Fake Date, Real Fate-Chapter 122: Mirror, Mirror, Meet the Witch

Aria was already on dress number eight.

I lounged in the waiting area of the boutique, the kind of place with soft gold lighting and champagne flutes offered like apologies for the prices. My fourth complimentary water bottle sat sweating beside me while I scrolled aimlessly on my phone.

Then the curtain whipped open, and—

"No," I said immediately.

Aria struck a pose, hands on hips, the chaos incarnate in a sheer, floor-length jumpsuit covered entirely in sequins.

"No?" she echoed, mock-offended. "This is everything."

"You look like the lead singer of a nineteen-seventy’s space disco revival," I replied, deadpan.

"It’s vintage space disco revival," she corrected, twirling dramatically. The sequins caught the light, sending tiny, blinding reflections dancing across the walls. "Imagine the entrance I’d make. He wouldn’t know what hit him."

"He’d probably think he needed to check his drink for hallucinogens," I pointed out.

"Excellent," she said, spinning in the mirror. "That’s exactly the energy I want to bring to a blind date curated by my mother."

"That’s the energy of someone who peaked at Studio fifty-four," I sighed, running a hand through my hair. "And speaking of energy, are you even seriously considering wearing twelve pounds of costume jewellery?" I gestured to the rack of statement necklaces beside her.

"Duh," she said, pulling the jumpsuit tighter around her waist. "If I’m going to scare him off, I might as well do it with maximum visual impact. It’s a statement suit."

The sales assistant nearby pretended not to be horrified. Professionalism deserved a raise.

While Aria admired her sparkly reflection, my phone buzzed.

I glanced at the screen.

Adrien.

I didn’t answer.

Why? I don’t know.

The phone stopped buzzing. Then lit up again with a message.

I didn’t read it.

Instead, I dropped it back into my bag, focusing instead on Aria’s enthusiastic monologue about whether the sequins could double as emotional armor.

"Emotional armor in the form of disco scales," I muttered. "Riveting."

"Exactly! Plus, imagine the sound it makes when I walk. Like a thousand tiny whispers saying, ’Regret me!’" Aria struck another pose.

"More like a thousand tin foil crinkles saying, ’Run!’"

****

Aria was busy spinning and striking poses, clearly enjoying her moment as queen of sequins, when I finally gave in and slipped my phone back into my bag.

"Hey," she said suddenly, pausing mid-twirl. "Do you think I should try something a little less... cosmic?"

"Maybe something that doesn’t require a warning label?" I suggested.

She sighed dramatically but nodded. "Fine. But only if I get to take at least ten more pictures."

I smiled, glad for the brief distraction from the buzzing tension I’d been trying to ignore all morning.

Then I started walking toward the racks, fingers scrolling through options, half paying attention to the store around me.

That’s when it happened.

My shoulder slammed into someone.

Hard.

"Watch where you’re going, klutz," a cold voice snapped like ice breaking.

I looked up and found myself staring at the sharpest pair of eyes I’d ever seen—cool, calculating, and utterly dismissive. The lady didn’t even bother to look at me as she lightly pressed her phone against her ear, the other hand clutching a designer bag that now teetered dangerously.

I blinked, startled. "Sorry," I said instinctively. "Wasn’t looking."

The lady in front of me didn’t even blink.

Instead, she lifted her perfectly manicured hand, tapping it against the phone pressed to her ear like a queen signaling to her court.

"You need to watch where you’re going," she said, voice clipped and sharp as shattered glass.

I opened my mouth to apologize again, but the words caught in my throat when I noticed the way she tilted her head, eyes narrowing.

"I hit your bag," I said, nodding toward the expensive-looking leather purse that had almost slipped off her arm.

"Obviously, you didn’t mean anything because you’re just... invisible," she said, voice low but sharp as a razor.

I blinked.

"Excuse me?"

"Excuse me," she repeated, her tone utterly freezing now. "Are you deaf as well as clumsy? I said, you need to watch where you’re going. Some of us are trying to conduct business." She gestured vaguely at her phone, which was still not actually pressed to her ear, and then back at the endangered designer bag. Her eyes, still not quite meeting mine, scanned over my outfit with a thinly veiled sneer.

My initial instinct to apologize again evaporated.

"I did say I was sorry," I said, keeping my voice level despite the spark. "And I accidentally nudged your bag. I didn’t exactly knock you over."

She finally deigned to look directly at me, and her eyes weren’t just sharp—they were cold, like chipped ice. But beneath the surface lurked something darker, a subtle flicker of menace that made my skin crawl.

"Oh, you apologized? How sweet is that? Did you think that magically fixes things? Some of us have schedules, you see. Important things." Her gaze lingered on my less-than-designer bag strap. "Things that involve people who aren’t... you."

Her eyes flicked dismissively toward Aria, who was already stepping closer, jaw tight and ready.

"Are you seriously going to let her talk to you like that?" Aria demanded, voice low but fierce.

The lady’s smirk deepened, as if amused by our audacity.

"And who exactly are you supposed to be? The mouthy sidekick?"

"Better than being a stuck-up, gold-plated nightmare," Aria snapped back, stepping forward, fists clenched.

The lady laughed, a cold, sharp sound that echoed like a warning. "Honey, you should check yourself before you wreck yourself."

Aria’s eyes narrowed, losing their usual playful sparkle and hardening into something sharp and dangerous. "Oh, I’ve checked," she said, her voice deceptively sweet, taking a slow step closer. "And I’m pretty sure the only thing that needs wrecking here is your attitude."

The lady’s carefully constructed smirk faltered for just a second. She hadn’t expected the ’mouthy sidekick’ to talk back with quite so much bite. Her grip tightened on her bag. "Listen, I don’t have time for this. Some of us have lives that extend beyond browsing discount racks."

The insult was clearly aimed at us, even though this was a high-end boutique. I felt a hot flush creep up my neck, but before I could formulate a response, Aria cut in again, her voice dropping to a low, lethal purr.

"Discount racks? Honey, if your personality was a price tag, it’d be clearance section – damaged goods, nobody wants it."

Aria’s gaze locked onto her’s with a cool, dangerous glint. "I could ruin you with a phone call, but I’m busy right now."

Okay, that was good. I might have let out a tiny snort.

Her face twisted with fury and something colder—calculating—like she was weighing her options. The boutique seemed to grow quieter, the sharp click of her heels on the polished marble floor sounding unnervingly loud.

Just then, a soft voice floated over from the other side of the room.

"Clara, darling! They’ve brought out the Elie Saab pieces. You have to see the navy set!"

This content is taken from free web nov𝒆l.com