Hiding From My Baby Daddy

Chapter 32: Being in the Spotlight

One thing that had been annoying over these past months was the media coverage. After he was found, it ended up going all over social media and suddenly he was trending. Elliot's team of his public perception or whoever they were, decided that it would be in Elliot's best interest for Milo to go to a few interviews and talk about his experience being a missing person, because apparently going through it wasn't enough and now he needed to talk about it.

Neither of them really wanted Milo to do it, but after incredible pressuring from both the team and the public, they realized that if they ever wanted to go back to a somewhat normal life they'd need to talk about it at least once to get people off their backs and Milo away from the spotlight. He really needed to do it, because everytime he went on social media his feed was flooded by people and photos of himself during that night. Apparently there was footage from some street cameras from that night and it was leaked.

That was ultimately the tipping point for Milo. So he did an interview, and he was calm and nice and composed for it's duration, but as soon as he was in the car he broke down. Everything from the day and reliving some of the worst moments of his life just broke him. He hadn't slept that night, switching between loud sobbing and silent shaking that didn't stop until his body gave into the exhaustion and he passed out. Elliot had held onto him the entire time, trying his best to comfort him but not knowing what to do.

The next day he'd blown up at his team and cursed them out for over an hour about how stupid of an idea it was and how he never should've let them do this. Then he threatened to fire them if they so much as breathed a word about doing anymore interviews or things with the press that anywhere pertained to the situation. They'd gotten the message then and didn't bring it up anymore, but that didn't change the media from wanting to talk about them, except now it was about their relationship.

Articles and blogs started popping up, speculating about how long their relationship had been going on, whether or not it was legal given Elliot was Milo's superior, how serious was the relationship, etc. To be honest, Milo never realized how much society cared about rich business people and what was going on in their lives. He understood being curious about a kidnapping or a giant scandal involving social media personalities, but the personal life of some random person who makes a lot of money? He didn't think it was such a big deal.

Before everything, Milo had never even heard of Elliot and his soap opera life with his dysfunctional family, but maybe it was because he spent most of his adult life clawing to make a decent living that wouldn't force him back onto the streets. He wasn't sure, but all this attention was overwhelming and the only thing getting him through it was Jamie and Elliot. The rest of the group were fighting their own fires. Ruby and Elijah were dodging nosy reporters asking them about their knowledge on the situation or potential involvement in anything. Chase, being Elliot's lawyer was trying to make sure that no one got sued and everything was smooth on the legal front.

The media team was breathing down their necks again about public statements and interviews, which he had to do soon because it was getting too hectic to go outside the apartment anymore. What they were most afraid of was that the paparazzi and gossip columns would find out about Liam. It's not like they planned on keeping him a secret forever, but they didn't want him to be revealed to the public in such an invasive way.

Not only because he was only a year old, but because his age and the timeline of everything was so screwed up that revealing him and his age would only stir up more drama and press. They were going to tell the truth in time, but not with everything so new. Leah had only been pronounced dead to the public a few weeks ago and revealed as Milo's kidnapper with it, so they weren't exactly keen on saying much for the time being.

So, suffice to say they were stressed. Ultimately, both Milo and Elliot were tired of the constant questions and hounding about their relationship and personal lives. All they wanted was peace and quiet and drama that regular people had, like the fact that Milo often got distracted and would leave food somewhere and forget about its existence until he stumbled on it later, not that he found himself in a relationship with his boss and kidnapped by his ex-wife.