Page 31 of Daddy's Accidental Babies

His voice was tight and clipped with urgency. “We’ve got another problem. You need to hear this.”

I unlocked the car and slid into the driver’s seat, already dreading what he was going to tell me. “Talk.”

“There’s been another leak. It hit a wire service twenty minutes ago. We pulled the origin and…this time it’s not a financial sheet. It’s emails—from your account.”

I gripped the steering wheel, my knuckles whitening against the leather. For a second, I stayed like that—silent, locked up, staring through the windshield without seeing anything. A part of me wanted to punch the dash, to scream, to tear out every rootof this mess with my bare hands. But I didn’t. I sat there, jaw clenched, pulse pounding. “What kind of emails?” I grumbled.

“Internal correspondence between you and the CEO of Raven & Rhodes. Merger projections, executive tone guidance, draft statements. Some of it is sensitive and some is already being misquoted.”

“How bad?” I closed my eyes to block out some of the mental stimulation. After being so angry at David, this was the last thing I needed. I’d have to go on hypertension meds if this didn’t let up.

“Bad enough. The board’s already calling. Press wants a statement. This isn’t just a breach—it’s a PR fire. And they’re dragging your name across every business feed like you leaked it yourself.” Graham sounded defeated, which made me feel defeated.

My jaw clenched. I forced my voice to stay calm. “Get me everything. Source traffic, publication time stamps, social escalation. I want to see who picked it up first.”

“Already in your inbox,” he said. “But Dominic—it looks personal this time.”

“Do we know who did it?” I asked him, but he didn’t really have to respond.

“I’ll give you one guess what floor it came from…”

I didn’t need to guess. I already knew.

I just didn’t know why.

15

SAVANNAH

The twins didn’t go down easy. Cal lost one of his socks in the couch cushions and then convinced Leo it was eaten by a monster. Leo retaliated by dumping an entire glass of milk across the kitchen floor, which the dog started lapping up immediately.

Cal refused to brush his teeth unless I let him wear his astronaut helmet. Leo insisted on a lullaby from Thea, then decided he didn’t like the one she picked. And by the time I finally got them into bed, I felt like I’d been run over by a very small, very determined army.

The apartment was still humming with their energy, the hallway lights dimmed, and the faint sound of the dishwasher ticking through its cycle kept me company. I padded barefoot into the living room, my oversized sweatshirt hanging off one shoulder. My hair was damp from the shower I’d managed to sneak in just before bedtime.

Dropping onto the couch, I pulled the laptop onto my knees. The cushions sank beneath me, trying to remind me that home was for relaxing, not work, but I had to get a few things done tonight. My body ached in that bone-deep way that only camefrom parenting. I opened the laptop’s lid, blinked past the start-up glare, and leaned my head back against the cushion.

I worked through my inbox in a steady rhythm, clicking through follow-ups from the shoot and clearing low-priority notes flagged by Justine. Most of it was busywork—brand taglines that needed sign-offs, calendar updates from Vanessa’s office, a recycled press concept I’d already rejected twice. I was halfway through reviewing a vendor brief when I reached for my phone on the side table to give myself a bit of a distraction before I finished up.

I checked my phone and found three missed calls, each one from Dad. There were no voicemails or texts. A silent demand for attention lingered behind the missed calls—reminding me he was still upset about Dominic.

I stared at the screen, considering whether to press the call button. I knew calling him back would lead to a conversation I wasn’t ready for—or an argument, more accurately. The tension squatted between my shoulder blades, but I let the moment pass and set my phone back down. Whatever he wanted to say, it could wait until morning. If it had been urgent, he would’ve said so. Or he would’ve tried again. But three calls and zero messages meant he was sending a deliberate message.

My inbox was still open, staring at me and mocking how far behind I was with this task, but then one email in my drafts folder stood out:

Subject: URGENT: Updated Brand Narrative Memo – Final Draft

My name was listed on the thread. At first, I assumed it was part of a thread I’d forgotten I’d started—some automated reminder or approval request that landed in my inbox. But when I opened the memo, I realized it was already marked as final and routed to legal, with my name tied to the top.

I opened the attachment, heart skipping once as I scanned the content. The document was wrong. Not just off in tone—but stripped. The key points I’d built into the draft were gone. Strategic phrasing had been softened into meaningless platitudes. Dates and phrasing I’d triple-checked were all rewritten. It felt like someone had dragged a red pen through my voice and replaced it with something soulless.

But it was the signature line that hit hardest. It said I’d approved it. And I hadn’t.

I clicked out of the PDF and checked the version history on my shared files. The original was still in my drafts folder—untouched. The version I was looking at had been uploaded from someone else’s credentials. Not mine. Whoever had done this had lifted my name, swapped in the new memo, and moved it forward through official channels.

I sat back slowly, the air tightening in my chest. Someone hadn’t hacked my inbox—they hadn’t needed to. They’d accessed the internal document system and made the changes from inside. And the only thing linking me to the altered file…was my name.

I hovered over the forward button, then added legal and compliance to the chain. I typed a short message to Isla, outlining the edits and flagging them as unauthorized. Just in case this turned into something bigger.

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