Page 159 of My Big, Fat, Secret Billionaire Baby

But he was also right about my own deception... Ididhide his child from him for twenty months, after all.

That little voice in my head can be annoyingly logical sometimes. My hands aren’t exactly clean here. But still… this feels different. Risking his own life and then lying about it after feels like a completely different category of betrayal.

My laptop screen blurs. I’m supposed to be drafting a statement reassuring investors about the long-term stability of Maxwell & Briggs, following the major tremor caused by the leak of his most recent wingsuit jump video.

The Chamonix accident is still casting a goddamn mile-long shadow, and now this? How can I possibly spin this in a positive light?

Maybe frame his risk-taking as integral to his success? He always said calculated risks yielded the highest returns. He spotted those unicorn IPOs while everyone else was playing it safe, maybe the wingsuiting was his edge, his way of sharpening his focus before making billion-dollar bets...

Right. Brilliant, Sabrina. And now he has a daughter and a reconstructed shoulder held together with titanium and sheer stubbornness. Totally the same winning formula.

Let’s pitch that to the pension funds. ‘Invest with Maxwell & Briggs: Our co-founder might literally fly intoa mountain again, but remember those early returns! High risk, high reward, right?’

God, I need more coffee.

Because honestly, how can I spin this jump, the one he lied to me about, into anything other than reckless endangerment and a middle finger to responsibility?

My phone buzzes, startling me. The caller ID flashes Leo’s name.

“Leo?” I answer, trying to ignore the butterflies I suddenly feel, and trying to pretend I haven’t spent the last twenty-four hours oscillating between wanting to strangle him and wanting to drag him back to that gym bench.

“Sabrina.” His voice is tight. Not the smooth, controlled tone of the billionaire businessman. Nor the rough growl of the lover. This is… something I’ve never heard in his voice before. Panic? “Sabrina, I… fuck.”

“Leo? What is it? What’s wrong?” My own panic spikes instantly. Mia. Is Mia okay? No wait... she’s here in the penthouse with me.

“It’s… it’s Luca.” He sounds breathless. “He… Sabrina, he overdosed.”

The words hit me like a physical blow. Luca Briggs. Leo’s partner. The smarmy, manipulative asshole who tried to get me to sign an NDA. The enabler.

He’s overdosed. On who knows what.

“Oh my god. Leo, is he… is he okay?”

“I don’t know,” Leo says. “They just called me. He’s at Mount Sinai. Unconscious. In the ICU. They… they don’t know.” There’s a tremor in his voice now. I hear real fear there. Real distress. Not for himself, but for his friend. His toxic, fucked-up friend, but his friend nonetheless.

And just like that, the anger, the resentment, the relationship drama… it all evaporates. This is bigger. This is a crisis, a real one, not just a PR headache.

And Leo… he sounds lost.

He needs me.

“Okay,” I say, blinking away the tears. The PR strategist kicks into gear automatically. “Okay, Leo. Where are you now?”

“Still at the office. Just found out. I… I need to go. To the hospital.”

“I’ll meet you there.” The words are out before I even think. My boundaries, my resolve to keep him at arm’s length… all meaningless in the face of this.

“You don’t have to…” he starts, but his voice lacks conviction.

“Yes, I do,” I say firmly. “I’ll call Jonas and Terrence. We’ll be there as soon as we can. Just… hang tight, okay?”

“Yeah. Okay. Thanks, Sabrina.” He sounds genuinely grateful.

And more than a little bit broken.

I hang up, my mind racing. Luca Briggs overdosed. This is… huge. Not just personally for Leo, but professionally. Maxwell & Briggs. Investor confidence. Stability.

My job just keeps getting harder and harder.

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