Page 55 of My Big, Fat, Secret Billionaire Baby

“Michelle, hold all calls,” I tell her.

She nods.

I enter my office, the door hissing shut behind me. I engage the lock.

Finally fucking alone again.

But not alone anymore, am I?

Now there’s Mia.

I’m a father.

I cross to the floor-to-ceiling windows, and gaze down upon the city. From here, the city looks almost like a glittering, complicated circuit board.

“I’m a father,” I mutter again.

The words echo in the vast, empty space of the office.

A fucking father.

Me.

The guy who avoids commitment like it’s radioactive. The guy whose relationships have the shelf life of milk. The guy who gets his kicks jumping off cliffs.

God, she was right to be scared.

Everything she threw at me… it was true.

Maybe exaggerated, maybe viewed through the lens of her own issues, but fundamentally true.

Iamreckless.

Iamunstable in ways that matter.

What was that she said?

“How could I set her up to wait for a dad who might disappear off the face of the earth, as in literally, at any moment? Just like mine did?”

Just likehersdid. She has her own father issues, as I have mine, apparently.

Still, I wish she’d told me about Mia.

The thought resurfaces, this time with less angerand more… regret? Because if I’m being truthful with myself, if I had known, would it really have changed anything? Would I have stepped up?

Or would I have run? Offered money, an NDA, made the problem disappear? Become the father she feared?

I honestly don’t fucking know. And that scares me more than any cliff jump ever did.

My phone vibrates on the desk where I dropped it. A text message. Unknown number.

Hesitantly, I pick it up.

Leo, it’s Sabrina Taylor. Luca’s assistant, Vivian Wong, gave me your number. I understand you’re angry, and you have every right to be. I made choices based on fear, and perhaps I was wrong. But Mia is innocent in this. Before lawyers get involved and things escalate, perhaps we could establish some preliminary ground rules? For Mia’s sake. I’m open to discussing access, supervised at first, maybe here at the apartment where she’s comfortable. Escalating this legally will be stressful for Mia and I, and frankly, could prove very expensive for you in terms of long-term support costs.

So there it is… an opening. An offer to talk. Still, there’s that last line… a veiled threat...

Could prove very expensive for you.

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