Chapter 103 Oh Isn't That Cute

Chapter 103 Oh Isn't That Cute
With the perfect olive-green outfits successfully secured inside thick, glossy, high-end shopping bags, the adrenaline of the morning’s hunt finally began to fade. In its place, the immediate, pressing need for lunch settled over them.
They had just stepped out of the hushed, perfumed air of the boutique and onto the sunlit concrete of the Fifth Avenue sidewalk. The city was bustling with the lunchtime rush, a symphony of yellow cabs and hurried pedestrians. Leona took a deep breath of the crisp air, adjusting her grip on the stroller, when a sharp, nasal, and overly familiar voice cut right through the noise of the city.
"Leona? Oh my gosh, Leona, is that you?"
Leona stopped dead, turning around. Approaching them with a painfully fake, wide smile was a girl she had gone to school with—someone Leona hadn't seen or thought about in years, and for very good reason. The girl’s eyes immediately dropped, aggressively and critically raking over Leona’s comfortable oversized sweater and sneakers, the massive double-wide stroller, and the soft fabric baby sling secured tightly across Diane's chest. When the girl looked back up, her mouth twisted into a judgmental little smirk that made Leona’s stomach turn.
"I heard you adopted a baby and had a baby," the girl said, taking a step closer. Her tone was dripping with a toxic, passive-aggressive pity, pretending to be polite while masking a blatant insult. "Isn't that a little... I don't know, absurd? I mean, doesn't it make a difference in the way you...you know feel about them?"
Leona froze. A cold, fierce rush of adrenaline instantly spiked in her veins, completely erasing her exhaustion. Her hands tightened around the leather grip of the stroller with such brutal force that her knuckles went completely bone-white.
"Excuse me?" Leona demanded, the temperature in her voice dropping to absolute zero.
But entirely oblivious to the sudden, icy drop in the atmosphere, Olive leaned forward against the stroller's safety bar. The toddler pushed her crooked, oversized designer sunglasses back up the bridge of her button nose. With her chubby, fruit-sticky cheeks and those two messy, lopsided curly pigtails sticking straight up on her head, she raised a little hand and gave the nasty stranger a bright, happy, and incredibly polite wave.
"Hi," Olive chirped.
Then, Olive tilted her head all the way back, looking upside down at Leona's intensely rigid face. Her dark eyes, hidden behind the tinted lenses, crinkled with pure love. "Hi, Momma."
Leona forced herself to take a breath. She forced the tight, furious muscles in her jaw to unclench just enough to look down and speak softly to the center of her universe. "Hi, sweet pea."
"Oh, isn't that cute," the girl smirked, her eyes darting maliciously between Leona and the toddler, clearly entirely unimpressed by the sweet display. "Hey, didn't I hear somewhere you married that cute architect you were dating? How in the world did you get someone like him to agree to adopt while you were already pregnant? Bet he's wishing—"
"If I were you," Leona interrupted, stepping slightly in front of the stroller. Her voice dropped into a terrifyingly low, lethal register that would have made the ruthless Owen Stark incredibly proud. "I would not say the words that are about to come out of your mouth."
The girl blinked, momentarily taken aback by the pure, unadulterated venom flashing in Leona's dark eyes. But the hesitation only lasted a second before she quickly recovered with a nervous, grating laugh, brushing off the warning.
"Oh, come on, I was just kidding. Well, kinda," the girl pushed, her eyes gleaming with morbid curiosity. "I mean, really, how did you get him to do it?"
Before Leona could completely lose her temper and cause a scene right there on Fifth Avenue, Diane stepped forward.
Sensing the sudden, heavy tension radiating from the adults, Hazel had started squirming uncomfortably against Diane's chest, letting out a sharp, hungry cry. The Stark matriarch patted the newborn's back with practiced, soothing rhythm before lifting her chin. She fixed the gossiping girl with a stare so freezing, haughty, and dripping with generational wealth and authority that it could have cleanly cut glass.
"I suggest you walk away," Diane commanded. It wasn't a request; it was a billionaire's absolute directive. "And I strongly advise you to stop speaking about my son as if you know a single thing about him or his family. Both of these babies are Owen's."
The girl’s eyes widened to the size of saucers. Instead of being cowed by the imposing woman, a nasty, triumphant gleam suddenly sparked in her eyes as her petty mind completely twisted Diane's fierce, protective declaration.
"Oh, that's it!" the girl gasped, practically vibrating with the scandalous, juicy gossip she thought she had just uncovered. "He had a fling! Oh, that's too good. I bet you wish you hadn't posted all those pictures talking about being so perfectly happy now, huh?"
Leona was physically shaking. The sheer, blinding heat of unadulterated rage completely flooded her entire system. The urge to reach out and slap that smug, malicious look right off the girl's face was nearly overpowering.
The heavy, angry energy pulsing off of Leona and Diane finally tipped Hazel over the edge. The newborn's fussing escalated into a full-blown, incredibly loud, hungry wail.
Hearing her baby sister cry, Olive instantly abandoned her happy mood, reacting in true, deeply empathetic Olive fashion. The toddler gasped, slapping her chubby little hand completely over her own mouth in shock.
"Oh!" Olive cried.
She twisted around awkwardly in the stroller seat, straining against the straps, trying desperately to peer past the canvas canopy to see Diane and her crying sister. As she turned her head so sharply, the oversized sunglasses slid right off her button nose and clattered onto the hard concrete sidewalk.
"Oh," Olive whimpered again, her little face crumpling with distress as she reached a tiny hand down over the side of the stroller toward the ground.
The snide girl let out a dramatic, exaggerated sigh. She bent over, casually reaching her hand out to pick up the expensive frames.
Leona snapped.
She stepped forward with lightning speed. Her arm shot out, politely but forcefully shoving the girl's shoulder back, physically and solidly blocking her from getting anywhere near the stroller or her daughter's belongings.
"Do not touch my daughter's glasses," Leona ordered, her voice vibrating with an explosive, fiercely protective rage that echoed off the surrounding buildings.
She didn't wait for a shocked response or an apology. Leona crouched down, her hands still shaking violently with adrenaline, and scooped the designer sunglasses off the dirty pavement herself. Taking a deep breath to steady her hands, she stood back up and gently slid the frames back onto Olive's little face, carefully and tenderly adjusting them over her ears so they wouldn't fall again.
Secure behind her dark, oversized lenses once more, Olive looked up at the fierce, beautiful, panting woman standing over her like a guardian angel. The toddler's worry vanished, and she flashed a massive, adoring smile.
"Hi, Momma," Olive beamed.