The room went quiet and Jake’s expression shuttered. And Sophia realized they had just crashed into territory way deeper than a second date usually went. “I’m going to go check your car,” Jake said, his voice tight, and disappeared downstairs to the garage. Before Sophia could say anything, Lily looked worried. “Did I make Daddy sad?”
Sophia pulled her close. “No, baby, you didn’t. Your daddy just misses your mommy a lot.” Lily nodded like this made perfect sense. “Aunt Emma says that’s why he needs someone new to love so he can be happy again.” And Sophia’s heart just absolutely shattered because this little girl understood way too much. Lily played with Sophia’s bracelet, then said casually, “Daddy’s worried about the garage.”
Sophia’s attention sharpened. “Why is that, sweetheart?” Lily shrugged. “Some fancy people want to buy our building. Daddy said we might have to move.” Sophia felt ice slide down her spine. “What building?” Lily pointed down. “This one. Morrison’s garage. It’s on Market Street. The little mall place with the pizza shop and the dry cleaners.”
Sophia’s vision tunneled because she knew that property, knew it intimately, had the acquisition papers sitting on her desk with the address circled in red, and the building they wanted to demolish to put up her flagship store was the garage directly below her feet. The garage Jake owned, the business he’d built, the dream he’d promised his dying wife he’d keep alive, and she was the one about to destroy it.
Her phone buzzed with a text from Marcus, her business partner. “Board meeting moved to January tenth. Need final decision on Market Street property ASAP.” Sophia stared at the message and felt sick because the universe had just handed her an impossible choice. Save her company and destroy the man she was falling for, or save Jake and watch everything she’d built for ten years crumble into nothing. And there was no world where she got to have both.
Sophia made some excuse about a work emergency that sounded fake even to her own ears and practically ran out of Jake’s apartment like the building was on fire, and Lily’s confused little face asking “But we were having so much fun” was going to haunt her nightmares for weeks. She sat in her car with her hands shaking on the steering wheel, pulled out her phone, and texted Marcus three words that felt like signing a death warrant. “We can’t buy it.”
Marcus called her immediately, his voice coming through the speakers so loud she had to turn down the volume. “What do you mean we can’t buy it? That property is our only option. The investors love the location. The timeline works. Sophia, what the hell is going on?” She pressed her forehead against the steering wheel. “The owner is someone I know. We can’t do this to him.”