Chapter 21

Sophia glanced at her a few times, then quickly looked away and took a sip of her wine.

That spotlight and attention should have been hers — along with her already shaky marriage — and now it had all fallen into Alice's hands.

But it didn't matter anymore. Whether it was the person or the dress, both were just dust from a chapter that had already closed. She needed to look forward.

She soon found her target for the evening.

Daniel was standing by the floor-to-ceiling windows, holding a glass of champagne, staring outside with a bored look on his face.

Sophia set down her glass and walked over to him.

"Mr. Wilson, hello."

Daniel turned around and looked her up and down. "Hello. And you are?"

"Sophia Brown, designer at STUDIO ANDERSON." Sophia got straight to the point. "Mr. Wilson, I know you just parted ways with your company. I'd like to invite you to join my team and work together on next year's spring collection."

Daniel raised an eyebrow, his expression giving nothing away.

"Sophia Brown..." He repeated the name slowly, as if something had just clicked, and let out a small laugh. "Benjamin's wife?"

Sophia didn't deny it.

"You were a stay-at-home wife for five years and only recently started working?" Daniel's tone had shifted — the earlier respect was gone, replaced by a hint of mockery and amusement. "I've heard about you."

Sophia could already tell where this was going.

Still, she wasn't ready to give up. She didn't want the company to lose such a talented person just because of someone's prejudice against her.

"Mr. Wilson, I really admire your work. If you're open to joining us, we could talk about our ideas and vision—"

"Ideas and vision?" Daniel let out a short laugh and shook his head. "I'm sorry, I have nothing to talk about with a housewife."

His gaze drifted past Sophia and landed on Alice nearby.

Sophia followed his eyes, and her own lit up slightly. She smiled. "What Ms. Baker is wearing today—"

Daniel cut her off again. "Ms. Baker is a designer I deeply respect. I don't want to hear anything negative about her from you — and don't even think about bringing up things like stealing the spotlight or being the other woman in someone's marriage. I'm not interested."

Sophia's expression stiffened. Daniel wasn't even trying to hide his contempt anymore.

She took a slow breath and kept her voice as steady as she could.

"Mr. Wilson, how much do you actually know about me?"

"I have no interest in getting to know you." Daniel smiled. "I can already tell just by looking at you. Being a designer isn't something just anyone can do."

"You're only out here working for fun anyway. It's not like you need the money — you've got a husband to take care of you. I don't expect to have much in common with Mrs. White."

As if that wasn't enough, he added one more line.

"Women like you are exactly what I can't stand — riding on your husband's name like it means something, thinking that marrying a rich man gives you everything."

Sophia's face fell.

She knew there was nothing left to say. And in that moment, she realized something — in this world, her label had always been "Benjamin's wife," never "designer Sophia."

Just then, Alice walked over with a glass of wine, and Daniel's whole face lit up as he moved to greet her.

Sophia leaned against the window, feeling deflated. A few socialites nearby kept glancing her way, and snippets of their conversation drifted over.

"Look at her — head to toe, I doubt she's wearing ten thousand dollars' worth. She's an embarrassment to Mr. White."

"Give her a break — scraping together that ten thousand probably wasn't easy for her."

"Then what's the point of being Mrs. White? If I were her, I'd have asked for a divorce ages ago."

"She's not you. She was the one begging to marry into that family. You think she'd ever walk away?"

Sophia had heard these words — and worse — more times than she could count over the years.

There was a time when they would have hurt her, when she'd cry quietly under her covers at night.

Now she just smiled. Gossip wasn't worth her time.

The ballroom blazed with light.

Alice stood at the center of a crowd, laughing, radiant, and beautiful.

Benjamin stood beside her. There was nothing overtly intimate between them, but just being there said everything.

And Daniel was talking to Alice with a wide smile, so eager and attentive — a completely different person from the one who had just dismissed Sophia moments ago.

Sophia looked away and walked out the door.

Back inside, Benjamin finished dealing with a group of guests and found his eyes automatically scanning the room.

He looked around. Sophia was nowhere to be seen.

What was going on? Wasn't she supposed to be by his side at an event like this?

He'd organized this dinner party primarily to connect with industry heavyweights, but there was another reason too — he wanted to show the world that his marriage to Sophia was still solid, to steady the nerves of people at the company, and to reassure Sophia herself.

And she couldn't even be bothered to show up for that.

Benjamin was annoyed. He slipped away to a quiet corner, pulled out his phone, and called her.

It rang and rang. No answer. He called again. She hung up on him.

He stared at his phone, somewhere between furious and amused, a heavy feeling settling in his chest.

For a brief moment, he thought about the past.

Back then, no matter when he called, she'd pick up right away — her voice soft and carefully happy.

Now... He put his phone away and told himself, "You don't know what's good for you. Am I really begging you?"

Three days later. STUDIO ANDERSON office building.

Sophia was bent over her desk, working through revisions on a design, when the office door suddenly swung open.

Nicholas walked straight in and knocked on her desk. Sophia looked up to find him grinning with barely contained excitement.

"Sophia, good news."

"What's got you so happy?"

Nicholas held up his phone and sat down across from her.

"The company got a resume — really talented designer. Apparently, he had a falling out with his last company over creative differences and literally flipped his boss's desk before walking out. Can you imagine? The temper on this guy. But honestly, I love it — as long as the talent's there, I don't care about anything else."

"I looked at his work, and it's genuinely impressive. With the spring collection coming up next year, I'm thinking of bringing him on board. I have a feeling you two might actually have a lot to talk about."

Sophia raised an eyebrow. "You're not talking about Daniel, are you?"

Nicholas looked surprised. "How did you know? You've got good intel."

Then he caught her expression and hesitated. "Wait — have you already talked to him? How did it go?"

Sophia sighed. "He's talented, no question. But he and I definitely won't have anything to talk about."

She gave him a brief rundown of what had happened at the dinner party.

Nicholas listened, and the smile slowly faded from his face.

"He actually said that?"

Sophia smiled. "It's fine. He doesn't know me. It makes sense he'd have his assumptions."

Nicholas didn't respond. He looked down and started tapping on his phone.

Sophia watched him. "What are you doing?"

"Turning him down."

Sophia blinked. "Just like that? You're not going to meet him first and think it over?"

"Nothing to think over." Nicholas's voice was flat, his fingers moving quickly across the screen. "Someone who can't even make a basic judgment call — what real ability does he have?"

"Are you doing this to get back at him for me?"

Nicholas looked up at her.

"Based on what you've told me, Daniel may be talented, but he's impulsive, stubborn, and not the type to listen to anyone else. I think I have a pretty good idea of why he fell out with his last company — and it probably wasn't just about creative differences."

He paused, then added with a small smile.

"But sure, if you want to think of it as getting back at him for you, that works too."