Page 24 of My Big, Fat, Secret Billionaire Baby

The thought pops into my head uninvited, like a rogue algorithm messing with my perfectly optimized system.

Six weeks ago. Marco’s wedding. Dom getting hitched to Christopher’s PA in some drugged-up fever dream. And that girl… Sabrina.

Shit.What the hell even happened there?

I remember the pool party. The cabana. Her friend Tatiana falling into Dom. Introducing myself. Buying them drinks. She was… different. Smart eyes. Quick wit disguised under that professional polish. Not my usual type, maybe, but definitely intriguing. Then the GHB. Another one of my brilliant ideas.

And after that?

Blank.

Fucking blank slate.

I remember waking up the next morning alone in that ridiculous Aria Sky Suite. Sunlight stabbing my eyes. Head pounding not from booze, but from that weird chemical fog. And I was… dressed? Sort of. My shirt was on. My jeans were halfway up my legs, tangled around my knees. No underwear. What the actual fuck? And Sabrina, standing there in the doorway with something like sheer terror written all over her face, as if I caught her committing some heinous act.

I vaguely recall her name whispered in the fog just before I blacked out completely again. Or maybe I dreamed that, too. The details are gone, swallowed by the GHB void.

So, the question remains.

Did we? Or didn’t we?

And why the fuck does it matter so much?

It’s pissing me off. It really is. Usually, I don’t give a shit. A fuck is a fuck. Conquest complete, move on.

But this… this blank space… it feels like a loss of control. Like someone else holds the cards, and I hate that.

Is it just my ego demanding confirmation that I bagged her? Or is it something else?

That flash of intelligence in her eyes, the way she didn’t seem impressed by my bullshit… did that make thenot knowingfeel like I missed something? Like she walked away holding a card I didn’t even know was in play?

Fuck, maybe it’s just the anomaly itself.

I always know the score, and this uncertainty is a vulnerability I can’t stand.

GHB.

Fucking Luca.

He’s the one who got me into that shit. Started small, years ago. Just a little something extra for the parties. Now… well, now it’s just part of the routine. Helps maintain the ‘fun Leo’ brand. Helps me forget the shit I don’t want to remember. Like my old man passed out on the floor, smelling of cheap whiskey. Like the eviction notices. Like the gnawing fear that maybe, deep down, I’m just like him.

Fuck that.

I’m nothing like him. I built this empire from scratch. I control my world. I control my appetites.

Mostly.

And Sabrina? Doesn’t matter if we fucked or not. Probably did. Usually do when GHB’s involved, though normally I don’t take enough to wipe out my entire memory of the experience. I’ll have to have a little talk with that dealer sometime.

Still, it’s irrelevant. All of it. It was just one night. A Vegas haze. There are plenty of other options keeping my bed warm back here in New York. Options are never a problem for someone like me.

Yeah right, keep telling yourself that, dude. Irrelevant.

I smile sadly, knowing the blank spot that is Sabrina will probably bother me now and again for years to come.

The door to my office suite hisses open and Luca Briggs strolls in, all Italian tailoring and predatory grace. He flashes a grin, teeth white against his designer stubble.

“What a day,” Luca says, dropping into one of the chairs opposite my desk without waiting for an invitation. “We’ve been waiting for fucking Axiom to IPO for what, three years now? Two point three billion on a fifty million seed. Not fucking bad.”

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