranda like she was precious.
And always, Miranda woke up just before Andrea touched her.
One night, she whispered:
“Stay,”
In her sleep.
She woke up with a hand outstretched toward nothing.
December
The house was warm and bright, and yet Miranda felt a chill beneath her skin.
She hovered in the doorway of Caroline and Cassidy’s shared room, watching them pack in their pajamas. Cassidy folding jeans with absent-minded efficiency, Caroline stuffing socks into a corner of her suitcase like she was solving a spatial equation.
Miranda couldn’t help herself. She stepped in.
“You’ve packed your chargers, haven’t you?”
Cassidy rolled her eyes with affection. “Yes, Mom.”
“And your allergy meds?”
“They’re in my bag, I swear,” Caroline said, stretching dramatically.
“And your gloves? The weather’s supposed to drop—”
“Yes, Mom.”
Miranda crossed her arms, but didn’t leave.
Tomorrow morning, a black car would pull up at 8:00 a.m. sharp and take her daughters away—for an entire month.
Caroline zipped up her suitcase and flopped onto the bed with a satisfied sigh. “We’re packed. Officially. No more interrogations.”
Miranda raised a brow. “You’ll miss my interrogations.”
Cassidy grinned. “We already do.”
Miranda smiled, just barely, and stepped closer. She kissed Caroline on the forehead first, then Cassidy, brushing back their hair like they were still small.
“Goodnight, darlings.”
They murmured sleepy goodnights, already halfway to dreaming. Miranda lingered just a beat longer, watching their faces relax, memorizing the shape of their peace. It struck her, as it had so many times since the separation, that they were fine. That they were more than fine.
Not once had either of them asked about Stephen this week.
Not once had she caught the slightest whiff of sadness or tension or loss.
And that left her in an odd state of emotional limbo; both relieved and… unmoored.
She turned off the light, closed the door with a soft click, and made her way to her own bedroom.
She flopped onto the bed.
The sound was almost absurd in the quiet room. Not elegant. Not poised. Just a woman in her fifties collapsing face-first into a duvet because she was tired in ways she couldn’t quite articulate.
It had been a long month. A longer year.
And the dreams—God, the dreams—had been relentless.
Andrea had returned to her each night with increasing clarity. Not in her blue Runway sweaters or those tragic early skirts. But in linen. In pajamas. Barefoot. Sunlit.
Miranda groaned and rolled onto her back.
What did it say about her that she now preferred the world behind her eyelids?
That the only place she felt wanted.
Not for her power or her legacy, but for herself.
Where Andrea Sachs smiled at her like she was home?
She closed her eyes. Just for a moment.
She finds her phone and deletes Andrea’s contact.
She doesn’t cry.
She just stares at her phone like it’s betrayed her.
She turns it off.
And she dreams of Andrea.
Bringing her coffee. Climbing into bed.
This time, she wakes up with Andrea’s name in her mouth.
And says aloud:
“I miss you.”
There is no answer.
Just her own voice in the dark.
Next morning, Miranda knows she can’t put if off anymore. She had already told Nigel that she wants Emily to fill Nigel’s position.
The truth was infuriatingly simple: Emily was the right choice.
She always had been. She had the eye. She had the taste. And she had the spine. She understood beauty the way Miranda did: not as decoration, but as declaration.
Two days ago, Nigel had cornered her outside the art department and asked, with an arched brow and a pointed tone:
“Are you ever going to tell her?”
She’d pretended not to understand.
She would offer Emily the position.
And then, perhaps, she could finally stop having dinner with paper dolls and glossy frauds who claimed to understand Runway without ever having bled for it.
By the time Miranda finished delivering her morning directives to Emily.
Cover revisions, rescheduled meetings, a minor meltdown from the shoe department. She could see the familiar edge of overwhelm beginning to crack through her first assistant’s polished exterior.
And then, with no change in tone, no warning at all, Miranda added, “You’ll have lunch with me today.”
Emily blinked.
“I—yes, of course.”
She didn’t ask why. She didn’t dare. But Miranda could see her mind working, a thousand possibilities blooming and dying behind her eyes.
Miranda turned away, already done with the conversation. “You’ll need to make a reservation somewhere appropriate.”
It was one of those places that required a phone call before the day even began—a high-ceilinged Italian restaurant in Tribeca, with pale oak walls and quiet servers in all black. Miranda had been here before. Emily, she suspected, had not.
She noticed how Emily kept fidgeting in the dar.
Nerves.
Miranda didn’t have the energy to reassure her. She had put out more fires this morning than she cared to count. An intern accident with irreplaceable Valentino pieces, a reshoot rescheduling war between stylists, and an exhausting back-and-forth with an advertiser who still didn’t understand the difference between editorial and promotional.
Now, she simply wanted this conversation over with.
Once they were seated, menus untouched, Miranda looked across the table and said, as if commenting on the weather:
“All the other candidates got a dinner on Runway’s dime. You, at least, deserve a lunch.”
Emily blinked.
Twice.
Her lips parted, confused, but she didn’t speak.
Miranda leaned back in her chair, one hand resting elegantly on the tablecloth.
“There is no one more suitable than you, Emily.”
Emily froze.
Miranda continued, calmly, her voice deceptively casual:
“You already know how Runway functions. You’ve survived it, adapted to it, and more importantly, you still care about the work. You have a vision. A language. A point of view. And you understand that beauty isn't whimsy, it's discipline.”
Emily was staring now, her throat working around a response that wouldn’t form.
“I’ve had dinner with six candidates. Three of them couldn’t stop talking about themselves. Two tried to flatter me. One called Balenciaga ‘sleepy.’” Miranda gave a small scoff. “None of them have your spine.”
There was silence.
And then Miranda added, her tone softening, just enough—
“You respect me. Not the name. Not the brand. Me. And that, I do not take lightly.”
Emily’s eyes were shining. She looked down, swallowed hard. Miranda saw her fingers clutch the napkin in her lap to keep from doing something as foolish as crying.
“I believe you’ll be an excellent Art Director,” Miranda said, plainly. “And I wanted you to hear that from me.”
Emily looked up again. “Miranda, I… I don’t even know what to say. I—thank you.”
“You’ll say yes,” Miranda said, taking a sip of her water. “And you’ll begin shadowing Nigel next week.”
Emily nodded furiously. “Yes. Of course. Yes.”
They both paused. And for a moment, something warm passed between them.
Then Miranda added, with the faintest trace of a smirk:
“Please ensure your second assistant is trained well enough not to cry when I raise an eyebrow. I have no patience for two incompetents.”
Emily let out a breathless laugh. “I’ll break her in.”
Miranda lifted her wine glass in acknowledgment.
It was done.