Page 162 of Babies for the Big Shot

She looks up at me, really looks at me, for the first time since I walked in. And something in her gaze shifts. Less guarded. More… wonder, maybe.

“You’re brave, Sara.”

I laugh under my breath. “I’m terrified.”

Evelyn nods. “Same thing, sometimes.”

She still doesn’t say she’ll be there. Doesn’t promise anything. But she’s holding that photo as if it’s something fragile and full of light.

It might even mean something to her.

Evelyn leans back, fingers laced over her knee, as if that small gesture might keep the rest of her from flying apart. I wonder how many times she’s done exactly that, held herself in place because everything felt too slippery.

I open my mouth to ask if there’s anything I can do for her when my phone vibrates on the side table, jittering hard enough to rattle the ceramic coaster.

Laura’s name flashes across the screen.

“Give me one sec,” I murmur, already swiping. Laura hardly ever calls from work.

“Pleasetell me you’re sitting down,” she blurts, voice pitched high with the special panic reserved for genuine emergencies and sample sale stampedes.

I frown. “I’m… in a bookstore. Why?”

Her answer is a hissed, “Edge Magazine.”

The blood drains from my face.

Evelyn straightens. “Sara?”

I slam the phone to speaker, thumb trembling. Laura’s already talking a mile a minute. “Edgejust dropped a feature, full spread, front page online.‘Billion Dollar Baby Scandal: Notorious Bachelor CEO’s Secret HR Affair and Surprise Triplets.’ It’s everywhere, Sar. They’ve got photos of you leaving Nick’s building, screenshots from some intern’s Slack. Shit, they even pulled your GoFundMe from when your mom was sick. They’re framing it like a Cinderella-to-gold-digger pipeline.”

My stomach turns to ice. Each word lands hard as a slap.

“Nick didn’t say this was happening,” I whisper, though I’m not sure if I’m arguing with Laura or reality.

“He didn’t warn you at all?” she asks. “Did he not know?”

“I don’t know.” The room tilts. Or maybe that’s just me.

Laura curses. “Paps are outside Ashford HQ already. I spotted three vans on Sixth. You need to get somewhere safe before?—”

I end the call. Not because I want to, but because the roar in my ears is louder than her voice.

Evelyn is beside me now, gentle hand on my elbow. “Sara?”

I shove the phone toward her, screen still glowing with the headline, my face plastered beneath it like a mug shot. She scans the page, eyes widening.

A beat later, her expression shifts. Recognition, sorrow, something eerily close to déjà vu.

“This,” she says softly, “is exactly what I ran from.”

And in that instant I finally understand, viscerally, why she left, why she hid, why Nick’s guilt is a living thing that sleeps with him at night.

Because the spotlight doesn’t just burn—it brands.

My pulse hammers. I picture Meatball alone in the penthouse, the elevators, the security desk, the inevitable swarm.

I picture Nick at his desk, knowing this was coming, choosing not to tell me, or maybe failing to stop it. I don’t know which version hurts more.