Page 19 of My Big, Fat, Secret Billionaire Baby

Tears prickle behind my eyelids, but I blink them back fiercely.

Don’t you dare cry, Sabrina. You knew what this was. A Vegas mistake. A story you’ll never tell.

What happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas.

For good, or for bad.

Leo shifts again, pulling me closer, his breathing deep and even now. He’s falling asleep. His body is relaxed against mine, his hold secure. Despite everything, despite the drugs, the roughness, the knowledge that this means nothing to him beyond a physical release he probably won’t even recall… it feels...good. Being held. Feeling solid warmth beside me.

It’s a dangerous feeling. The kind of feeling that makes you forget who you are, what youknow to be true. The kind of feeling that echoes the hollow ache left by my father’s abandonment.

But right now, exhausted and overwhelmed, adrift in this ridiculously opulent suite miles from reality, I let myself sink into it.

I close my eyes, listening to the steady rhythm of his breathing, feeling the heat radiating from his body.

Just for tonight, I’ll pretend. I’ll pretend this is real. I’ll pretend he sees me, wants me, not just the anonymous body beneath him. I’ll borrow this warmth, this illusion of connection.

And who knows? Maybe fairy tales come true. Maybe tomorrow he’ll...

Yeah right.

I drift off to sleep wrapped in the arms of a beautiful stranger who’ll probably forget we even had sex when he wakes up.

Welcome to my life.

6

Sabrina

Ugh.

My head.

No, wait. Head’s fine. Weirdly fine.

It’s the rest of me that feels… processed.

Like I went ten rounds with a heavyweight boxer and then got run over by a very expensive, very comfortable steamroller.

Sunlight slices through a gap in the curtains, hitting my eyelids. I groan, burying my face deeper into the pillow.

A pillow that smells strangely of black tea, fig leaf, ozone… and sex.

Oh god.

Memory slams back with the subtlety of a Vegas eviction notice.

The pool party.

Leo.

The wedding-that-shouldn’t-have-happened.

The security guards.

This room.

My eyessnap open.

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