The Indifferent Ex-Husband: Heartstrings in the Mall of Fate novel 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.”

“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.