Disclaimer:

I don't own The Devil wears Prada movie, novel or characters. I am just borrowing them for a little bit. Holly and Carla are my own creations.

Author's Notes:

I need to say thank you to a few people who have supported me in writing this. Firstly to the love of my life – thank you for giving me the push to give writing another go. Secondly to dragonwine – thank you for answering my call for a beta that day. Your support and advice has always been very much appreciated. Reviews are always very much appreciated please take no offense of I don't reply straight away.

Warning:

This fanfic describes scenes of domestic abuse in the beginning chapters, as well as brief flashbacks of abuse throughout the story, although this is not in every chapter.

This chapter describes scenes of domestic abuse. If this will offend you then please do not read.

Chapter 2

Miranda Priestley is known for being the most notorious, ruthless editor of the fashion world's most powerful magazine, Runway. Her colleagues around her know that she rules with an iron fist to get the magazine's next issue perfect. After all if it's not perfect what's the point?

So therefore it should be assumed that Miranda has the perfect personal life just as it is at work, although she is probably not demanding impossible tasks from her family, and she probably doesn't regard them as incompetent.

Yes, perfect family life for the ever perfect Miranda, isn't life dandy.

So how on earth is it that, apart from her career description, that the whole perfect family life statement was so untrue?

Miranda Priestly is willing to admit that within the past couple of years she has made quite a few big mistakes. The last mistake Miranda made, was answering her now ex-husband's questions that night. She wasn't quite sure how to take this in the beginning and, something was telling her not to play along, but her curiosity pulled her into the trap . . .

Time: 8.51pm, Priestley household

Stephen stands up from his seat and goes to the mini bar that is in the study, Miranda flinches slightly wondering whether it will be what she considers an easy weekend, she's categorised them since the . . . Difficult weekend, she shivers slightly at the memory, not worth thinking about.

He's finished pouring his drink and is just adding two cubes of ice, she let's out the breath she didn't realise she was holding and concludes that it should be easy to mild this weekend, as usually a couple of ice cubes means he is savouring his drink, it's when he drinks it with no ice and downs it that she knows she is in for it.

She wonders if he'll surprise her and be the man she fell in love with before she fell for . . . 'Don't go there Miranda' She thinks with gritted teeth. He moves to stand in the middle of the room . . .

8.52pm

He looks at her, his face blank while he's swirling his drink, no emotion showing.

She doesn't know how to take this, this is new . . .

"So . . . It's 8.52pm." He says while looking at her. She glances at the clock, "So it is" she agrees as she continues to look at him not risking looking back at her work e-mails.

He nods and gives a tight lipped smile "You know" he pauses to take a sip of his drink, savouring the taste before swallowing "I was sitting in the very chair you're sat in now stewing over our failing marriage, a year ago" He chuckles at the memory, whereas Miranda continues to look at him and continues to wonder where this is going.

"Do you remember what time I phoned you? I mean I presume you would have seen the time on your cell" He enquired.

She glances at the clock, and starts to understand only slightly, and begins to stutter as she voices her reply, knowing that he knows the answer, but also knowing that she has to answer regardless "It uh, it was 8.53" she swallows hard.

He chuckles lightly and replies "It's good to know that you remember those things, I'm sure I don't need to remind you of the full phone conversation do I?", she looks down slightly, "Um . . . No, No you don't I remember every word."

He looks at her gritting his teeth with anger in his eyes and nods his head.

She starts to get nervous she recognises that look, that's the look of the bad weekend, NOT an easy to mild, she now has no clue as to where this is going apart from there are specific times involved.

He's turned around now so his back is facing her she watches as he takes a big gulp of the whiskey, nearly finishing the contents of the glass.

She takes advantage and looks at the clock on her laptop. 8.54pm exactly.

It was exactly one a year ago from the conversation that began this whole mess, and realises that it was about this time that she confessed her feelings for another, at 8.55pm he answered the unasked question of who.

'SHIT' She thinks to herself as her eyes widen in alarm.

Its coming up to 9.00pm sharp, and it's Andrea's week to deliver the book. She starts to panic. He is usually upstairs by now so that when the book arrives Miranda can be upstairs by 9.30pm sharp, a luxury she managed to convince him to give into, one that he gave into quite easily, if it's for the reason that she is thinking of then she needs to phone Andrea quick and order her not to deliver the book tonight.

'SHIT.' The thought repeats itself in her mind once more.

"Oh, what's up baby you look scared, don't worry, it is one of the BAD weekends, as you so beautifully describe it in your journal . . ." He says in a sinister tone while holding the journal in question.

Miranda's face drops and she feels the blood rush out of her face 'It has everything in there'

"BUT, but, but" he says shaking the journal lightly in her direction, his voice going higher with each word.

She swallows heavily as he says the next bit with an evil smile, "YOU, will not be the poor defenceless, career driven woman, getting beaten by the drunk hubby baby" he continues to smile and chuckles before he says the next part "I mean the fucking cause of this is due soon, 9pm sharp, right sweetheart? I gotta say that was some good planning, but I kind of bettered it haven't I huh?" He asks, still smiling, it almost looks genuine, "I mean what luck is it to find your wife's journal detailing the weeks of which assistant is delivering the book. And then the huge bonus of finding out that this week it's AHHNNDREAAH, who's delivering this week at around about the same time our marriage fell apart, that's how you say her name right? I mean it says here . . . Now where it is . . ."he stops to look at the journal, quickly flicking through the pages "Ah, right here and I quote 'I remember, her having the balls to actually tell me that her name was Andrea, but most people call her Andy that day, when she first started working for me, it makes me laugh secretly now, but I will never say her name the ways she suggested as it is a beautiful name and should be pronounced properly, for a person who to me, is true perfection', beautiful baby I can see why you excel in the publishing industry, with words like that you should have been a poet" he smiles, with the look in his eye again.

"Stephen I . . . "

"SHUTUP!!" he snaps, and knocks back the rest of his drink.

"But, please hon. . . " she is interrupted by a powerful backhand across her face. This is worse than she feared he is never careless, it's always in places that are covered by clothes.

"Stephen, please it's nothing . . . nothing would ever happen, there's no need to do this, please . . . " He hit's her on the back with the corner of her journal, effectively hitting her with her own words "OW!" She regret's getting a real leather covered one now, maybe a fake would have hurt less.

"Shut the fuck up you whore, do you want Cassidy and Caroline to walk in and hear you're whining? Are you trying to scar your own children for life?" he slurs. He punches her again on her back, and she can't hold back the tears of pain and manages to whimper "No", just barely above a whisper.

He knows her buttons, all of them, one for each of the twins which she had no choice but to separate, due to that being his favourite game, the threat game he likes which one will he pick on? It's always been threats but she couldn't take the risk of calling his bluff.

And the others are random threats to people he's never met. But then there's this button the one for Andrea, the he knows is just as precious as her daughters, the button he is pushing hard tonight.

She is crying quietly now still bent over on the floor, when she hears "Here's a tissue" she reaches out her hand "No No, here's a tissue", she risks a glance and sees that it's on the floor in front of his feet, he must have gone to the bar at some point, as this time he's got a larger glass, with no ice cubes.

She crawls over, knowing there is no point in trying to fight, not caring how pitifull she looks she'll have a month off no-one will question her because she is who she is, and hopefully she can protect Andrea, hoping against hope that the book is late tonight and she'll receive a phone call any minute to say it will be delivered tomorrow, if that happens she swears she will get Andrea's dream job for her Monday and buy every Pulitzer prize, that will ever exist and hand them to her on pure gold, just as long as she does not come through that door.

She finally get's to the tissue, and see's him move his left foot back. She can't believe she fell for it.

After that everything is slow motion, she sees it coming towards her and then his feet going off to the side, along with another pair, she manages to get her bearings and get up, as she does she turns around to find Stephen and Roy wrestling.

Roy. If she could get away with kissing him now she would. Instead she rushes towards them to try and help, technically it works as it distracts Stephen long enough to push her and go towards her, she stumbles back narrowly missing the door as she sees Roy holding him back screaming at him to calm down.

The door plus Roy, she adds these up and concludes Andrea, she snaps her head towards the door so quickly she could have had whiplash and sees Andrea running towards her reaching out to grab her arm.

That's when things got painfully slow . . .

She remembers Stephen breaking from his hold as Andrea tries to drag her out of the study, only to be stopped by Stephen grabbing hold of Andrea's hair and viciously pulling her backwards, while this happened she was facing the hallway where she sees her babies and their father arrive back from being away on holiday she shouts to her ex-husband and tells him to not let them see this.

She turns to see Roy struggle with Stephen's hold on Andrea's head, she's hitting him trying to protect herself, but it's a struggle, he's a lot stronger.

She reacts instantly when her brain digests the information which seems as though it took years.

She rushes over and punches Stephen with all her might in the face, forcing him to lose his balance slightly, unfortunately he managed a quick punch to Andrea's head in the process, and she is now on the floor looking disorientated, she rushes over to her trying to protect her body with her own, while Stephen throws punch after punch at Miranda's, back desperately trying to get at Andrea.

Miranda looks down and is devastated to see the vision before her. Her Andrea with a broken lip and a black eye, she cries from the pain of this vision as Stephens punches don't really make any difference considering how sloppy he is with them.

It was this thought that led to another mistake of Miranda's, she moved slightly to push away and finally, properly fight back, only in the process she gave him the perfect opportunity to hit his target..

She sobs loudly, "Miranda?" she snaps out of her day dream to find her ex-husband walk into the room with open arms. As she falls into his arms she finally breaks down and gives into her emotions.

It's been 1 long year since that night. 1 year since the escape. In that time, the police reports were filed against Stephen charges were made, and the divorce was luckily settled fairly quickly.

At the moment it's just the press who are wanting to know the details, of what happened? When did it start? What does she think caused it?

Today is the first day that she truly feels she can start with a clean slate, for just over three years, but without her drunken ex-husband.

1 year since that dreadful night . . . and just under a year since Andrea took the job as an assistant to a fashion journalist within runway, attempting to get a little closer to her dream.

It's also been that length of time since she has seen or spoken to Andrea.