Catherine watched Ashley's jaw drop.
She smiled.
Sophia.
Bobby's wife. Her third brother's soulmate, and so much more than that.
When Catherine was born, Sophia was only nineteen, still grieving a stillbirth of her own. During Catherine's mother's illness, it was Sophia who stayed by her bedside, who fed Catherine, bathed her, held her when she cried. Until Catherine was three, she had believed Sophia and Bobby were her parents.
She had called them Mommy and Dada.
Even now, the word still slipped sometimes.
With Bobby's unwavering support, Sophia had risen to become a formidable name in the fashion world. Ironically, for all her devotion to dressing women, she had only sons—two of them. And so, Catherine had remained her muse.
Most of Sophia's designs were made to Catherine's measurements. With her six-foot height and what Sophia fondly called a model's figure, Catherine had been relentlessly pressured to walk runways.
Too bad Catherine preferred laboratories to spotlights.
