The Accidental Mother by Rowan Coleman Read Free Book Online

her and exactly how much she wanted to move into Gillian’s job if and when Gillian stepped down from the office in order to spend more time with her family. Sophie had been working for ten years toward this moment, and she wouldn’t let her chance to sit in Gillian’s chair go without fighting for it tooth and nail.
    Outside the office, Sophie wouldn’t have gone near Eve with a six-foot pole. In fact, if she’d seen Eve walking down a darkened street toward her, she would have run the other way. But sensing that this was one of those times it paid to keep your enemy closest, Sophie decided to tell her everything.
    “I just found out an old friend of mine died,” she said flatly.
    There was no other way to say it. So far, her feelings about the news seemed to entirely two-dimensional, as if she had read the words off a page but hadn’t really felt what they meant yet. Maybe if Carrie had still been a regular part of her life, the news would have seemed real, but for now at least Carrie’s death didn’t seem real. Sophie supposed that would change when she met the children, and that thought terrified her. Not feeling anything would be much easier, she decided, and also much worse.
    “Really,” Eve said, keeping her voice even as she stubbed out the butt of her cigarette with the black, pointed toe of her Prada shoe. “So, were you close to this friend?” she asked.
    Sophie considered the question. “We were once, you know at school,” she said. “And for a while after she went to university and I started working here. We kept in touch—met up in the holidays, but you know, we both changed. She got married pretty soon after she graduated and moved away.” Sophie considered the length of time and distance that had grown between her and Carrie. “So we weren’t so close anymore, no—But, well…you know.”
    Eve tipped her face back to a glimpse of the sun that a passing cloud had temporarily revealed, and Sophie guessed probably she didn’t know.
    “So it’s not all doom and gloom then,” Eve said lightly. “You won’t be having weeks and weeks off for compassionate leave?” She couldn’t help but sound hopeful.
    Sophie squinted at her and thought anxiously about the time she would inevitably be out of the office in the next few days. “Not at all,” she said. A significant part of her didn’t want to tell Eve the rest of the story. The part of her that knew Eve was a natural predator. Show her any kind of weakness, and she would exploit it—especially professionally. But Sophie also knew if she didn’t tell her, it would also look like a weakness.
    “There is another slight complication that has arisen, though,” she said, carefully considering the best way the play out the situation. Let Eve think that her position was being compromised and then, when she showed Gillian she could cope so well with a crisis and still be on top of her job, Sophie would be a stronger contender than ever.
    “Did she leave you loads of money?” Eve asked.
    Sophie shook her head and paused for effect. “No—she left me her kids.”
    For the first time ever Sophie witnessed Eve at a loss for words, if only for a second. Then she found two that Sophie considered extremely apt. “Good God,” Eve said.

    Gillian had two children of her own, eight-year-old Jack and four-year-old Matilda. Sophie knew their names and ages because of the many photos and drawings that adorned Gillian’s office walls and because of their occasional visits to the office.
    They were the reason, Sophie supposed, that as she relayed the events of the morning, tears welled up in Gillian’s eyes. A vital and extremely attractive woman in her early forties, Gillian Hughes was Sophie’s inspiration and role model. She had cut a swathe to the very top when other women were still complaining about glass ceilings, and had become a partner in the firm by the time she was thirty-five. She openly encouraged her younger staff to try for