How to Hide the Billionaire’s Son by Tessa Kelwyn
How to Hide the Billionaire’s Son
Description
I grew up with a mother who called me the family curse, so when she threw me out pregnant at eighteen, I built a life in Rio with nothing but a sewing needle and my son. I was ready to work double shifts, sew other women's wedding dresses, and tell my boy his father lived in space. Who knew that one night with a stranger in Paraty would come back nine years later in a wedding suit. A seamstress and a billionaire groom she's dressing for another woman don't exactly belong in the same story. We both had everything to lose. Then he stepped onto my fitting platform: Theo Lima, heir to a hotel empire and the man who never told me his last name. And the son he doesn't know about is the one thing that could destroy his wedding and my whole life.
Chapter 1
Nov 4, 2026
Gabi's POV
I’m on my knees in front of a man I’ve never met.
Nobody told me this job would put my face so close to a stranger’s zipper.
His belt buckle is right above my head, so I keep my eyes down and try to breathe slowly through my nose.
“No, Mãe. I don’t care which bem-casados we serve.” He’s on the phone, and he hasn’t looked down at me once.
That suits me fine. I have six pins between my lips and a wedding suit to finish before his big day in five weeks.
‘Don’t speak to him. Don’t even look at him.’ My boss Marta said this morning while she unlocked the atelier. ‘Rich men like him hate it, Gabi. It’s ‘sir’ only if you have to speak.’
So I look at his shoes. They are black and so new the soles have no marks at all. I fold the hem of his trousers over two fingers and push a pin through the fabric.
“Yes, I’ll be at the tasting.” He shifts his weight, and the hem slips out of my hand. “Mãe, I said yes. Coconut, guava, whatever she wants.”
I fix the fold and press the next pin in. In my apron pocket, my phone buzzes against my hip. I check it with my free hand.
Lucas: Bring the car by at seven. I’ll look at the brakes, they squeak again.
Me: Thank you.
Lucas is Marta’s son, and he never lets me pay him. My car is eleven years old, and he is the only reason it still runs.
“Mãe, I have to go.” The man above me ends the call and drops his phone into his pocket. “How much longer?”
He is talking to me. I take the pins out of my mouth one by one and stick them into the cushion on my wrist.
“Ten minutes, sir.”
I look up and he stops moving. His hand is still at his pocket, and his mouth is still open from the question.
Great. I already broke Marta’s first rule. I looked at him.
I see his eyes first. They are gray, with a dark ring around the edge, and the air stops halfway down my throat. My son Dedé has the same eyes. I look into them every night when I tuck him in, so I would know them anywhere.
Please, God, let it be someone else.
My fingers start to shake, so I close them into fists until they stop. Then I search the rest of him for proof that I’m wrong. He has a short dark beard, and his suit costs more than my car did when it was brand new.
Rich men like him all look alike to me anyway, with their neat haircuts and their calm voices that always expect a yes.
Lots of men have gray eyes, Gabi. You’re tired, and you see Dedé everywhere.
Just lower your head and do your job.
I try to drop my chin, but my neck won’t obey. My mouth has gone dry, and I keep checking his jaw and his mouth. I wait for some small detail to tell me he isn’t the one.
I almost believe it. Then he tilts his head and studies my face, the way you look at a photo of someone you used to know.
“Have we met before?” He doesn’t take his eyes off my face.
“No, sir.” I bend back to the hem. My fingers are cold, and the next pin goes into my thumb instead of the fabric.
I jerk my hand back. A red dot comes up on my skin. I press it into my apron so it won’t touch the suit.
“You’re bleeding,” he says and leans down a little.
“It’s nothing, sir.” I wipe my thumb on my apron again.
“What’s your name?” He doesn’t move back to the platform.
I keep my eyes on the hem. “Gabriela. It’s on the receipt.”
He doesn’t reach for it. He says it once more, testing it. “Gabriela.”
The receipt hangs from the garment bag on the rack beside the mirror. Marta wrote it this morning, and I never read the top line. I read it now, and it says Client: T. Lima.
Lima.
Marta told me it was a Lima family client, and I never asked which Lima. I have seen that name on the gold signs of hotels all over Rio. Nine years ago he didn’t have a last name. He was just Theo.
Now I can’t lie to myself anymore.
The father of my son is a Lima.
And he is standing on a platform two steps away from me.
My hands go numb from the fingertips up, and I put both of them flat on my knees so he won’t see them shake.
Oh God… what if he finds out about Dedé?
He steps down off the platform. The trousers drag on the carpet with my pins still in them. Now he stands right over me, close enough that I can see a small scar on his chin.
“Have you ever been to Paraty?” He asks it carefully and keeps his hands still at his sides.
My mouth is too dry to answer. I pick a pin out of the cushion and hold it instead.
“There’s a bar on a pier there, by the resort.” He touches the cuff of his left sleeve. “I tore my cuff on a nail once. The girl behind the bar sewed it for me right there on the counter.”
I remember that cuff. But he doesn’t need to know that.
It was white cotton with a long tear, and I fixed it with black thread from the little kit I kept under the register. I remember his wrist on the counter while I sewed, and how he laughed when I told him to hold still.
He never once asked me to call him ‘sir’.
I remember all of it. Because he was the first man I ever loved.
He’s Dedé’s father, and he doesn’t know.
He’s the only man I have ever been with. After our one night, he left me in the morning with no way to contact him, and then later there was a baby to raise. And I never made room for anyone else.
The pin in my fingers bends.
He’s a Lima, the richest family in the country. They have money and lawyers and their name on buildings. And what do I have? I have a car with bad brakes and a job hemming his pants.
If he finds out, he can take my boy from me.
“Do you remember a bar like that?” He doesn’t step back.
“I’ve never been to Paraty, sir,” I finally answer and look at his shiny shoes again.
They are easier than his face. His eyes.
“Never?” He waits for me to look up.
“Never, sir.” I fold the hem over my fingers. “I need you back on the platform, please. Marta has another client at three.”
He doesn’t move. From the front room, I hear Marta on the phone, laughing with someone about fabric prices.
“Gabi?” Her voice comes through the curtain. “Is Mr. Lima comfortable?”
He turns his head toward the curtain, then back to me. He waits to see what I will say.
“Yes, Marta. Almost done.” I make it sound bored, the way I talk about thread colors.
“Good. Don’t keep him waiting.” Her laugh starts again on the phone. She can’t see us from there.
“She had a pin in her mouth the whole time she sewed,” he says. “Just like you.”
“A lot of seamstresses do that, sir.” I don’t look up from the hem.
“I know.” He crouches down so his eyes are level with mine. “But I only met one behind a bar.”
I push the bent pin into the cushion. I pull it out again. My thumb leaves a small red mark on the white cushion.
“Please, sir… Marta will check on us any minute.”
He looks at the red mark, then at me. He doesn’t get up.
“Where did you go?” His voice drops so Marta can’t hear it.
I don’t answer, because I can’t. If I open my mouth, I’ll say everything I’ve been holding down for years.
“I left you a note.”
My hand stops on the hem. I lift my head and look straight into his gray eyes. “What?”
How to Hide the Billionaire’s Son
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