Page 43 of My Big, Fat, Secret Billionaire Baby

Also looks bad. He emphasized speed.

3. Meet him somewhere else.

Too late. Already agreed to home.

4. Find another babysitter in three hours.

Ha. That’s funny.

5. Have the meeting with Mia home.

Oh. My. God.

Can I actually do that? Can I pitch a PR strategy while simultaneously preventing my daughter from eating questionable fluff she found under the couch or having a meltdown because Sophie la Girafe committed treason?

But what choice do I have? I need this client. Since shutting the downtown office, cash flow has been… tighter than these damn leggings. A big retainer from this Briggs character could mean the difference between thriving and needing to ask my disapproving mother for a loan.

The horror.

I decide I’ll tuck Mia away in the other room during the meeting. Shouldn’t be too hard to move the crib there. I’ll just have to hope she doesn’t erupt into a screaming fit while the client is present.

I get to work on cleaning up the apartment again.

Somewhere along the way I get a text.

Hello, this is Vivian, Luca’s assistant. Are we still good for three o’clock today?

I stare at the phone for a long moment. I glance around my half-cleaned apartment, then at Mia. She’s finally abandoned Sophie and is now staring intently at her own chubby feet, a look of profound concentration on her little face. Her eyes, those impossibly, startlingly green eyes, blink slowly.

I text back:We’re good!

Famous last words.

I just need to stay calm. Project confidence. Control the narrative.

Right. Rule number one. Control the narrative.

And the narrative here is: I am a competent single mother running a successful business.

Mia is my daughter.

End of story.

I look around my apartment. Yeah, I still have a lot of cleaning to do.

Mia coos, reaching a hand towards me. I walk over and lift her out of the playpen, holding her close. She smells like baby powder. Doesn’t need changing, yet.

“Okay, little one,” I whisper, burying my face in her soft curls. “Looks like Mommy is going to be a little busy this afternoon.”

14

Leo

The Maybach glides through Brooklyn like a black shark navigating a fish market.

Fucking traffic.

Every goddamn street looks the same.... brownstones bleeding into hipster coffee shops bleeding into bodegas.

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