Chapter 3

Krystal, if being honest, is dreading for whatever may happen today. She woken up with a sigh, has spent her remaining time staring at the ceiling, and thinking if meeting the CEO first is better than meeting Suzy's manager beforehand.

Just like how she works her way with her creations, weaving and beads in detail and exact place to button them down, her mind is also working in jumble like usual. She thinks about the consequences, the effect it will have if she meets them individually first.

If she happens to meet Christian first, with the CEO promising that he would be bringing his fiancé, then there's a big chance that all would be better than yesterday. Because she has an impression that whoever gets to deal with Christian Giannini probably has the patience of a kindergarten teacher, right? And if everything goes well, that means Krystal will be possibly in good mood and that will be also good if Suzy's manager are to visit the headquarter this week.

But if the meeting with Giannini wind up going south, then that means it might ruin her mood. And Krystal in bad mood means bad. It's not like she lashes out like the rumor Anny Autumn has, though she thinks the rumor is a hoax. Anny Autumn is as quiet as a statue. The point is, Krystal doesn't take her negative mood to her team and crew. Instead, she'll get all worked up and always end up working herself to the roof just to set the negative mood aside because what would be effective enough to erase bad mood if not fashion? So Krystal does that. Like always. Whenever she feels like slipping to hell hole after a bad day.

And a bad day means Krystal in hell hole, and she can't meet Suzy's manager in that state. She'll end up just staring and blurting halfhearted responses and that will ruin her chance to get Suzy a contract. Even if she'll only talk to the manager about the audition, Krystal has a mind to accept Suzy because not only is she chick that actually fits to her new February Cruise collection, Suzy is also nice and genuinely wants to work with her. So that's a plus in her book.

Contrary to popular belief, Krystal is not that well liked by most models. Be it because of her family background or because she's as blunt as a curious toddler, or maybe both. But the point is she's not a sunshine in the field despite her easy going nature and how she likes to treat her co-workers –if she likes them enough like how she likes George and Sarah and maybe even Dalia– very well like friends.

It's also the reason why her cousins want to work with her. Because Krystal doesn't spout sugar cloud cotton candied words just to appease people. If she likes you then that's on you being good at something.

Let's just say Krystal's approval can feed a person's ego and self steem that lasts for weeks, if not months.

So Krystal knows she's somehow the hot stuff, personality wise. Just like Sarah always tell her.

She just hope nothing goes wrong this day because she doesn't want to mess up the chance with Suzy being on her modelling team this coming cruise. The model is also popular enough that she can be Krystal's next ambassador, if her cousin Bella happens to sign a contract with other brand, that is.

When Krystal steps inside the lobby, her block heels stomping on the tiled floor and her khaki coat on her forearm, the space is bustling with staffs and people. A group of crew wheeling a rack –where the last Fashion Week clothes she made are hanging– greet her as she checks the clothes, leaning forward. She's walking forward with the crew still pushing the wheeled rack, her eyes checking on the satin button ups and frowns when she sees a button missing on one of the sleeve cuffs. She takes the limp sleeve cuff in her hand, checking for damage. She always make sure her creation are sturdy and can stand harsh pulling, so a missing button is a raised red flag to her.

"What happened to this?" she asks to particularly no one.

Bless Krystal's HR department for hiring not only efficient employees and interns, but also communication wise who don't fumble.

"These clothes were used during the Fashion Week," one of the crew answers for her.

Krystal nods in understanding. Fashion Week is as hectic as a computer system. If you think a person being pampered by 15 people at once is impossible, you would not believe that at least 3 hair stylists, 3 attire stylists, 7 make up artists, and a bunch of assistants no less than 7 hovering around ready to hand out whatever is needed are readying one model. One model. And that means organized chaos.

Attire damage is frequent at that, and most of the time the attire stylists has to modify a dress just to hide some bunch of lints and some torn straps that was accidentally pulled during rush preparation, and it happens. All the time.

Krystal gets that. So she nods and speaks.

"Where are you taking them?"

Again, thanks to her HR team and someone immediately answers, "To the repair department."

Krystal clicks her tongue and walk straight to the storage elevator, not the usual elevator. She decides to ride the elevator for storage so she can talk to the crew.

The crew pushes the wheeled rack inside the elevator with a series of thanks yous to Krystal –for doing something bare minimum, a human decency act like pushing elevator buttons– and enter the elevator while Krystal enters last.

She punches the number 5 button lightly. Repair department is in floor 3. Behind her, the crew exchange looks and Krystal ignores the reflection on the slevator wall.

"Send them to art department. I'll check on them later. Anyone has scissor in you?"

Perhaps, it's not just the HR department that she has to be grateful for, for one of the crew actually has a scissor in her and Krystal even sees a pin cushion bracelet on the wrist that hands her the scissor, and Krystal asks for the name before she forgets.

"What's your name?" she asks as she swipes the rack with her hand and pulls a deep green satin halter top. She leans down a little to reach the hem, and raises the hem to eye level and cuts a piece on the dress.

"Millie, Miss Hugace," the efficient –Millie, it is– answers. Krystal hands her the scissor without looking at them.

"Send your profile to Desmond. You know him, right? Head art director? Tell him I want you in my demonstration team. I'm expecting your profile before this day ends."

She doesn't wait for the crew's answer as the elevator stops in fifth floor where art department is. She waves them off and they bow again with series of greeting like have a good days and such. Millie sends her a beam and that's the last thing she sees before the elevator closes again. Krystal punches the ground floor button, where her demonstration office is where at, and enters the department with ease. Sarah is immediately on her side, taking her coat from her forearm gingerly and Krystal sends her assistant a grateful smile before she walks over Dalia, who is talking to one of Krystal's office staff.

When her assistant designer sees him, Dalia raises a hand gracefully in front of the face of the person she's talking to, and meets Krystal halfway.

Dalia is smirking at her. Not a good sign.

"Heard about the commotion yesterday. You meeting the infamous CEO later? I can't believe he's getting married. I just bought a magazine with his face plastered on a full page saying he wants to die with no responsibility. How night changes."

"We really need to print a lot of non disclosure agreement if I happen to work for them," she replies with a grimace and pushes the piece of deep green satin she cut from the dress earlier. "Remember the chiffon halter top we made last spring season? The watermelon print one? Try to remake that one with this kind of satin. No due date. Just wanna see if it'll work."

Dalia rolls her eyes but nods. "I'll tell the interns."

Krystal salutes and enters the demonstration office. Her beloved couch welcomes her and Krystal can't be happier.

"Good morning."

She sees Sarah entering her office with a large paper cup of coffee. And a piece of croissant. Krystal thinks she's in heaven and Sarah may be the kindest angel she ever met.

"Do you need a raise? I think you really deserve another raise."

Sarah grins at her slightly. "That would be appreciated, but I'm more interested with the gifts you'll get on February Cruise. I accept luxury fashion bags instead of raise."

Krystal nods lazily. "Noted."

The day's remotedly fine, the hours before lunch is spent Dalia opening and closing Krystal's demo office to ask questions about the size and length and what type of dress and if the bottom should be frilly or pencil cut. Her assistant designer is not being subtle at all.

As the lunch rolls by, Dalia is more frequent now. Krystal can count to three minutes and her assistant designer would burst into her office and goes out disappointed. Krystal wants to strangle the woman for being gossip hungry.

When the woman comes back for the 21st time in her office, and with Desmond now in tow, she can feel her eyelids twitching.

"Desmond's sending you the crew's profile. What's with it?" Dalia asks and looks too happy spending more time in her office when Krystal can clearly remember that one time Dalia has said that the only acceptable office in the headquarter is Krystal's main office at the 15th floor, which she only use on special occasion like meeting with personal and special clients.

Krystal rolls her eyes. "Yeah, that's about it. And it doesn't concern you, actually. So can you like, please, stop being bad at being discrete at all because it's not working. And I'm not even sure if that Christian Giannini is serious about his proclaim or something."

"He must be. It's his reputation on the line, must I remind you. And remember non disclosure agreement? Even if he was spouting hoax stuff –which I doubt– then he at least need to make us agree or some sort, right?"

Krystal won't admit that Dalia actually makes sense. She just won't.

"Still doesn't concern you. So go back to training the interns And I have something to talk about with Desmond. Go."

Dalia opens her mouth and about to spout another series of words that would probably end up as another attempt to prolong her visit when Sarah knocks on open door of the office.

Krystal turns to her personal assistant with a frown and a question on the tip of her tongue, but bites her words when she notices the alert look on Sarah's eyes.

"Mr. Giannini and his partner is here, Miss Hugace," Sarah states in her professional tone, very reserved to when she's in work mode. Krystal sees Desmond, the head of art directors sending her a raised brow in amusement before taking that as his cue to leave. Sarah gives Desmond a look which the latter understand.

They will need to put the crew's transferal in another time. This one's urgent and a potential client. Dalia understands that, too. Apparently, Krystal's HR team is really good if they hired Dalia at the first place. Krystal would feel betrayed if her assistant designer would jump at the first sight of bone of gossip material.

Dalia is proven matured and professional when she stands up, but not without a smirk, and saunters towards the office's entrance where Sarah is still leaning on the door to keep it open.

"Should we go to your main office?"

Krystal doesn't need to think about Sarah's question. Without a word and not looking, she nods. Krystal stands up from her position on the couch and strides outside of the office.

And there, she sees Christian Giannini. Krystal immediately wants to snort at what she sees.

See, Krystal here has never been a fan of Bearcherry, despite the brand's main color which is tanned brown –one of Krystal's favorite color– but the basic striped pattern is ugly, in her own opinion. Bearcherry never bothered to change designs, and they've been alive since 1970's. Still, in those decades, Krystal never seen a change of product design. All of their products always do have the striped lines, and it's annoying and not appealing at all. Even Louie's pattern is less annoying, and Krystal hates Louie to the marrows of her bones and her every fiber.

Christian Giannini is wearing a Bearcherry shirt and a pair of faded blue jeans. He has a pair of Friar sneakers, which he clearly decided to murder for the sneakers are being wore like slippers. Like slides. Krystal wants to scream in frustration.

With him, a woman in vintage Cocha tweed pair of top and skirt is standing. An Ivy Lauren bag in her forearm as she looks around the place in wonder.

Now, Krystal is not a professional medic and never been a part of it. She doesn't even know basic first aid, despite Dalia's constant annoyance to her consists of weird science and medical trivias. Do you know that seahorse mates for life? And that octopuses explode their sick after mating? Wait, does Krystal remember that alright? She guess not.

But if there's one thing Krystal is expert in terms of anatomy, is she has spent all her life touching bodies of models. From her apprenticeship at Milan and her internship with Martha Leatherfern, Krystal has seen a lot of body. All body types. And all types of shape to know if a women is just bloated or swollen from carbs. Or if they're pregnant and needed to be replaced –it's not common, but has happened a few times, and Krystal always sends her apology though it's not her fault the models got pregnant– still.

So Krystal, with just one look on the flat stomach but a bit of bulging on lower belly, she guesses that the fiancé is pregnant. And the wedding is not announced to the world?

Krystal can already hear Dalia making assumptions like if it's shotgun wedding but really, it's not one's business but the couple's.

So Krystal knows the fiancé is probably pregnant. But the realization suddenly hits Krystal and she pinches the bridge of her nose.

Right. The CEO forgot to mention to her that she's pregnant. And that's a whole ass difficult case of a client. For the designer, to be honest.

Krystal would need to start by expecting what the fiancé's body would be like pregnant by the wedding's time, but Krystal is no seer, she doesn't have the ability to know how fat the woman would get around the wedding time.

Pregnant client has always been the hardest part to deal with, or so she heard from other designers. Lots of trials and errors. A lot of work. But Krystal is not complaining. It's her job to actually make that possible.

Krystal tries to hide her grimace and gives the couple a business smile.

The woman, the pregnant one, beams upon seeing Krystal. The looks in her eyes are imploring, imposing and poking, as if she knows something Krystal work so hard for to keep. But that's very possible. Krystal is an open book with her creations, her babies, her loved ones.

But there's also familiarity in there. It's almost the same as.. Millie's. And Suzy's.

Oh. Great. This one's a fan. A big fan.

"Hi, miss Hugace! I'm Dolore! I'm a big fan!"

Of course, she is.

Krystal offers a smile. She hopes it at least looks less tensed.

A pregnant fiancé.

Dalia will really have a field day.