Page 94 of My Big, Fat, Secret Billionaire Baby

I did that.

My fear did that.

But am I being fair? Am I so trapped in my own history that I’m not even giving him a chance to be different? The thought niggles, unwelcome and persistent. Because this morning… this morning was… unexpected.

I’d found him changing Mia’s diaper. In the nursery. Leo Maxwell, billionaire master of the universe, looking slightly bewildered but focused as he navigated wipes and Velcro tabs.

He wasn’t calling for staff. He was just… doing it.

Handling it.

Like a dad.

The image is stuck in my head, disrupting my carefully constructed narrative of him being incapable and uninterested. Seeing him like that, competent and gentle with our daughter after the raw intensity of last night… it chipped away another brick from that wall I’m trying so desperately to maintain.

It made me question everything I thought I knew, everything I’d used to justify hiding Mia from him.

He looked… like he cared.

And I meanreallycared.

And now? The fragile bubble of our tentative truce, this weird co-parenting-potentially-something-else arrangement, is about to be shattered by the harsh glare of public opinion.

Because the world knows.

Or at least, Page Six knows, which is practically the same thing in Leo’s circles.

The ‘mystery brunette’ and the ‘secret love child.’ My carefully guarded anonymity, Mia’s privacy… gone.

Vaporized by one walk in the park and some photographer with a lens longer than my arm.

This isn’t personal anymore. Well, it is, agonizingly so, but it’s also professional.

He’s my client. Maxwell & Briggs’ reputation is on the line.Myreputation, my ability to handle high-stakes crisis management, is on the line.

So all I can do is take a deep breath and compartmentalize my feelings.

Part of me, the exhausted, overwhelmed mom part, wants to crawl back under the thousand-thread-count duvet and hide until Mia goes to college.

But the other part, the PR strategist who built a business from scratch, the one who thrives under pressure?

She’s already kicking into high gear.

And honestly? Maybe the news getting out is for the best. The secret was unsustainable. A logistical nightmare waiting to implode. It was only a matter of time before the news of his child leaked. Staff talk. Colleagues share gossip. Getting it out in the open now, even under these messy circumstances, maybe it clears the decks. Allows us to build a new narrative.

A controlled one.

I shower quickly in the bathroom connected to the guest suite, and dress in the clothes I brought. Then I pack Mia’s diaper bag with ruthlessefficiency.

Time to retreat to home turf. I need my files, my contacts, my own space where the air doesn’t smell of Leo Maxwell.

I find him in the massive kitchen area, leaning against the counter with his cane, talking quietly on his phone while simultaneously watching Mia, who’s strapped safely into a ridiculously high-tech highchair. She’s happily gumming a piece of banana, oblivious to the media storm brewing around her.

Leo looks tired, the lines around his eyes deeper this morning. He glances up as I enter, ending his call abruptly.

“Hello again,” he says, his voice neutral. No trace of last night’s vulnerability or intensity. Back behind the mask.

Easier this way.

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