Chapter 15: THE NANNY'S SECRET              

The morning sun streamed through the penthouse windows as Sophia sat at the kitchen table in her private wing, reviewing sketches for the Northern Lights collection’s New York debut. Luna and Stella were asleep in their nursery, and Maya had just left for the bakery—leaving Sophia alone with her thoughts and the quiet hum of the city below.

A soft knock on the door made her look up. Standing in the doorway was a woman in her fifties, with kind brown eyes and silver-streaked black hair pulled back in a neat bun. She held a tray with fresh coffee and warm croissants.

“Ms. Chen? I’m Rosa. I was hired as the nanny—Mr. Cross said you’d be needing help with the little ones.”

Sophia set down her pencil, surprised. She hadn’t agreed to a nanny—hadn’t even discussed it with Alexander. “I wasn’t told about this.”

“Mr. Cross said he wanted to make sure you had support,” Rosa said gently, setting the tray down. “He mentioned you’ve been working long hours, and with the board vote coming up… well, two babies are a lot to handle on your own.”

Sophia was about to refuse—she’d managed just fine on her own so far, and she didn’t trust strangers in her home, not with the twins’ secret still so fragile. But then she looked at Rosa’s face—warm, open, with lines around her eyes that spoke of years of caring for children—and her resolve softened.

“Thank you,” she said quietly. “But there are rules. No one can know about the babies—no one outside this wing. Mr. Cross and I… we’re keeping their existence private for now.”

Rosa nodded, her expression serious. “I understand completely. My own daughter—she worked in fashion once, before she… well, before things got complicated. She always said that some secrets are worth keeping to protect the people you love.”

Something in her voice made Sophia pause. “Your daughter—what was her name?”

“Isabella,” Rosa said, a sad smile touching her lips. “She worked at Cross Industries for a while, designing under a pseudonym. Said the company was full of ‘beautiful lies and ugly truths.’”

Sophia’s hands stilled on her sketchbook. Isabella. The name sounded familiar—she’d seen it on old design documents Alexander had shown her, signatures on patterns she’d thought were his.

“Isabella worked on the Constellation line,” she said slowly. “The one they’re claiming I stole.”

Rosa’s eyes widened slightly. “She did. She spent six months on those patterns—said they were inspired by a girl she’d met who could sew stars into fabric. She left Cross Industries right after the line was finished—said she couldn’t stand working for people who’d take credit for someone else’s work.”

Sophia stood abruptly, knocking her chair back. “You knew? You knew the designs were mine?”

“I knew they weren’t Cross Industries’,” Rosa said gently. “Isabella never told me who made them, but she said the real designer was ‘the only person who ever made the Cross name mean something.’ When I saw you in the penthouse yesterday—when I saw the way you hold those babies—I knew.”

She stepped closer, her voice low. “I’m the only one who knows, besides Mr. Cross and your friend Maya. Isabella made me promise to look out for you if you ever came back. She said you’d need someone you could trust—someone who knows the truth about what really happened at Cross Industries.”

Sophia sank back into her chair, her mind racing. Isabella—Alexander’s former designer, the one everyone thought had left to start her own business. But according to Rosa, she’d left to expose the company’s lies.

“Why are you telling me this now?” she asked.

“Because the board vote is in three days,” Rosa said. “And Mr. Cross isn’t the only one with secrets. The three holdouts—they’re not just working with the syndicate. They’re planning to reveal the twins’ existence at the vote, to claim you’ve been using them as leverage to get what you want.”

Sophia’s blood ran cold. “How do you know this?”

“Isabella has been watching the board,” Rosa said. “She has contacts inside Cross Industries—people who want to see the company change. She sent me a message this morning—they’re ready to move against you unless we act first.”

Sophia looked at the sketches on the table, at the contract she’d signed, at the nursery door down the hall. She’d spent so long protecting her secret, building walls around herself and her girls. But now, the only way to keep them safe was to trust someone else—someone connected to the very company that had tried to destroy her.

“Where is Isabella?” she asked, her voice steady. “I need to talk to her.”

Rosa pulled out her phone and showed her a text message. “She’ll be here tonight—at the old warehouse studio in Seattle. She says she has evidence that will prove the designs are yours, and that the board has been colluding with the syndicate for years.”

Sophia thought of the board vote in three days, of the twins sleeping in their nursery, of the life she’d built. She had a choice—to stay hidden and let them destroy her, or to face the truth head-on, with the help of the one person who’d been fighting for her all along.

“Tell her we’ll be there,” she said firmly. “But she has to promise—no one else finds out. Not yet.”

Rosa nodded, her face serious. “She knows. She just wants to help. To make things right.”

As Rosa left to prepare the nursery for the babies’ nap, Sophia picked up her phone and dialed Alexander’s number. He answered on the first ring.

“We need to talk,” she said, her voice tight with urgency. “The board isn’t the only threat. And there’s someone you need to see.”