Page 115 of My Big, Fat, Secret Billionaire Baby

I check my watch. Sabrina will be returning soon. I’ll happily inform her that Mia literally slept through her absence like a baby.

That night,after we eat another meal prepared by Rafael that I barely taste, I find myself standing in the nursery doorway.

Sabrina is sitting in the rocking chair, reading Mia a bedtime story. Something about a runaway bunny. Mia is rapt, her green eyes focused on the colorful pictures rather than the words. Sabrina’s voice meanwhile is soft, melodic, and completely different from the sharp, professional tone she uses on client calls.

Sabrina looks… peaceful. Content.

Like this is exactly where she’s supposed to be.

It’s a simple scene. The father watches the mother read to child. Domestic. Normal.

Except nothing about this is normal. Not the multi-million dollar penthouse setting. Notthe tabloid storm raging outside. Not the fractured history and uncertain future connecting the three of us.

Mia yawns, a huge, jaw-cracking baby yawn.

Sabrina merely smiles and closes the book.

“Okay, sleepyhead,” she murmurs, lifting Mia into the crib. She tucks the blanket around her and presses a soft kiss to her forehead. “Sweet dreams.”

Sabrina straightens up, turning towards me, her expression unguarded for a moment.

“She really likes that bunny book,” she whispers.

“Yeah,” I whisper back, stepping into the room without my cane. “Seems like it.”

We stand there for a moment, side-by-side, looking down at our sleeping daughter. The silence stretches, comfortable this time. Filled with the soft sound of Mia’s breathing.

Breaking generational patterns. That’s what Dom implied I should consider. Not shutting doors. Not repeating the cycle of estrangement.

My mother… maybe she deserves a chance? Not for my sake. Fuck no. But for Mia’s? Does Mia deserve a grandmother, even a flawed, complicated one?

The thought feels dangerous. Vulnerable. Like cracking open a door I’ve kept bolted shut for decades.

Well, technically, the kid’s already got one grandmother... Sabrina’s mom. The Spanish Inquisition over the speakerphone. Still, maybe... maybe more family isn’t automatically a bad thing? Eventhisfucking family?

Shit if I know.

I don’t tell Sabrina about my mother’s call. Not yet. It’s too raw. Too complicated. One battle at a time. Right now, just being here, in this quiet room,sharing this moment with her and Mia… it feels like enough.

More than enough.

Who knows, maybe I’ll figure out this fatherhood thing yet.

And this…usthing.

Yes. Who knows?

31

Sabrina

Well.

Today has been… a day. Lunch with Tatiana was simultaneously therapeutic and terrifying. Therapeutic because, well, Tatiana justgetsit. The pressure, the absurdity, the feeling of being swept up in a billionaire tornado. She listened patiently while I stress-dumped about the tabloid leak, the move to Leo’s penthouse (Operation: Gilded Cage, as I’ve started mentally calling it), the whiplash-inducing shift from ‘client/baby daddy’ to ‘guy I apparently have mind-blowing sex with on office furniture.’

Her advice? Essentially: ‘He’s clearly into you, Mia adores him, and he hasn’t run screaming despite multiple opportunities. Maybe stop overthinking and see where it goes?’

Easy for her to say. Her accidental Vegas marriage somehow morphed into a functional, loving partnership with Dominic Rossi, complete with parenthood.

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