Xo Novel
Chapter 141
Chapter 141
Sophia was at home tucking the little ones in for a nap when she got the message.
The kiddo had just nodded off, and Susan was also around the house.
Sophia went dead silent for a bit when she saw the message, just zoning out while staring at her phone screen.
Susan took a shot in the dark, “Brandon?”
Sophia chuckled, “As if it’d be him.”
Then she flipped her phone towards Susan, “It’s from Don.”
Susan glanced at it, then back to Sophia, “Honestly, I think you should totally snag this job opportunity.”
She glanced at the little girl snoozing on the bed, “Just picture Theresa punching in one day, bragging to her pals all proud-like, ‘My mom designed this – how cool is that?”
She picked up the design proposal Sophia had left on the table, flipping through it with a touch of regret, “Such a killer design getting buried would be such a waste.”
Sophia glanced at the design proposal too, but kept mum.
Susan looked at her.
“Anyway, Brandon said himself, Star-Dempsey Architects is Don’s baby, he won’t be hanging around much. This project’s got its own head honcho, He won’t be getting his hands dirty. As long as he doesn’t make a point of showing up, you two bumping into each other in that company is pretty much slim to none, plus you don’t have to clock in at an office, which makes it even less likely.”
int
“You already had to pass up a job once because of getting hitched and having a bun in the oven, and now to duck him, you’re gonna pass on this one? Seems like a crying shame to me, Susan added.
Back in the day, fresh out of college, Sophia had a sweet job lined up, but then she got pregnant, and with the early pregnancy being rocky, she had to play it safe and stick around the house, putting work on the back burner.
Then, after a miscarriage and a spell of getting her health back, she ended up out of the loop for a whole year, and when she started job hunting again, it wasn’t the same as right after graduation.
She kept busy, working on and off on projects with her mentor Zachary Gardner, but without a solid track record of a 9-to-5, employers were iffy, offering her gigs that were basically starting from scratch as an assistant.
But Sophia’s college portfolio and the experience she racked up had her itching for a shot at flying solo in design, so the job hunt was never quite hitting the mark.
That’s partly why she later thought about hitting the books again.
Now that she’d finally clawed her way back to a stable spot in the design world on her own terms, the idea of giving it up felt like a waste to Susan. Sophia felt the pinch too. If Brandon weren’t the client, she wouldn’t be sweating it one bit.
“The other day, I asked Brandon if he’d ever tie the knot again, and he didn’t give me a straight answer,” Sophia glanced at the still-sleeping tyke, “If he’d just said yes or no, I probably wouldn’t be overthinking it this much.”
If he said yes, she’d never spill the beans about the kid to him or even to the kid herself.
That would be a low blow to his future family and wife.
No woman wants to wake up one day to her hubby saying, “Surprise, I’ve got a kid.”
If he said no, she’d play it by ear when to break the news to him, but definitely not now.
Not when she wasn’t sure how hung up Brandon and his folks might be about the kid, whether they’d go so far as to wrestle for custody. She wouldn’t risk tipping him off.
The Crawley family’s loaded and powerful. If they got it in their heads to fight for custody, Sophia wasn’t sure she could hold her ground. The kid was her miracle baby
From biting her nails at every prenatal checkup to the life-and-death struggle in the delivery room, to the round-the-clock grind of looking after a newborn, all that blood, sweat, and tears weren’t something you could just wipe away because they provided half the genes.
She couldn’t just give up her child. Content (C) Nôv/elDra/ma.Org.
Sophia didn’t want her kid to be the glue that forced two people back together either.
She’d finally moved on from that chapter with the Crawley family and didn’t want to be sucked back in because of the kid.
So, whether to tell Brandon about the child was a decision she’d have to make after careful observation and thought, not on a whim.
But Brandon didn’t say yes or no, and his sharpness made her wary of probing further. One wrong question and he’d sniff out the reason. She was spooked by Brandon’s knack for reading between the lines.
Caught in this game of chess, it left her in a bind.
It was like being forced to choose between giving up her future and gambling with the risk of losing custody of her child.
Neither choice was easy for Sophia.
And Susan couldn’t make that call for her.
Deep down, she hoped Brandon would stay in the dark about the kid, which would mean no custody battles.
But she wasn’t the mom; she couldn’t decide for Sophia.
“You could consider taking the project for starters, and while you’re at it, scope out Brandon and his family’s vibe. Gives you some breathing room to decide whether to spill about Theresa,” suggested Susan. “Anyway, if we’re gonna head back, you’d be setting up shop first, and Theresa and I would follow. Gives us some time to work with.”
Sophia shot her a look but didn’t utter a word.
Right then, her phone buzzed back to life.