Part 1My Sugar Baby Is My Dad

To derail my engagement to Malcolm Belmont, the undisputed crown prince of Manhattan’s elite, his childhood acquaintance Tinsley Pemberton pulled the pin on a social hand grenade in front of every media outlet on the East Coast.

"Open your eyes, Malcolm!" she sobbed into the microphone. "She isn’t some refined, untouchable muse. Behind your back, she’s taking your money to bankroll a bleached-blond college boy toy!"

In an instant, the four-hundred-inch display lit up.

There on the screen was a man in ripped designer denim and peroxide-blond hair, wrapping himself around my legs, pleading shamelessly. I stood over him, brandishing a thick stack of hundred-dollar bills: ""If you run off doing this useless garbage again, I’m cutting off your card tomorrow!""

Tinsley wept with theatrical perfection, her voice cracking over the ballroom speakers. "Genevieve, Malcolm gave you the world, and you’re using his resources to subsidize some scumbag gigolo. How dare you stand next to him?"

Instantly, the livestream went berserk with venom. Guests in the room—high-society matriarchs, venture capitalists, Malcolm’s own inner circle—looked at me as if I were a piece of rotting garbage dragged in from the gutter.

I stared up at the screen. I watched the bleached-blond figure pocket the cash and offer an obsequious, groveling grin, and a sharp throb blossomed behind my temples.

A bankrolled boy toy? God give me strength.

That was my fifty-two-year-old father, who had secretly auditioned for "Forever Young: The Senior Popstar Search" and spent three hours every morning practicing hip rolls in front of the master bathroom mirror.

* * *

"Genevieve, the proof is right there. How much longer are you going to keep up this charade?"

Tinsley’s voice bounced off the gilded moldings of the St. Regis ballroom, amplified by the state-of-the-art surround sound. Flashbulbs went off like a summer thunderstorm, relentless and blinding, white light bouncing off the chandelier crystals.

On the massive LED wall behind us, the paused video loomed large: the bleached-blond man clutching my knees, my hand frozen in mid-air over a band of currency.

Silence settled over the hall—heavy, suffocating, sharp. Every pair of eyes turned toward me like drawn blades.

"A woman like you has no business standing beside Malcolm," Tinsley sneered, advancing toward the dais in five-inch Louboutins. Her mascara was tastefully smudged, her eyes red, radiating the tragic nobility of someone who had supposedly been betrayed herself. "Malcolm, please, wake up. She’s bleeding you dry. She’s using your fortune to keep some gutter rat in a Midtown penthouse. It makes me sick to watch."

The ballroom erupted.

Old-money heiresses shielded their faces with crystal flutes, whispering behind manicured hands. Reporters shoved past the velvet ropes, telephoto lenses lunging toward the edge of the stage.

"Miss Delancey, who is the man in the video?"

"Are you truly funneling Belmont family assets to a younger lover?"

"On the night of your engagement, what do you have to say for yourself?"

A boom mic nearly grazed my chin.

"Back off."

The voice beside me was low, carrying the chill of deep winter.

Malcolm took a long stride forward, his broad frame cutting off the barrage of cameras and eclipsing me entirely. His jaw was locked tight, his knuckles stark white inside the pockets of his tailored Tom Ford tuxedo.

"Where is security?" Malcolm’s tone wasn't loud, but the sheer gravity of it commanded the room. "Clear the press out. Now."

A few of the front-line photographers instinctively shrank back, rattled by the predatory glint in his gaze.

He was about to tear the room apart. I knew the cadence of his temper—it didn't flare; it crushed. Before he could unleash a legal and physical storm that would turn this evening into an unfixable bloodbath, I slid my hand behind his back and hooked my index finger around his pinkie.

Malcolm went rigid. He glanced back at me.

"Wait," I murmured, offering a tiny, imperceptible shake of my head.

A crease deepened between his brows, his voice strained under suppressed fury. "Genevieve, she’s dragging your name through the mud in front of the entire city. You want me to stand down?"

I didn't answer. Instead, I picked up a flute of vintage Krug from the nearest silver platter and took a measured sip. The notes of brioche and tart green apple washed over my tongue. With a subtle flick of my eyes, I directed his attention down toward Tinsley.

She was staring fixedly at our intertwined fingers, her features twisting with an envy so raw it bordered on grotesque.

Malcolm tracked my gaze. In half a heartbeat, he understood.

He let out a slow, controlled exhale, forcing the lethal edge out of his posture. Leaning casually against the marble pillar of the dais, he plucked a small square of matcha mousse from a passing server’s tray and held it out to me.

"Try this," he said, entirely at ease. "Your favorite."

I offered a small, amused smile and accepted the plate.

Just like that, we stood under the spotlight, treating her grand denunciation like street theater.

Tinsley had expected tears, expected Malcolm to throw a glass against the wall and cast me out. Instead, she got two people sharing dessert. Her hand around the microphone began to tremble.

"Malcolm! Has she put a spell on you?!" Her voice cracked, abandoning all pretense of aristocratic grace. "The footage is right behind you! Doesn't it disgust you? She’s the daughter of a bankrupt machine shop owner from upstate. Without you, she couldn't afford the couture on her back! She treats you like an ATM while funding another man, and you’re still protecting her?!"

Her shrieking reached a fever pitch.

In the lower-right corner of the massive display, the livestream comments were scrolling past at lightning speed:

"Holy hell, live drama at the Belmont engagement?"

"Who even is this girl? Looks like an angel, plays like a demon."

"Malcolm Belmont being played for a fool? Unbelievable."

"Get this gold digger out of New York! Make her pay it back!"

The room was murmuring louder now, the skepticism turning to open disgust.

"Never bought the innocent act."

"Bleached blondes in ripped jeans? Cheap taste."

"The Belmont name dragged through the gutter over this..."

Listening to the hum of venom, Tinsley’s mouth curved into a triumphant smirk. She turned back to the press, letting a single, practiced tear roll down her cheek.

"I took the risk of defying the Belmont family tonight because I couldn't watch the man I’ve loved for seven years be destroyed," she declared, her chest heaving. "I know how generous Malcolm is. If I didn't step forward, Genevieve would have sucked his legacy dry."

A wave of sympathetic murmurs rippled through the older socialites.

I watched her coldly.

Seven years. Yes, Tinsley had hovered around Malcolm for seven years like a persistent shadow.

The night Malcolm proposed to me in the library of his family’s Hamptons estate, Tinsley had stood out by the front gates in a torrential downpour, catching pneumonia in an attempt to pull him to her bedside. But Malcolm had spent that entire evening on his knees on my living room floor, meticulously assembling a new ergonomic chair for my studio, his phone buried under a stack of blueprints on silent.

Ever since, she had treated me like a usurper, whispering rumors across every country club luncheon that I was being kept by an older benefactor.

I had never bothered to swat the fly. I hadn't realized she was capable of renting out an entire circus.

Seeing my silence, Tinsley assumed I was cornered. She raised her iPhone toward the cameras.

"This is only the surface!" she shouted. "I have the bank records! Wire transfers directly to this man’s account—hundreds of thousands at a time! Over the last six months alone, she’s transferred nearly three million dollars to him!"