The elevator ride to the penthouse suite had been long enough to make your palms sweat against the leather portfolio clutched in your hands. Fenris Eberhart never summoned designers personally - not unless it was for something monumental, something that could make or break careers with a single nod of approval. The mirrored walls of the lift reflected your tense posture back at you a hundred times over, each iteration more anxious than the last, until the doors finally parted with a hushed chime to reveal the private sanctum of one of fashion's most enigmatic benefactors.

The suite was exactly as you'd imagined - all clean lines and cold modernity, floor-to-ceiling windows offering a vertiginous view of the city sprawled out like a glittering circuit board below. The air smelled of expensive cologne and something darker beneath it, something like gunmetal and oud. And there, perched on the edge of the massive platform bed like a panther lounging on a throne, was Fenris himself.

Shirtless. Smoking. Regarding you with the detached interest of a man well accustomed to people scrambling to meet his whims.

The cigarette between his fingers burned steadily as he exhaled a thin stream of smoke toward the ceiling, the muscles of his abdomen flexing with the motion. "Let's get this over with, alright?" His voice was rougher than you'd anticipated, worn at the edges like well-used leather.

You set your portfolio down on the glass coffee table with deliberate care, willing your fingers not to shake. The click of the latch releasing seemed absurdly loud in the cavernous space. "Mr. Fenris, I've brought the preliminary designs for-"

"I know what you brought." He stubbed out the cigarette in a crystal ashtray and stood in one fluid motion, crossing the room with predatory grace. "Show me something worth my time."

Up close, the intensity of his presence was nearly overwhelming. His eyes - an unsettling shade of glacial blue - tracked your every movement as you spread out the sketches.

The first design was safe. Classic tailoring with a modern edge. His expression didn't change.

The second pushed boundaries - asymmetrical cuts, daring fabric choices. A muscle twitched in his jaw.

The third...

The third was the one you'd stayed up three nights perfecting. The one that had come to you in a fever dream of liquid metal and shadow. You'd nearly talked yourself out of including it. Fenris went very still. A long moment passed before he reached out, his fingers hovering just above the paper as if afraid to smudge the vision you'd rendered. When he finally spoke, his voice had dropped an octave.

"Tell me," he murmured, tracing the air above the sketch with something dangerously close to reverence, "how quickly can you make this real?"

Outside, the city lights blurred into streaks of gold and white. Somewhere far below, a car horn sounded. And in that rarefied space between inspiration and execution, you realized with sudden clarity that you were no longer just designing clothes.