Double Regrets: My Boyfriend Is My Ex’s Boss

It's just another Amelia's birthday.

She baked the cake herself. Vanilla sponge, strawberry in the middle - her baby boy Leo's favorite. A silver L piped on top in frosting.

Tonight the plan was simple. Pick Leo up from daycare. Drive to Adrian's office. Surprise him with dinner and the cake. Twenty-eight candles. Just the three of them.

Little Sprouts at three fifty-five. She parked with the cake box buckled into the passenger seat.

Ms. Patty at the front desk blinked at her.

"Oh, honey - Leo's daddy's driver came for him an hour ago."

Amelia went cold.

"What?"

"His daddy's driver. Said there was a family event. Had the pickup card."

"I'm his mother. There's no family event."

Ms. Patty's mouth did the thing. That little oh you sweet idiot thing.

Amelia had been watching women make that face at her for six years.

"He said Leo's Mom was meeting them there, hon. At the Blackwood gala."

She got back in her car. Called Adrian. Voicemail. Called again. Voicemail. Texted. Where's Leo.

Read. No reply. Like always!

* * *

Blackwood Tower was lit top to bottom. Red carpet out the front. Amelia took the elevator up in her cotton dress with the cake box against her hip, and the doors opened on a black-tie charity dinner.

Crystal. Candles. A string quartet. Four hundred people in gowns.

Leo was at the head table in a tiny tuxedo with a diamond clip on his bow tie.

Beside Adrian, holding her son's hand, stood a woman in a long white dress.

Seraphina Vale.

Adrian's ex. The one who "vanished" five years ago. The one whose name he never said in their house.

A reporter drifted past with a glass of champagne. Amelia heard her over the quartet.

"Mr. Hale - we've been begging for an introduction for years. Why didn't you want your wife to be knew ?Is this your mystery family?"

"When you possess beautiful treasures, you should keep them well and enjoy their beauty in solitude"

Adrian laughed. Slid his arm around Seraphina's waist.

"This is my son Leo. And this - " he looked at Seraphina like she hung the moon, "this is my finest treasure."

Leo giggled. Looked up at Seraphina with his whole face.

"Yeah! Isn't my mommy pretty? Daddy and I love her the most!"

The cake box slipped. Amelia caught it.

* * *

The room cooed.

"Oh, what a sweet boy."

"She's gorgeous. You can just tell she's been loved for years."

"Some women are just born lucky."

Those weren't random outfits.

Seraphina's pear-shaped Cartier brooch. Adrian's matching Cartier watch. Leo's diamond clip.

All three matched. Same collection. Same set.

Amelia had seen that catalogue on Adrian's desk last month. "For someone special," he'd said, running his thumb down the page.

For three weeks she'd thought he was getting it for her.

Pathetic.

* * *

Leo saw her first.

Saw the cake box. Saw the white cotton dress - almost the same as Seraphina's, only cheaper. Saw her.

His face went white. Then panicked.

Panicked the way kids panic when the wrong adult just walked in.

Amelia took a step forward.

Her shoulder clipped a man in a silver suit.

The cake box flipped.

Vanilla, strawberry, cream - all down his lapel.

He roared. "FUCK - are you BLIND?"

Before she could speak he scraped the cake off his jacket and smashed it into her face.

Cream in her eyes. Strawberry in her hair. Sticky down the collar of her white dress.

"Grandma," he spat, "this is GUCCI."

She was twenty-eight.

The whispers started.

"Who is she?"

"She crashed a Blackwood dinner in THAT?"

"Some people have no shame."

On the dais, a trace of panic flitted across Adrian's face, before he quickly regained his composure.

Leo was half behind Seraphina, his hand still in hers. He looked right at his mother.

He looked through her.

* * *

Then her five-year-old son straightened his little shoulders, put on his daddy-voice, and smiled at the nearest table.

"I know you."

The room hushed.

"You're the cleaning lady in this building. Right?"

Silence.

"Thank you for your service. I'm sure it was an accident. My family will pay for the gentleman's suit. You can go now."

"Oh - what a polite little boy - "

"So well-raised - "

"So humble, at five years old - "

Amelia stood there dripping strawberry jam and listened to the world praise her son for disowning her.

* * *

She understood everything in one breath.

The white dresses Leo kept asking her to wear. Mommy, wouldn't you look softer in white? Like Aunt - Hands flying up over his mouth.

Aunt Seraphina.

The nights he'd stopped letting her tuck him in. I'm a big boy. The whispering into his toy phone at bedtime.

Seraphina. He'd been calling Seraphina.

She was going to walk out. She was already turning.

And then -

"Mmm."

A small voice. Right at her elbow.

"Yum."

Amelia looked down.

A little girl in a pink dress had her finger in her mouth, sucking strawberry jam off it with her eyes half-shut.

Then the little girl opened her eyes - huge, brown, starry - and beamed up at her.

"Mommy," she said, very seriously, "this is the BEST cake I've ever had in my whole entire life."

When she smiled, she was like a tiny, warm little sun. Her big eyes sparkled as she pointed at the cream stain on Amelia's dress. Her face was filled with pride that Amelia could bake such delicious cakes - not embarrassment at the sight of her own mother.

The thought pricked Amelia's heart once again.

No matter how much she wished her own son could look at her with such pride - this little angel was Mommying the wrong person.

* * *