Page 52 of The Billionaire and the Nanny

Tia blew me a kiss and went back to eating her toast. I watched her closely to make sure she wasn’t still dieting. When she helped herself to butter liberally, I relaxed and went back to eating my eggs in peace.

“Take your lazy ass off to bed if you don’t want to eat anything. You’re no use to anyone in this state,” I said derisively, and Marcus gave me the finger.

I kissed Tia goodbye and left for work, while she finished her breakfast leisurely. She planned to stay home with Maddie until she recovered completely. Meanwhile, I had plans. I had to find a way to deal with Tia’s brother. I needed Marcus and Luke to be part of the discussion so I scheduled it for the end of the day. First, I had something very important to do.

Aunt Fee had been engaged to her high school sweetheart, but he had died in a plane crash a month before their wedding. Aunt Fee had never married anyone else, and I had a feeling she still grieved for her lost love. When I turned twenty-five, she gave me her old engagement ring and asked me to give it to the woman of my dreams.

I had never felt like giving it to Natalie because even then, I knew she wasn’t the woman of my dreams. She was just a woman who got accidentally pregnant just a few months after we began sleeping together. I married her because I wanted full custody of my child, and it was the right thing to do.

But I had finally met the woman of my dreams, and I wanted to have Aunt Fee’s ring cleaned and resized for Tia. I had brought one of her other rings for size. I took Aunt Fee’s beautiful ring with a teardrop sapphire in the center, surrounded by three layers of diamonds, to the Cartier store. They promised to have it ready in two days, and I went back to the office pleased with myself. I had to speak to Maddie first, though.

Maybe I could take her out for ice cream and sound her out about whether she’d like Tia to be her new Mommy. When I called the house, neither Tia nor Aunt Fee answered their phones. A faint foreboding trickled down my spine. Before I could try their phones again, Marcus called me.

“What?” I snapped.

“They are gone, Leo. Tia and Maddie are gone,” he said. “We can’t find them.”

For the first time ever, I heard a thread of panic in my brother’s voice. That trickle of foreboding turned into a hard block of fear and it lodged itself right in my chest.

“What the fuck do you mean, Marcus? Where could they have gone?”

“I have no idea. They went to the park in the car, but they didn’t come back. When they had been gone for almost an hour, the chauffeur panicked and called me. He said he checked in the park, but couldn’t see them. Luke is pulling up surveillance cameras in the area to see if they can give us a clue.”

“I’m on my way,” I said and hung up.

I was home within fifteen minutes, and I prayed for them to be back by the time I got there. But they weren’t. I stared at Aunt Fee’s grim face, which looked ten years older all of a sudden. She came running to meet me.

“Leo, where could they have gone?”

I hugged her tightly.

“Don’t worry, Aunt Fee. We’ll find them,” I said as reassuringly as I could, considering my worst nightmare had come true. Both my girls were missing.

I joined my brothers in the study. Luke had a team there, who had hacked into the DMV’s surveillance network, as well as the security systems around the park. They were combing through the footage and finally found something.

“I see them,” called a woman with rainbow-coloured hair. “Is this Tia?”

The footage was grainy and of poor quality, but it was enough for us to identify Tia and Maddie.

“What are they doing? Who is that man? Can we get a better angle to see him up close?”

A man came up to Tia, and she spoke to him for a bit before she waved Maddie over. Then, the two followed him into a big SUV and drove away.

I saw the footage at least twenty times, and it still didn’t make any sense.

“Tia got into the car willingly,” I said, through numb lips. “She took my baby with her. Why? Did anyone run those number plates yet?”

“On it,” said Luke, as he chivvied his team to work faster.

Marcus put a hand on my shoulder, but I shrugged it off.

“Don’t jump to any conclusions, yet,” he warned.

“I’m waiting,” I replied, gritting my teeth and holding the words in. If I spoke them aloud, they would become true, and I’d give anything for my suspicions to be unfounded. Because if they turned out to be true, my entire world would collapse.

“Found the car,” called Luke. “It is registered to Monani Holdings.”

And just like that, my world came crashing down around me.

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