Page 82 of My Big, Fat, Secret Billionaire Baby

Maybe it’s time.

“Sabrina,” I start, setting my whiskey glass down carefully on the ridiculously expensive coaster. My palms feel suddenly sweaty. This is harder than facing down hostile fund managers. “About… Vegas.”

Her head snaps up, her eyes wide, wary. “What about it?”

“I need to… ask you something.” I lean forward, resting my elbows on my knees, looking her directly in the eye. No bullshit. No games. Just… truth. Or trying for it. “That night. After the pool party, the cabana… when we came back to my hotel. I know I was… fucked up.” I hate admitting this. Hate the lack of control it implies. Hate the weakness. “I woke up the next morning, half-dressed, confused as hell. You were… leaving.”

She looks down at her wine glass again, her knuckles white where she grips the stem.

“I remember.” Her voice is barely a whisper.

“Obviously…somethinghappened,” I continue, the word ‘something’ feeling like a gross understatement given the sleeping baby in the next room. “Mia is pretty irrefutable proof of that.” I pause, searching for the right words, feeling exposed in a way I haven’t before. “What I don’t remember… isit. Us. What was it… like? Was I…?” I trail off, unable to ask directly if I was rough, or careless, or the kind of asshole I become when the drugs take over completely. The thought that I might have hurt her, or scared her, even unintentionally, while blacked out… it makes my gut clench. That blank space, knowing it led toMia, knowing I have zero recall of the moment my daughter was conceived… it’s been driving me fucking crazy. It feels like a fundamental piece of the puzzle is missing, ripped out.

I know she probably doesn’t remember either, since we were both high on GHB, but I figure it’s worth asking.

She takes a shaky breath, still not looking at me. When she speaks, her voice is low, strained. “It was… intense, Leo. Fast. You weren’t exactly… gentle.”

The quiet words land like punches.

Not gentle.

Fuck. Exactly what I was afraid of. Anger surges. At myself, mostly. For beingthatguy. For letting bullshit drugs wipe away not just a memory, but my basic fucking humanity.

She must see the self-loathing flash across my face because she quickly adds, her voice even quieter,almost rushed, “But… Leo, when I said it wasn’t gentle, I didn’t mean… it wasn’t good. Itwas…” She hesitates, color rising in her cheeks, finally looking up at me, her gaze direct and surprisingly fierce. “It was incredible. Honestly? You kind of ruined me for other men. I… I didn’t know how I could go back to normal after feeling… that.”

The admission hangs there, raw and unexpected, adding another layer of confusing complexity to the whole damn situation.

My own anger falters, tripped up by her confession.

Incredible? Ruined her for other men?

That wasn’t the validation my bruised ego was expecting, but it lands differently. Not vindication, but… something that makes the hollow space ache even more.

I created that intensity, that feeling for her, and I don’t even fucking remember it.

“Then why?” I ask again, but the harshness is gone from my voice now, replaced by genuine confusion. “If it was… incredible… why run? Why not say something that morning?” I pause, realizing something else. “And how come you remember that evening at all? When no one else who was there remembers a fucking thing?”

She finally looks up fully, and her eyes are glistening. Not crying, not quite, but close. And there’s a raw vulnerability there that mirrors my own fucking confusion.

“Why?” she repeats, a humorless little laugh escaping her lips. “Are you serious? You want to know why?” She puts down her wine glass with a soft click. “Okay. Let’s talk about Vegas.Reallytalk about it. You remember offering me GHB? Youremember charming me into thinking it was just a bit of harmless fun, even though every rational cell in my body screamed ‘bad idea’?”

I flinch. Yeah. I remember that part. Vaguely. The pressure.

I was a fucking asshole.

“I didn’t take it,” she continues quietly, her gaze unwavering now. “I pretended to. Spilled most of it. I was… tipsy from tequila, maybe. Definitely overwhelmed by your charm. But I wasn’t high like you were.”

She wasn’t high.

The information lands like another body blow. She was sober-ish. Aware. And I was… not.

Fuck.

“So you remember everything?” I ask, my voice barely audible now.

She nods, looking miserable again despite her earlier confession about the sex itself. “Unfortunately. Every awkward, intense, completely unforgettable detail.” She wraps her arms around herself. “And I remember waking up the next morning, seeing you completely passed out, clearly having no clue what had happened, or even who I was beyond some vague Vegas memory. And I panicked, Leo.”

Her voice trembles slightly. “All I could think was… he only didthat, waslike that, because he was high. I told myself that sober, you wouldn’t look twice at the sensible PR consultant who makes killer lasagna. You’d want the models, the actresses, the women who actuallytookthe party enhancers. Not me.”

---