Page 76 of My Big, Fat, Secret Billionaire Baby

I freeze for a second.

Normal interaction.

Act normal.

I instinctively shift my weight off my bad leg.

“Uh, eleven months,” I manage, pulling off the glasses instinctively.

“Gorgeous eyes,” the man comments, smiling at Mia in her stroller. “Looks just like her dad.”

Sabrina tenses beside me, but I just feel this strange warmth spread through my chest.

“Thanks,” I say, finding myself smiling genuinely. “Yeah, she takes after me.”

They chat with us for another minute about sleep schedules and teething, treating us like just another slightly overwhelmed dad and mom enjoying a Saturday in the park.

It’s… nice.

Simple.

And utterly unremarkable.

Which makes it somehowremarkablefor me.

When they walk away, pushing their strollertowards the playground, I feel lighter than I have in months.

Maybe… maybe this fatherhood thing isn’t just about responsibility and complication.

Maybe there’s something else here, too.

Later that evening,back at the penthouse, the place is chaos again, but a different kind. Delivery guys navigate carefully around my minimalist sculptures, carrying boxes emblazoned with names like ‘Graco’ and ‘Oeuf’. The nursery furniture has arrived.

Thomas oversees the operation with his usual unflappable calm, directing the crew towards the spare bedroom I designated. Rafael, my personal chef, pauses on his way to the kitchen, raising a curious eyebrow at the unassembled crib being carried past.

Neither of them says anything, of course. They’re paid for discretion as much as for their skills. But I see the questions in their eyes. The shock. The inevitable gossip that will ripple through the household staff.

Mr. Maxwell has a baby?

I watch the delivery guys assemble the crib... it’s sleek, modern, ridiculously expensive, probably has more safety certifications than a fucking Volvo, and it’s a bitch to put together, even for them.

Sabrina is right, of course, I have no idea if Mia will ever actually sleep here. It feels presumptuous as hell setting the thing up.

Still... as I stand in the doorway of the rapidly transforming room, which is no longer aguest suite but now definitively a nursery, I don’t feel any doubt. None whatsoever.

Instead, I feel… determined.

This is happening.

She exists.

She’s mine.

And she needs a space here.

In my home.

In my life.

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