Chapter Text
Andrea’s eyes were burning, and the coffee was losing its effect. Maybe her body was starting to get used to caffeine to the point where it no longer worked. May the gods forbid that from happening. Without coffee to keep her awake, she would definitely have already fallen asleep on top of her boss’s desk.
Two nights without sleep. That was why her eyes burned as if someone had thrown pepper into them. Two nights she’d spent at the office because, overnight, her boss,or better yet, the devil who had possessed that woman’s body,had decided that the magazine cover wasn’t good enough. And that was four days before publication. So here was Andrea Sachs, rescheduling photoshoots, editors, and everything else required to make the Runway cover happen.
On the first day, Andrea had tried cursing the future generations of Miranda Priestly, but she quickly regretted it and took it back as soon as she remembered her editor-in-chief’s red-haired twins. They could be little terrors, but Andrea was already charmed by those little devils.
Now, on the second day, Andrea’s thoughts couldn’t even form properly, caffeine wouldn’t let them. So all she could do was follow orders. “Call the photographers,” Miranda would shout. And Andrea would schedule the time for the next day, or better yet, for the middle of the night, so they could get the best morning light. And then came more shouting. If Andrea’s mind weren’t exhausted, her body drained, her blood boiling, and her heart racing, she might have snapped already. But thanks to the fatigue, she wasn’t thinking. She was just doing what needed to be done.
“I want to review every single piece of clothing tomorrow.” Miranda spoke while Andrea took notes in her notepad. Using her phone would’ve been faster, but writing helped her memorize things.
Miranda paced back and forth in her office, her platinum hair reaching just below her ears in a cut that would be a disaster on anyone else, except Miranda. In that moment, watching the forty-five-year-old woman walk in her Valentino heels, Andrea wondered if anything could ever look bad on her. Because from where she stood, she couldn’t imagine a single thing that wouldn’t suit the editor-in-chief perfectly.
The belt framed Miranda’s slim waist, and when Andrea caught herself letting her gaze drift to the way the black dress hugged the older woman’s body, she realized she needed more coffee.
She couldn’t let the crush she had on her editor-in-chief surface after spending the last six months suffocating it beneath the outfits and dresses she’d been forced to wear to prove she was taking the job seriously.
Andrea had every reason to hate Miranda, and she did hate her. But just as much as her blood boiled when the woman demanded that Andrea do things that were humanly impossible, her body heated up at the sight of Miranda being stern and giving orders.
Was Andrea a masochist? Wanting not only someone who had treated her badly from the day she’d been hired as an assistant, but someone completely out of reach. A married woman who, despite the countless times Andrea had seen Stephen drunk, showed no real intention of divorcing him. And whether she planned to or not, it wasn’t something she would ever reveal to a mere assistant she barely even looked at. And even if, one day, Miranda did get rid of that man, Andrea still wouldn’t stand a chance. There was a world, an entire universe, between them.
Blinking a few times, Andrea snapped out of her daydreams at the sound of Miranda’s voice. The moment her gaze met the older woman’s blue-green eyes, and her heart sped up under that impatient stare, Andrea shot up from her chair almost in a jump.
“I need more coffee,” Andrea said as she left the office in quick steps, not giving Miranda the chance to reply.
In all her twenty-three years, Andrea had never wanted anyone the way she wanted Miranda. Was it the fact that it was forbidden? The same thrill that guided her when she was thirteen and used to sneak out her bedroom window to meet her boyfriends? Or was it simply the admiration she felt for Miranda, who had earned a position of absolute respect in one of the most competitive industries in the world? Where her own husband was still just “Miranda’s husband,” left in the shadows while she stood at the center of everything. The beating heart of fashion in New York.
***
Time refused to pass. In another life, Andrea must have denied money to the poor, or maybe she never donated blood and caused someone’s death. That was the only explanation for why, at two in the morning, she was still being tortured by Miranda’s beauty. How did that woman not get tired? Miranda was still flawless in her ten-centimeter heels, her hair perfectly styled. No matter what Andrea had done in a past life, nothing could have been bad enough to deserve being tortured by the sight of the woman she wanted most, at two in the morning.
“What do you think of this new collection?” Miranda asked, raising a perfectly shaped eyebrow.
Perfect. In the middle of the night, Miranda wanted to test her knowledge of fashion. And they didn’t even have time for that. But Miranda would never let a day go by without questioning her about something fashion-related. Damn the moment Andrea said she didn’t like Gucci’s new handbag.
Getting up from the chair in front of Miranda’s desk, Andrea forced her exhausted body to move closer to the editor-in-chief, who was standing with her notebook, where she made all her notes, open to the new Louis Vuitton collection.
Andrea’s first mistake was not sleeping. Not resting. At least when she got four hours of sleep a night, she could resist Miranda’s unique perfume. She could stand beside her and control the rhythm of her heartbeat. But now, after two sleepless nights during which she’d barely even sat down, being near her, just inches away from touching her, set every part of her body on fire.
Her second mistake was not keeping her focus on the open book on the desk. Her eyes refused to obey the commands of her brain.
Her third mistake was looking at Miranda, meeting her challenging eyes. The next mistakes were so many that Andrea stopped counting, but the one that sealed everything was when her gaze dropped to Miranda’s soft, rosy lips. From that moment on, Andrea couldn’t go back.
Miranda stared at her in confusion, but for the first time, Andrea’s thoughts went completely silent. And that was the biggest mistake of all. They should have been screaming at her, telling her to step away from that woman and from those impossibly tempting lips. But they didn’t. Instead, in the quiet of her mind and the exhaustion in her body, Andrea gave in to the desire she had been fighting ever since she became Miranda’s personal assistant.
Without thinking about the consequences, without thinking that her next move would be the single most foolish mistake of her entire life, Andrea closed the distance between her lips and Miranda’s.
The first touch felt like air filling her body for the very first time. Her lungs expanded, Miranda gasped into her mouth, but she didn’t pull away. Andrea’s mind was blank, but her body was screaming with desire. She was finally where she had wanted to be for so long.
Their lips didn’t move at first, maybe because of the shock, maybe because neither of them knew how Miranda would react. But Andrea, no longer sure which of her mistakes was the worst, simply gave in to the moment she had been craving. Her lips moved against Miranda’s, her body pressed against the older woman’s, and when she gently tugged Miranda’s lower lip between her teeth, she felt Miranda respond.
Maybe that was the worst mistake, Miranda responding.
The greatest of mistakes was Miranda pressing her against the desk, the book forgotten behind their bodies. Andrea was deliciously trapped between the older woman and the wooden surface. Their lips met as if they were discovering each other for the first time, softly, yet with undeniable firmness.
Andrea’s fingers tangled in Miranda’s silvery hair, and a quiet moan slipped from her lips when she felt its softness against her skin. But that sound pulled her out of the haze clouding her thoughts, snapping her mind back to awareness.
As their lips parted, Andrea’s wide brown eyes grew even larger as reality sank in. It wasn’t a dream. It was real.
Fear surged through her body, so intense it almost hurt, and the only thing Andrea could do was pull away from the desk and run out of Miranda’s office.
That, without a doubt, was the greatest mistake of all.