The Reborn Designer's Vow

Chapter 1

Darcy

“Just like we practiced, darling.” Julian’s voice is a low murmur against my ear, his breath smelling faintly of champagne and victory. “Keep it simple. Don’t get emotional. The press will eat that up, and we need to project strength.”

My heart hammers against my ribs, a frantic bird trying to escape its cage. The velvet box in my palm feels slick with sweat. From our position on the small, spotlit dais, the grand ballroom of the Vance family’s winter gala stretches out before me. A sea of expectant faces, glittering diamonds, and flashing camera bulbs. This is it. The moment I have orchestrated my entire life around.

“I know,” I whisper, my throat tight. The single diamond earring he gifted me for this occasion feels like a tiny, cold weight, pulling me down.

“Good girl.” He squeezes my arm, a gesture that looks like affection to the crowd but feels like a warning to me. “They’re all waiting. For you. For us. Show them how perfect we are.”

He gives me a small, proprietary push forward. The microphone stands waiting. I am supposed to step up to it, give the little speech we rehearsed for weeks, and then I am supposed to get down on one knee. An unconventional move, a woman proposing, but Julian insisted. A power play, he’d called it. A way to show the world that the Holloways were finally, formally, bending the knee to the Vances.

My gaze finds his. Julian Vance. The man I have loved since I was a girl sketching designs in my grandfather’s dusty workshop. His eyes, the color of a winter sky, are fixed on me, but they aren’t filled with love. They are filled with assessment, with calculation. He is watching a prized asset perform.

He straightens his perfectly tailored tuxedo jacket, smoothing a non-existent wrinkle from the lapel. It’s a small, vain gesture. Utterly insignificant.

But it’s the key that unlocks hell.

The world fractures. A dizzying, nauseating flood of images slams into me, so real and so violent I stumble. It is not a thought. It is a memory.

*Julian’s face, not here in the warm glow of the gala, but in the harsh fluorescent light of a lawyer’s office. His expression isn’t expectant; it’s bored, tinged with a cruel sort of pity. “Of course I’ll marry you, Darcy,” he says, his voice flat. “It’s the least I can do after your grandfather’s… misfortune. The Vance family takes care of its obligations.”*

The ballroom’s murmur fades, replaced by the sound of my own ragged breathing in a different time.

*Isabella Croft, my rival, my shadow, on the cover of ‘Vogue Jewelry,’ a smug, triumphant smile on her face. Around her neck is the ‘Star of Elysia,’ my masterpiece, the design she stole from my workshop. The headline reads: ‘Isabella Croft, The New Vance Visionary.’*

A gasp escapes my lips, but no one seems to hear it.

*A hospital room. Sterile, white, and cold. So cold. A sharp, searing pain in my abdomen. The taste of blood in my mouth. I am alone. My hand goes to my swollen belly, but there is no one to call for. Julian is in Paris with Isabella, closing a deal. He didn’t even read my messages.*

The cold of that memory is so profound it leaches the warmth from my bones right here, right now, under the hot glare of the spotlights. I feel the final, fading beat of my heart, the life seeping out of me and my unborn child, alone on a starched white sheet.

It was real. All of it. It happened.

I died.

And now I am here again. At the exact moment the gilded cage was set to snap shut.

“Darcy?” Julian’s voice cuts through the fog, sharp and impatient. “What is it? Are you ill? Don’t you dare faint. Get on with it.”

I blink, and the ballroom swims back into focus. The expectant faces. The poised photographers. The man who will be my destroyer.

The frantic bird in my chest is gone. In its place, something cold, hard, and impossibly heavy settles. Resolve. Pure and unbreakable as the diamond in his earring.

I look at him. I mean, I truly *look* at him for the first time. Not as the golden boy of my childhood dreams, but as the architect of my ruin. I see the casual cruelty in the set of his jaw, the entitlement in his perfect posture. I see the man who will watch my life’s work be stolen and call it good business. The man who will let me die for the sake of his convenience.

“The microphone, Darcy,” he hisses, his smile a tight, furious line meant only for me. “Now. Stop making a scene.”

“You’re right,” I say. My voice is shockingly clear. It doesn’t tremble. It doesn’t break. It cuts through the charged air like glass.

Julian’s irritation gives way to a flicker of confusion. This isn’t in the script.

“This has gone on long enough,” I continue, my voice gaining strength. I am not speaking to the crowd. I am speaking only to him.

I look down at the velvet box in my hand. Inside rests a platinum signet ring, engraved with the Vance family crest intertwined with the Holloway family’s artisan hammer. A symbol of union. Of submission. A collar.

With a flick of my thumb, I snap the box shut.

The click is deafening in the sudden, absolute silence of the room. Every murmur, every cough, every clink of glass has ceased. A thousand pairs of eyes are on us, sensing the shift, smelling the blood in the water.

Julian’s face drains of color. The mask of charming indifference cracks, revealing a flash of raw fury. “What do you think you’re doing?” he whispers, his voice dangerously low.

I raise my head, meeting his shocked gaze without flinching. The fear is gone. The desperate, pleading love is gone. All that’s left is a clarity so sharp it could draw blood.

“No, Julian,” I say, my voice ringing out, clear and final. It needs no microphone.

I take a small step back, away from him, creating a chasm between us on the small stage.

“I’m done.”

I don’t wait for his response. I don’t look at the stunned faces of his parents in the front row or the frenzied activity of the photographers, who have just realized they are witnessing the society scandal of the decade.

I turn my back on him. On all of it.

I walk to the edge of the dais and descend the short steps, my movements measured and calm. The crowd parts before me like the sea, a silent, gaping wave of silks and jewels. Whispers erupt in my wake, a growing storm of speculation.

“Did she just…?”

“To Julian Vance?”

“What on earth just happened?”

I don’t look back. I can feel his stare burning into my spine, a promise of rage and retribution. Let him stare.

Let them all stare.

This life will be different. I am not the same girl who walked into this ballroom. She died in a cold hospital room, her dreams stolen and her heart broken.

The woman walking out is someone new. Someone forged in the memory of betrayal and pain.

My grandfather’s workshop is failing. My legacy is on the verge of being erased. In my past life, I let Julian’s family absorb it, gut it, and discard the pieces after they had taken everything of value. All for a love that was nothing more than a transaction.

Not this time.

This time, I will not be a pretty, tragic footnote in the Vance family history. I will not be their pity project or their acquisition.

I will be the woman who reclaims her name. I will save my family’s craft. I will build an empire on the foundations of my own genius, the genius he and Isabella tried to steal.

And as for Julian Vance and everyone who stood by and watched me fall? I will not just survive them. I will not just beat them.

I will utterly, completely, and magnificently destroy them.

Chapter 2

Darcy

The ballroom doors swing shut behind me, muffling the explosion of noise. I don't slow down. My heels click a sharp, angry rhythm on the marble floor of the corridor. FHollowayom tastes like the metallic tang of adrenaline in the back of my throat.

A hand clamps down on my arm, hard. I'm spun around, slammed back against the cold wall. Julian.

His face is a mask of white-hot fury, the charming veneer from the stage completely gone. His eyes, which I once thought were so handsome, are just chips of ice.

“What in the hell was that?” he snarls, his voice low and vicious. “You have five seconds to tell me this is some kind of sick joke before I drag you back out there.”

I just look at him. The grip on my arm is bruising, but I feel nothing. The pain is a distant echo from a life that is no longer mine.

“Let go of me, Julian.”

“You humiliated me,” he hisses, tightening his grip. “You humiliated my family. After everything we’ve done for you, for your pathetic little workshop. Is this how you repay us?”

“Repay you?” I laugh, a short, bitter sound. “You mean by letting you absorb my family’s legacy for pennies on the dollar? By letting you parade me around like a prize you’d won?”

His jaw clenches. “We had an agreement. Our families had an agreement. You belong with me.”

“No,” I say, my voice as cold as his eyes. “I belong to myself. The agreement is off.”

“You have nothing without me, Darcy! Your grandfather is a sick old man and his business is a relic. It’s worthless. I was saving you.”

Every word is a confirmation. Every insult is a brick in the foundation of my new resolve. He saw me as a charity case. A broken thing to be fixed and owned.

“I don’t need saving,” I say, pulling my arm from his grasp. He is so shocked by the sudden move that he lets me.

“I’m going to ruin you,” he whispers, the threat hanging in the air between us. “I’ll make sure you never design another piece of jewelry in this city again.”

“You can try.”

I turn to walk away, but my path is blocked by my parents. My mother’s face is pale, her eyes wide with a mixture of fear and confusion. My father stands beside her, his expression grim, his hand resting protectively on her arm.

“Darcy, darling,” my mother breathes, rushing forward to take my hands. They are trembling. “What happened? Are you alright?”

“I’m fine, Mother. More than fine.”

My father looks from me to Julian, who is still standing there, radiating impotent rage. “Julian,” my father says, his voice dangerously level. “You will not speak to my daughter that way. Ever again.”

Julian scoffs, straightening his jacket, the mask of arrogance slipping back into place. “Your daughter has just made the biggest mistake of her life, Mr. Holloway. You would be wise to remember which family holds all the cards here.”

He turns and strides back toward the ballroom, leaving a trail of frigid silence in his wake.

“What have you done?” my father asks me, but there is no anger in his voice. Only deep, profound worry.

“I’ve taken our name back, Father,” I say, meeting his gaze. “It’s time we remembered what it means to be a Holloway.”

He searches my face for a long moment, then gives a slow, single nod. “Alright, then. Let’s go home.”

The drive is silent. My parents don’t press me for details, for which I am grateful. The memories of my other life are still too raw, too close to the surface. Explaining them is impossible. All I can do is act.

Instead of our small house, I ask the driver to take us to the workshop. It’s in the oldest part of the city, a district of cobblestone streets and forgotten artisans.

When we pull up, the building looks even sadder than I remember. The paint on the sign, ‘Holloway & Son Artisans,’ is faded and peeling. The windows are dark, save for a single, warm light glowing from the back room.

“He’s still here,” I whisper.

Inside, the air smells of my childhood: beeswax, metal polish, and the faint, sweet scent of my grandfather’s pipe tobacco. Dust motes dance in the slivers of moonlight cutting through the grimy windows. Workbenches are littered with tools, half-finished pieces, and overdue invoices.

The place is dying.

I walk toward the light in the back, my parents following quietly. I push open the door to my grandfather’s private studio.

He is sitting at his bench, hunched over a delicate filigree brooch, his hands gnarled with arthritis but still impossibly steady. A wheezing cough racks his thin frame, and he sets the piece down, his breath coming in ragged gasps.

“Grandfather,” I say softly.

He looks up, and his tired blue eyes light up when he sees me. “Darcy. What are you doing here? Shouldn’t you be celebrating?”

He gestures to my dress, the diamonds, the whole facade of the life I just shattered.

“I’m not marrying him,” I say, walking over to his side. I pick up a worn pair of calipers from his desk. The cool, familiar weight of it settles in my palm. It feels more real than the diamond ring Julian was expecting me to offer.

My grandfather studies my face, his gaze wise and knowing. He doesn't seem surprised. “I see.”

A small, dry smile touches his lips. “I never liked him. His hands are too soft. He’s never made anything in his life.”

“The workshop…” I look around at the stacks of unpaid bills on a nearby spindle. “How bad is it?”

He sighs, the sound heavy with the weight of decades of struggle. “The Vances were going to absorb our debt. It was part of the… arrangement. Now?” He shrugs, a gesture of defeat that breaks my heart. “We have maybe a month. If we’re lucky.”

My mother lets out a small sob, and my father puts his arm around her. This is the reality Julian was so sure I couldn’t face. Bankruptcy. The end of a century-old legacy.

In my first life, I let it happen. I let Julian’s family gut this place, sell off the tools, and turn my grandfather’s studio into storage space. I traded this heritage for a gilded cage.

I look at my grandfather, his frail body a testament to a life spent creating beauty. I look at my hands. These hands designed a necklace that won the highest accolades in the world, even if someone else’s name was on it.

That knowledge is a fire in my veins.

“No,” I say, my voice ringing with a certainty that makes my own parents look at me with fresh eyes. “It’s not over.”

I turn back to my grandfather, my heart filled with an urgent, desperate purpose. “It’s not over. I won’t let it be.”

He looks at me, a flicker of the old fire returning to his eyes. “What are you going to do, little star?”

I pick up a sketchpad from a dusty shelf, the paper crisp and new. I grab a charcoal pencil.

“I’m going to save us,” I declare, looking at the three people I love most in this world. “I’m going to save it all.”

Chapter 3

Darcy

The charcoal pencil feels like an extension of my soul. It whispers across the paper, leaving behind lines that are not memories, but certainties. The design flows from my fingertips, a complex, breathtaking thing I’d spent years perfecting in my other life. A life where it was stolen.

My grandfather leans over my shoulder, his breathing shallow and raspy. He points a trembling, gnarled finger at the sketch.

“This setting,” he murmurs, his voice a gravelly whisper. “The prongs are hidden. The gem… it looks like it’s floating. How?”

“It’s a tension setting, but reinforced from beneath. Micro-channels cut by laser,” I explain without looking up. The pencil keeps moving. A matching earring takes shape.

My father stands across the workbench, arms crossed. He looks from my face to the sketch, his brow furrowed with a pragmatist’s worry. “Laser? Darcy, we use hand files and polish. What are you talking about?”

“I’m talking about the future, Father,” I say, finally setting the pencil down. I look at the design. The ‘Dawn’s Embrace’ suite. The first collection Isabella passed off as her own.

“It’s brilliant,” my grandfather breathes, his eyes shining with a craftsman’s admiration. “But it’s… impossible. No one is doing work like this.”

“Not yet,” I say. My voice is steady. “But they will be, in about five years. We’re going to be first.”

My mother wrings her hands, her face a portrait of anxiety. “Darling, this is wonderful, truly. But who would buy such a thing? Who would fund it? Your father is right. We don’t have the resources.”

“She’s right, Darcy,” my father adds, his tone gentle but firm. “These are designs for an empire, not a failing workshop with a month left before the bank takes the door.”

The weight of his words settles in the dusty air. He’s not being cruel. He’s being realistic. But his reality is based on a past I’ve already lived and learned from.

“That’s why we don’t ask for funding,” I say, turning from the workbench. I walk over to a stack of old trade magazines piled on a stool, the ones my grandfather reads for inspiration. I flip through them until I find the latest issue of ‘Modern Jeweler.’

I open it to the centerfold. A glossy, two-page advertisement. I lay it on the workbench for them all to see.

“The Lumina Prize for Jewelry Design,” my father reads aloud. His voice is flat. “The most prestigious award in the world. The entry fee alone…”

“Is ten thousand dollars,” I finish for him. “And the grand prize is a two-million-dollar investment grant and a direct contract to produce a collection under your own name.”

A heavy silence fills the room. Two million dollars. It’s an absurd, impossible number. A lifeline from a fairy tale.

My mother shakes her head slowly. “Darcy, no. The people who enter this… they are the best in the world. Established masters. Prodigies from the finest schools in Antwerp and Milan.”

“I’m better,” I state. It isn’t arrogance. It’s a fact. I have seen the winning designs for the next seven years. I know what the judges are looking for.

My grandfather squints at the page, reading the fine print. His face pales slightly. “It’s sponsored by the Duvall Group. The head judge is Shane Duvall.”

My father lets out a sharp, humorless laugh. “Of course. Well, that settles it. It’s impossible.”

“Who is Shane Duvall?” my mother asks.

“He’s a shark who swims in a tank of other sharks,” my father says, gesturing vaguely towards the financial district. “He built a luxury empire from scratch in a decade. He’s the Vance family’s greatest rival. They say he’s ruthless. A perfectionist. He once publicly dismantled a Patek Philippe watch at a Swiss auction because he spotted a microscopic flaw in the gearing. The man is a legend. And a monster.”

“Then he will appreciate perfection,” I say, my gaze fixed on the small, black-and-white headshot of the man on the advertisement page. Shane Duvall. Even in the grainy photo, his presence is arresting. Sharp, dark eyes that seem to see right through the camera. A severe, impossibly handsome face that gives nothing away. He’s exactly as I remember from the articles in my past life. An enigma. A kingmaker.

“He will crush you, Darcy,” my father insists. “He has no time for unknowns. They say he despises family businesses, calls them sentimental relics.”

“Let him,” I say, a cold fire igniting in my chest. “Julian thinks we are a sentimental relic. The world thinks we’re finished. I’m tired of being underestimated.”

My grandfather looks from the magazine, to my sketches, and then to me. He sees the resolve in my eyes, the ghost of a life of pain that has forged me into something new.

“The entry fee,” he says, his voice quiet but clear. “I have something put away. For a rainy day.”

“Arthur, no,” my mother gasps. “That’s all you have left.”

“What good is it if our legacy dies?” he counters, his gaze locked with mine. “I have watched this girl draw since she could hold a crayon. I have never seen this. This… certainty. This is not a whim. This is destiny.”

He shuffles over to an old, cast-iron safe in the corner of the room, the one I haven’t seen him open in years. He works the combination with his slow, deliberate fingers. The heavy door groans open.

He pulls out a small, canvas bank bag and places it on the workbench. The sound is a heavy, final thud.

“This is our last shot, little star,” he says, his hand covering mine. His skin is like paper, but his grip is surprisingly strong. “Don’t miss.”

I nod, my throat too tight to speak. This is it. All of it. The faith of my family, our final hope, all resting on a design that doesn’t exist yet.

I turn back to the empty page next to my first sketches. The ‘Dawn’s Embrace’ is good, but it’s not the one. It’s not the piece that will make Shane Duvall stop and look. For the Lumina, I need a masterpiece.

I pick up the pencil again. My mind goes back, sifting through the years of designs, the knowledge I paid for with my life. And then I find it. The one. The design that came to me in a dream a week before I died. The one I never even had the chance to sketch.

My hand moves, channeling the vision. It’s a necklace. A cascade of impossible geometry, centered around a single, flawless gemstone. It blends the ancient art of filigree with a futuristic structure that seems to defy gravity. It’s a paradox. A declaration.

My family watches in silence as the piece comes to life on the paper. I don’t need to explain it. The design speaks for itself.

When I am finished, I write the name of the piece at the bottom of the page.

‘The Star of Elysia.’

My father picks up the sketch, holding it as if it were a sacred text. He looks at me, his skepticism finally melting away, replaced by pure, unadulterated awe.

“My God, Darcy,” he whispers. “Where did this come from?”

I meet his gaze, the memory of a cold hospital room flashing in my mind. “From a place you would never believe.”