The Fashion of Love | Adult F/M Romance [COMPLETE]

ch. 51 - September

The door to Ravi's office opened suddenly to admit a shocked Diana Parrilla.

"Something tells me this isn't the staff meeting." Her tone wasn't entirely convincing. We have an eavesdropper.

"No," Ravi offered from the opposite side of his tablet.

"Just me trying to do right by my son," Anthony commented, droll.

Diana's quirked a brow.

"We both are," Hana remarked, taking Anthony's hand. Jockeying for position already, Hana?Sora almost had sympathy for her.

Meanwhile, Diana's look of revulsion was telling.

"The two of you shouldn't have custody of an immature goldfish," she opined, "not that anybody asked me. I'll show myself out."

The jewelry designer swung the door shut behind her, leaving the four of them in a state of bemused puzzlement.

"On that bizarre note, I'm going to get Tommy from the daycare center. Anthony, if you'd like, you can take him for the night."

"I'd like that." His tone was light, if grudgingly so.

"He needs to be home for his party tomorrow afternoon." Her baby was turning two.

"I have a meeting at noon. Maybe I can bring him by after breakfast."

"I'll be home."

"I'll go with you."

Sora didn't protest. Anthony opened the door to Ravi's office and she allowed him the belated chivalry. It was a joke well-told.

Sora and Anthony brought Tommy up to say goodbye to Hana and Ravi before Anthony headed out to get him strapped into the car. Her son wriggled gamely when Ravi tickled his belly and squealed into Hana's raspberry against his cheek. Her son was lucky to be so loved by so many. For all their interpersonal squabbling, they had that love in common.

When Sora returned from saying her second goodbye to Tommy, she heard a duo of murmuring voices inside Ravi's office. She stopped short at the sound of her name.

"If you keep taking potshots at Sora, you're going to find yourself down a sister. She stayed loyal to you out of habit. How long do you expect that to last when she realizes there are all sorts of people who are loyal to her, not because of blood relation but because she's just a good person?"

"We're sisters, Ravi."

"That's not how you're acting. You treat her like an enemy enough, you'll make one of out of her. Coming after her job was bad. This? Hana, you had no business putting yourself in the middle of this."

"Don't stand there all high and mighty like you weren't right there in the mud with me. What 'business' is it of yours who has custody of Tommy?"

"It isn't. I offered my opinion, Sora welcomed it. I don't dictate where Tommy goes and doesn't or who with. Sora does because she's his mom. Whatis my business is who has custody of our son. Remember him, the one you swear devotion to and yet you keep shipping off to boarding school?"

"He wanted to go, he's talked to us about this."

"Not two years ago. Not last year. This year, yeah, he copped to that, but more than he wanted to go, he wanted to be close to us. He's not going back to Fresno in the spring. This term wasn't a test, it's for keeps."

"That isn't your decision to make."

"Unless you want to go to court and have a judge make it my decision, it is."