The Billionaire’s Enemy Has His Child

Chapter 7: The Man In The Expensive Suit

The next morning, Elena's bakery was not Elena's bakery anymore.

It was Adrian's bakery.

He arrived at 5 AM in an expensive black suit that probably cost more than her entire rent for three months. He had a coffee from Starbucks in his hand, not her coffee. He looked at her small flour-covered kitchen like it was a business problem he needed to solve with money and power.

"What are you doing here?" Elena asked, holding Leo who was still sleepy in his Lightning McQueen pajamas. Leo rubbed his eyes and saw Adrian and smiled instantly.

"Working," Adrian said simply, like it was obvious. He took off his suit jacket. He folded it perfectly, like only a billionaire knows how to fold a jacket. He placed it on the back of a chair away from the flour. Underneath he had a white shirt that was so white it hurt to look at, and an expensive silver watch that flashed when he moved. "You have 17 customers coming at 7 AM for croissants. I counted yesterday from the camera footage. You only have 10 croissants ready right now. You need help. Your son needs to eat. So I am helping."

"I don't need help from a man in a suit that costs R20,000," Elena snapped. She was tired. She had been baking since 3 AM. Her hair was messy. Her apron was dirty.

"It's R35,000," Adrian corrected calmly, not angry at all. "Tom Ford. Custom made in Italy. And it is not helping you. It is helping my son eat breakfast. My son likes croissants. My son's mother needs to sell croissants so my son has a house and a bed with a red car. So I am helping my son. That is all."

Leo, hearing the word son, ran to Adrian and hugged his expensive pants, leaving two small white flour handprints right on the knees of the R35,000 pants.

Elena froze. She waited for Adrian to shout. Billionaires shout when you ruin their expensive clothes.

Adrian looked down at the flour handprints on his pants. Then he looked at Leo. Then he did something Elena never expected.

He picked up Leo.

He picked him up high in the air, flour and all, and Leo giggled.

"Good morning, little boss," he said to Leo, his voice soft and different. Not the CEO voice. The daddy voice. "Did you sleep well in your red car bed? Did you dream about racing cars?"

"Yes! Mommy had a bad dream but you saved the bakery!" Leo said loudly, hugging Adrian's neck.

Elena turned red like a tomato.

Adrian looked at her, his blue eyes serious. "Bad dream?"

"I didn't have a bad dream," Elena lied quickly. She looked away and started kneading dough very fast.

"You were screaming at 2 AM," Adrian said quietly. He was still holding Leo on his hip like he had been doing it for years. "I heard you from the apartment above. The walls are thin. You said 'Don't take my baby. Please don't take my baby.' You said it three times."

The kitchen went silent. Only the big oven was humming and the rain was hitting the windows outside.

Elena's eyes filled with tears fast. She could not stop them. The flour on her hands mixed with tears. She had dreamed that Adrian took Leo to New York in his private jet and she never saw him again. She ran after the plane but her legs would not move.

"I am not taking your baby," Adrian said, his voice so soft Elena almost didn't hear it. He was still holding Leo. He came closer to her, careful not to get flour on his white shirt. "I am not taking your bakery. I am wearing an expensive suit because I have a very important board meeting at 9 AM about a new Knight Hotel in Cape Town. My mother will be there. The investors will be there. But I came here first at 5 AM because... because my son's bakery opens at 6 AM and my son's mother wakes up at 3 AM and she is tired and she should not be alone."

Elena didn't know what to say. The tears were coming fast now. The man in the expensive suit was holding her son, with flour on his R35,000 pants, and talking about her bakery like it was the most important business in the world, not his billion-dollar hotels.

"Put an apron on," she finally whispered, wiping her tears with her floury wrist. "If you are going to stay in my kitchen, you can't wear R35,000 pants and a white shirt in my kitchen. You will ruin them."

Adrian smiled. That rare, real, beautiful smile she had seen only once before in Paris four years ago when he had laughed at her joke about burnt bread.

He took the pink apron that hung on the wall. The apron said KISS THE BAKER in big red letters. It was Elena's favorite apron. He put it over his expensive suit. The black suit, the white shirt, the pink apron, Leo in his arms with flour everywhere.

Elena, without thinking, took a photo with her phone. It was the most beautiful photo she had ever taken. A billionaire in a pink apron holding his son in a bakery at 5 AM in the morning.

That photo, posted later by Mrs. Henderson's granddaughter on t****k with the caption "Billionaire CEO works in bakery in pink apron before board meeting to help his secret son's mom," would get 100,000 views by lunch and 1 million views by dinner. But in that moment, at 5:15 AM, it was just a man in an expensive suit learning how to be a father, and a woman learning how to trust him again, and a little boy who finally had his daddy in the kitchen.

Adrian looked at Elena and said, "Show me how to make croissants. My son says I make terrible coffee, so I need to learn something."

And for the first time in four years, Elena laughed. A real laugh.