The Breakfast When He Became Daddy

Leo said "Daddy" for the first time not because Chloe taught him — but because Ethan burned the eggs.

Morning. Villa kitchen. 7:02 AM.

Chloe woke up to the smell of burning and a loud, annoying beep.

Beep. Beep. Beep.

She sat up in the big master bed, hair messy, and for one second she forgot where she was. Then she heard Leo giggling downstairs and a man's low cursing.

The fire alarm.

She ran downstairs in her old pajama shorts and an oversized t-shirt, no makeup, hair everywhere — and stopped dead in the kitchen doorway.

Ethan Knight, billionaire CEO who once fired an assistant for bringing him coffee that was two degrees too cold, was standing in her kitchen wearing a pink apron that said "KISS THE COOK" in glitter letters. The apron was way too small for him. His hair was messy. He was holding a frying pan with smoke coming out of it, trying to flip something black that used to be eggs. The fire alarm on the ceiling was beeping like crazy.

"What are you doing?" Chloe shouted over the beep, running to turn off the alarm.

"Breakfast," Ethan said awkwardly, holding the burnt pan away from him like it was a bomb. "The private nutritionist said Leo needs protein for his anemia. And iron. Eggs have iron."

Chloe looked in the pan. Two eggs, completely black on the bottom, still runny on top. The toast in the toaster was also black. Smoking.

Ethan Knight, who could buy a restaurant chain before breakfast, couldn't cook an egg.

"You never cooked in your life, did you?" Chloe said, taking the pan from him.

"I can close a 100 million dollar merger before 9 AM," he said, defensive. "Cooking was not in the schedule."

Before Chloe could answer, small footsteps came down the stairs.

Leo walked in rubbing his eyes, in his yellow dinosaur pajamas, his cap slightly crooked. He saw Ethan in that tiny pink glitter apron holding a smoking black pan, and he stopped.

Then he giggled. A big, belly giggle.

"Daddy, your eggs are poop!"

Silence.

The word hung in the kitchen louder than the fire alarm.

Daddy.

He said Daddy. Naturally. No teaching. No forcing. No one told him to say it. It just came out because in Leo's three-year-old brain, a man in an apron burning eggs in the kitchen at 7 AM is a Daddy.

Chloe froze, hand on the alarm button.

Ethan froze, pan in mid-air, smoke curling around his face.

Leo realized what he said and his giggle stopped. He covered his little mouth with both hands, eyes wide and scared, looking at Chloe, then at Ethan.

"Sorry... I... I..." he whispered, voice shaking. "I heard kids at hospital say Daddy makes breakfast for Mommy... I thought... sorry..."

For one second, Chloe thought Ethan would get awkward. Three years ago he would have. Three years ago he didn't even know how to hold a baby without looking like it would break.

But Ethan slowly knelt down. Onto the cold kitchen floor. Still holding the burnt pan in one hand. His pink apron glittering. His big CEO knees on the tiles.

"You can call me that," he said, his voice a little rough, like he hadn't used it. "If you want to. You can call me that anytime."

Leo stared at him, then his scared face broke into the biggest smile.

"Daddy!" he shouted and ran full speed and hugged Ethan's leg hard, almost knocking him over. "Your eggs look like poop but I will eat it! I promise!"

Chloe laughed. She actually laughed so hard tears came to her eyes. It was the first time in three years she laughed like that in a kitchen.

Ethan laughed too. A real, surprised, low laugh that Chloe hadn't heard since they were 24 and broke in college, before Knight Group, before Vanessa, before everything. He put the burnt pan down and picked Leo up with one arm, apron and all.

"Okay. We eat poop eggs," Ethan announced seriously to Leo.

They sat at the kitchen island. Three people. Three plates. Burnt eggs that were black. Burnt toast that could be used as charcoal. Cold milk.

Leo took a big bite of the black egg, chewed with his little face scrunched up, and shouted, "Yummy! So yummy, Daddy! Best eggs!"

Chloe took a bite and almost gagged. It tasted like burnt rubber and salt. She swallowed hard and smiled. "Not bad. Really... crunchy."

Ethan looked at them — his son lying through his teeth saying yummy, his ex-wife lying through her teeth saying not bad, both of them trying so hard to protect his terrible cooking — and felt something hot and tight and strange in his chest. Something that had nothing to do with business.

Family. This was family.

He took out his phone, the phone that usually had stock charts and board meeting notes, and took a photo. Leo with a white milk mustache and black egg on his cheek, Chloe laughing with messy hair and his pink apron hanging on the chair behind her.

Click.

He set it as his wallpaper. For the first time in ten years, not a stock chart. A photo of burnt eggs.

After breakfast, Chloe's phone rang. Loud.

Ryan.

Chloe wiped her hands and answered on speaker while cleaning the pan. "Hello?"

"Chloe, final fitting for SC show tonight at Brooklyn Navy Yard. I sent a car to your old apartment but you're not there. Where are you? The models are waiting. I sent a car to—"

Ethan leaned into the phone, his face darkening instantly. Jealousy, hot and fast, first time in three years.

"I'll drive her," Ethan said, taking the phone from Chloe's hand. "You stay away from my wife."

Silence on the other side, then Ryan's calm voice, amused.

"Ex-wife, Ethan. And she has a show to do. Don't lock her in your cliff villa like your mother locked your father in that house. She needs to work."

Chloe took the phone back quickly. "I'll be there in one hour, Ryan. Thank you."

She hung up and looked at Ethan. He was clenching the burnt frying pan so tight his knuckles were white. The pink apron still on.

Leo, sitting on the counter with milk mustache, whispered loudly to Chloe, not whispering at all, "Mommy, Daddy is jealous."

"Shhh!" Chloe hissed, face red.

Ethan heard it and turned red to his ears, but didn't deny it.

One hour later, Chloe left for final fitting in Ethan's car, Leo waving "Bye Daddy!" from the door, Ethan standing stiff in that pink apron, watching her go to another man.

At 8 PM, SC Fashion Show, Backstage. Brooklyn Navy Yard warehouse. 500 chairs. 100k live stream viewers.

Chloe was in her white masterpiece dress, shining, hair done, pearls sparkling. She peeked out and saw Ethan in the front row, in a perfect black suit now, Leo on his lap in a tiny suit, both holding that crayon sign.

Ryan walked up behind her backstage and hugged her from the side, quick and professional. "You got this, SC. You were born for this."

Ethan saw that hug from the audience. His hands fisted on his knees. Leo looked up at him, confused.

And in the shadows behind the dress racks, where no one was looking because everyone was watching the runway, Vanessa in a red dress slipped in with a stolen staff badge. She smiled at Chloe's white dress hanging ready — the final dress — and took small silver scissors from her purse.

Snip. Snip.

She cut the left strap halfway through. Then the right strap. Just enough so it would hold for three steps, then break under lights.

She put the scissors back and whispered, "Let's see you be Mrs. Knight now."

On stage, the MC announced, "And now, the final piece, by designer SC herself!"

Chloe took a deep breath, smiled, and stepped onto the runway.

Main dress will fall in five minutes, live in front of five hundred people and her son.