SEPTEMBER

Sora wore Dior to the CQ launch and it was a fashion headline for three days before Ravi grudgingly and with eyes rolled released a statement reminding the press that Sora wasn't his personal dress form and she wore whatever she wanted. The media had tired of the love story, they had turned to seeking out the cracks in their united front. Nevermind that Ravi was in attendance for the unveiling of the magazine's first cover or that he had been photographed nuzzling the side of her neck in a candid moment behind the scenes. He supported her one hundred percent; that just wasn't the story that sold.

Sora had the chance to get very familiar with the video footage:

A tall, wiry reporter in loaned designer duds exposited about the day, closing their summary of Sora's remarks with overly serious note that Sora wasn't playing for home team and asking Ravi's input.

Decked in Hugo Boss himself, Ravi's response was less than impressed.

"We're at a launch for Himura Media Group' newest project and you want to talk about what designer the CEO is wearing? You don't think you're focused on the wrong thing?"

"It's all part of the story."

"Not today it isn't. I'm here to support Sora. I'd support her if she wore a potato sack." Ravi gazed off-camera to where Sora was presiding over a gaggle of print media reporters from a podium. "It's Dior; she could do worse for a potato sack."

Sora facepalmed and shut off the blaring television screen. She'd seen enough.

"You insulted Dior. The entire design house is breathing fire. How did you manage that in less than twenty words?"

"I didn't call down the house; Van Asscher does good work for Dior Homme. I insulted Raf Simons by saying what every fashion forward designer has been saying since he took over. A creative director should be creative; if he can't be, he should give the job to someone capable of real innovation."

"I don't know how I didn't see it, you're gunning for his job."

Ravi grunted in distaste. "I'm not gunning for anything. I called it like I saw it. You made that dress what it was, not every woman could do that."

Sora scrutinized her man carefully, noting how he looked especially smug in the moment. "You're changing the story."

"It could do with changing. What's more innocuous than a byline about a respected CEO who can make bad clothes look good?"

"Dior's decent."

"Not getting into that with you."

"In your professional opinion, how did I look?" Sora lifted her feet onto the couch to sit them in his lap. He took his cue ably and began giving her the most delightful foot rub. Practically perfect. She was still waiting for the other shoe to drop most days.

"You're beautiful when you wake up in the morning; a high-priced garbage bag can't do much damage on that front."

"Talk about your backhanded compliments."

"I complimented you, but that glad rag is a better fit for last week's garbage than the CEO of a Fortune 500 company. That's my story and I'm sticking to it."

"That's a bold stance to take when you're leaving town for a week. A girl could find a guy who likes her in glad bags in that amount of time."

He shrugged. Fashion Week was the elephant in any room he'd been in for the past month. He likely would have been more diplomatic at the CQ launch if he hadn't been preoccupied with Lincoln Center.

"I don't care whose clothes you wear as long as I get to keep coming home to you."

He ground his knuckle deep into a knot beside the ball of her foot.

She moaned in abandon as the painful tension in her muscles eased.

"I've gotta hand it to you, that was a pretty good save."

"I do my best." He lifted her foot to kiss the knob of her ankle.

Sora swung her legs down to crawl along to sofa to Ravi's lap. "I'm not going to get see your best for days. You'd better give me something to remember you by."

He slipped his arms under her and lifted her clear off the couch to carry her to the bedroom. "I'll give you something to remember me by, all right..."

Ravi was late for his flight the next morning and Sora was late for work. Both had a smile on their face.

...

A few days later, Sora received a stiff brown envelope from a solemn process server on arriving home from the office. Since Aiko had Tommy for the night, she had opted to leave early for a mental health evening before her departure for Beijin in a few weeks's time. She hadn't anticipated being served. Who's suing me? She hadn't made any new enemies that she knew of.

Once she'd stowed her purse and shoes, Sora opened the envelope and the ground might as well have opened underneath her for all that she could barely stand. Anthony is trying to take my son. She and her ex-husband had discussed altering Tommy's custody arrangement earlier in the year; however, talks had broken down once Sora and Ravi went public with their relationship. Ravi Misra and Anthony Himura are mortal enemies, damn the consequences to the rest of us.

It had become a race to the bottom to see who was more eager to see Ravi and Sora fail, the press or their exes.

Ravi was her first call and her third; she called her lawyer in between, only to get his voicemail. Ravi answered on her second attempt, which drove her out of her mind as she paced her living room, but she couldn't blame him. He had gone to New York Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week to show Defiant for Spring 2019. That's where his head was. Sora just really needed his head to be with her now.

"Please answer," she chanted to herself quietly, suppressing her anxiety before it could become a full-blown panic attack. She needed her composure to see her through. Sora was enraged at her sister and her ex-husband for this latest stunt, but she couldn't allow them to see the rage. That rage would be her pressure valve; it was for her alone, not the public, not the courts, herself.

Ravi returned her call close to midnight and she couldn't help noting his obvious exhaustion.

"What happened?"

"They're trying to take Tommy from me. And the company, again, I guess, but I don't care as much about that. What is wrong with them? If it's not one thing, it's something else. I just want some peace."

"You're letting them get under your skin. You can't do that."

"How am I supposed to stop? I was married to him. She's my sister. These two people are uniquely qualified to drive me out of my mind. They've already done it once."

"And I'm not going to let them do it again, but I need your help. You can't humor them, you can't even appear to be listening. Right now, they're playing mind games. They want to provoke us into a response and we can't let them win. We'll never have any peace if they do."

"I guess I don't know why I care so much. Why does it matter what they do?"

"Because we love them, Sora, and we'd like to think they love us enough not to target us with their anger and frustration. We want them to understand, but let's look who we're talking about here."

Sora laughed. "You're right. I wish you weren't, but you're right. Hana is all about vengeance when she feels she's been wronged and Anthony isn't exactly a paragon of forgive and forget. This is what I signed on for."

Ravi breathed deeply and sighed. "It doesn't have to be like that. You can back out of this right now and not have to face up to their antics."

"I should give up a man who makes me feel the way you do to keep my felonious ex-husband and erstwhile sister from raining hell down on me for daring to be happy? I've done that. I've lied to myself about how I was feeling. I've been miserable." Sora wished he was home to hold her hand. He made her feel invincible. "I don't want to be miserable anymore."

"I don't want to be miserable either; together, we won't be. That's something Hana and Anthony will just have to get used to."

"So what? We just wait out their temper tantrums and hope nobody gets hurt too badly in the meantime?"

"We do our best to limit the damage and, yeah, we hold on with all we've got to what we love. Eventually, they have to see that we're not going give it all up for them."

"But if it costs me Tommy...I cannot lose him."

"And you won't. I'm not gonna let that happen."

"That might be out of your control. Anthony is not to be trifled with. Hana may have turned him into a joke, but Ravi, my ex-husband is a dangerous man to cross. People have died crossing him."

"Has he threatened you?"

"No, but he could threaten someone else. Say, a family court judge who thought I was a shoe-in for sole custody."

"I won't let him hurt our family. Not you, not me, and not our boys. We're in this together. Have been for months."

Sora massage her temples to soothe the migraine brewing between them. "I should give my attorney another call."

"And I'll call mine. I'm not playing this game with Hana anymore. We can't rely on everyone involved to act in good faith, so we need to put everything in writing. It's better this way."

Sora blotted her face with Kleenex. "I was sure she destroyed those papers. I gave her the benefit of the doubt." She covered her face though she was alone, embarrassed. "Go ahead, you can call me an idiot. I was one for giving her that much slack. I really thought she was done with the underhanded planning after I called her out for the media stunt."

"You love her. We offer chances on top of chances when we love people. They don't always deserve that much trust."

Sora buried her face in her hands.

"She can't hurt me at Himura. The most recent Board vote negates that aspect of the settlement papers if they're found valid in court. The custody section is another matter."

"Anthony defrauded you."

"Did he, really? I knew what he was like when I married him. If I didn't, I figured it out in a heartbeat. He proved to me time and again that he could not be trusted to do the decent thing. I didn't want a hero or a white knight, I just wanted somebody decent who saw me and who wanted tostay. I wanted that for my son."

"Which he deserves. Anthony could, I suppose, become that man in time. He's not now."

"You don't say."