Author's Note: Thank you to everybody who read or reviewed the last chapter.
Chapter 26: Show Your Hand

It was Friday and Daniel was worried because, for the last week, Wilhelmina had been unusually quiet. Not once has she criticized one of his ideas during staff meetings or with advertisers. She allowed his idea for the December cover to go unchanged. Wilhelmina didn't even complain when Daniel significantly slashed her budget for the November cover or refused to reimburse her for the thousand dollars that she spent an alcohol wining and dining the representative from DLS lingerie, especially because they didn't buy any advertisements (if they bought any advertisements he would have reimbursed her). She didn't even complain when Nico started spending more time in Daniel's office and even went out for pizza with him and DJ the night before.

She didn't say anything when Daniel stated emphatically that they were sticking to Faye's original plan for September fashion week. They could make a splash in February, but he didn't have the energy to redo anything just days before. Daniel was not looking forward to another Fashion Week. He just reminded himself that New York Fashion Week is nowhere near as insane as Paris Fashion Week. Besides, he also had to get a birthday present for Alex and he barely had time, as it was. He wasn't adding more work just to satisfy Wilhelmina's narcissism.

Right now, Wilhelmina sat quietly as Marc broke the wonderful news that Betty managed to convince Tim and Chloe to allow baby Elizabeth to make her media debut on pages of MODE with all proceeds going to the Elizabeth Chloe Foundation for breast cancer research.

"How exactly did she get this interview and photo shoot?" Wilhelmina asked after listening quietly to Marc's announcement. "I bet it was step mommy dearest and she's using you as a shill." By Wilhelmina standards, that was being nice, which had Daniel petrified. Something bad was going to happen. He just knew it.

"Our fearless CEO had nothing to do with this. It was all our little Betty." Marc said smiling. "Our little Churro is BFFs with the fabulous Chloe and her recently stolen boyfriend, she had dinner with the couple just last week, despite the fact that they're laying low since the early birth of the baby and convince them to do our magazine."

So, apparently, when Betty skipped a very family dinner to have dinner with her friends Tim and Chloe and spend time with their new baby apparently, it was that Tim and Chloe. Daniel was a little shocked that Betty forgot to mention she was friends with two of the hottest celebrities around.

"I wouldn't say we're best friends, we just bonded over the fact that both of us lost our mothers to breast cancer. Although my stepmom did not specifically arrange this, if it wasn't for her, I probably wouldn't have ended up at so many charity events with Chloe." Okay, Betty's genuine modesty was adorable.

"She threw you a baby shower." Marc said pointedly.

"Wait, she threw you a shower?" Daniel questioned. "You never told me that." He wanted to say 'you never tell me anything' but it was best not to say something like that in front of Wilhelmina now. They were all still pretending that he didn't know about Alex. Daniel refused to be the one to end the farce. Maybe part of him was still hoping that Betty would tell him the Alex Suarez truth.

"Yes I did. I even sent you pictures and video. You just didn't recognize Chloe without makeup wearing jeans and a T-shirt." Betty said, slightly annoyed.

"You didn't say she was Chloe Voight." Daniel said. By this point, Daniel should get used to Betty not telling him stuff. It felt like he didn't know the woman he was in love with at all. She kept too much stuff close to the chest.

Yes, he still loved her but he was also highly annoyed with her.

"To me, she's just Chloe." Betty shrugged and to Daniel that made sense. He was never Daniel Meade to her, just Daniel. That was one of the things he found most enduring about her. He could see Chloe discovering the same thing. As a fellow celebrity, He could see how that could be intoxicating.

"Anyway, I told her about Alex doing the shoot for January with Margarita, so the paparazzi will stop stalking me to get a picture of Faye Somers' grandson and they thought it was a good idea, especially when I said that mode would be willing to give a large donation to the Elizabeth-Chloe Foundation in Elizabeth's name."

He smiled to himself at that last part, of course, Betty would always be thinking of other people. Then he frowned, realizing that his child was going to be even more of a target when people found out that Bradford Meade's son had a child with Faye Somers' stepdaughter. The vultures will never leave Betty and Alex alone.

"They named her Elizabeth. That's so pedestrian." Wilhelmina remarked, coldly. "I expected something more creative from a woman who exchanged vials of blood with her first husband."

"Well, they wanted to name her Chutney, but I reminded them any child they had would be subjected to bullying regardless because of who they are and it may be best not to give her a name that would lead to more. They decided to name her after Chloe's mother instead. Okay, they decided to name her Elizabeth after I told them about being called Ugly Betty and granny panties from junior high onward."

"I bet you can't wait for your high school reunion. I'm personally doing your reunion outfit." Marc said with a smirk. "As much as I enjoy a good hilarious celebrity baby name, you did that child a huge favor because now she doesn't have to change her name the moment she turns eighteen. That alone grants you godmother of the year status." Marc quipped before continuing.

"There is another condition for granting MODE this exclusive is that Betty oversees the entire thing because they trust her judgment."

"I'm sure once we explained that it would be in their best interest to have a more senior person overseeing the shoot, such as myself…" Wilhelmina started, but Marc cut her off.

"Let me rephrase that." Marc said forcefully. "If Betty is not in charge, Tim and Chloe will not do MODE. Betty is the only reason they've agreed to be in the magazine in the first place. Two of the biggest stars on the planet are essentially doing this as a personal favor to Betty."

"So, because everybody loves Betty were getting the exclusive of the century as long as the fashionably challenged one gets to be in charge?" Wilhelmina asked impatiently.

"Essentially, yes." Marc said simply not upset that he will have to take a step back from such an important photo shoot and interview.

"It's fine. Betty's good at what she does and I trust her judgment." Daniel said, supporting Betty. He knew she would do a good job.

"Of course you would stick up for her." Wilhelmina mumbled in French. Apparently, he was much more fluid in the language than he thought he was.

"How long do we have to prepare?" Daniel asked.

"Two months. They don't want to do it until the week before Thanksgiving. Faye already invited Tim and Chloe for Papi's Thanksgiving spectacular. We figured it would be best just to do it all around the same time. Also like Alex, Elizabeth was a preemie and well it's not good for her to be around so many people just yet."

"It would be perfect for the baby love issue." He was pretty sure Wilhelmina was being sarcastic. Although one could never tell with Wilhelmina because the Botox has frozen her face.

"Actually, we may be able to use it in the December issue. We don't want to sit on something like this for too long." Wilhelmina started to give him the look but stopped herself. This was not going to be good.

"Regardless, I think this is a major coup for young Miss Suarez." Okay, now Wilhelmina was saying something nice about Betty, which had Daniel worried. He just knew something bad was going to happen any moment now, which was why he was glad Alex was in day care 20 floors away and DJ was in school.

"This leads into my next announcement. Now normally I would wait until after Fashion Week to make a major personnel change like this, but because Betty managed to land the baby Elizabeth exclusive I believe she deserves to be rewarded. Faye and Claire have accepted my proposal to move Betty to the position of Daniel's assistant."

'And so it begins.' Daniel thought to himself. He also wondered why his mom and Faye agreed to the move. Daniel and Betty were barely able to be professional and that was mostly because they could avoid each other. Okay, it was mostly because they were or rather, Betty was functioning in complete denial and Daniel just wanted to spend time with his child.

"Don't worry, Roof you'll be working with me." Okay, that explains why they said yes. If Rufe worked directly for Wilhelmina, it would be much easier for her to keep an eye on the woman and maybe find the smoking gun to connect her to Bradford's death. After weeks of trying, they still have nothing conclusive.

"Now just to make things fair, Carlo has volunteered to work with Marc." Considering the slightly angry and surprised look on his face, it was obvious that Carlo did not consent to anything.

"Nico will also help out, since Betty has other responsibilities," Daniel is not at all shocked that Wilhelmina is placing Nico in his office to watch him. Faye expected it eventually. Although, maybe a part of Daniel was hoping that the woman wasn't as evil as Daniel assumed and would not misuse her child like this, but he was wrong.

"Betty is in classes a few days a week and we all know that it's a full-time job taking care of Daniel's son. She could use all the help she can get." So this is what she was planning. As soon as she said the words Daniel just smiled to himself. At least, he wouldn't have to pretend anymore. However, Betty looked petrified. Also, it looked like Megan was halfway ready to text message the tabloids. Daniel hated that woman and wasn't at all shocked that she was planning on selling out his son to make a couple of bucks.

"Okay, meeting over." Daniel said, quickly. "Everybody out of the conference room unless you happen to be my co-EIC or are my new assistant. Also, if Megan or anybody else in this room for that matter even thinks about telling the tabloids about Alex, I will - actually, I'll just let Mrs. Somers-Suarez take care of it and you know how protective she is of her grandson. She still being sued by that reporter she knocked out last month." Daniel said taking Megan's blackberry from her as everybody, but Wilhelmina, Betty and Nico left the room. Actually, most were running by that point.

"Nico, why are you still here?" Daniel asked turning to the teenager. Despite their complicated relationship, Daniel did not want to start cursing out her mother with the teenager in the room.

"You said for everybody to leave except for Ms. Slater and your assistant. As of about five minutes ago, I am your assistant again when I am not taking classes online." She took out her cell phone to check the time.

"This is not a conversation — I…" considering the look that Nico was giving her if he said any variation of 'you are too young to hear this' it would just turn out badly for him.

"This is going to take a little while and I'm supposed to be leaving to get DJ and Justin from school. Can you please call the school, and let them know I'm going to be a little late picking the boys up? Actually, I'm going to be very late." He said looking at his watch. The editor's meeting already went twenty minutes over.

"Maybe, you should call my mom and see if she can get Justin and DJ." He didn't exactly want to ask his mom for a favor, but he did not have a choice at the moment.
"She's on her way to Paris to yell at your former boss and as you know Faye is stuck in meetings until 7. I could go get Justin and DJ myself." Nico volunteered.

"Unfortunately, they won't let anybody under 18 pick him up, especially someone not on the list and they wouldn't let me put you on the list." Daniel informed her.

"What about Papi?" Betty suggested.

"Unavailable." That's how Daniel ended up agreeing to pick up Justin and bring him to Mode for the afternoon in the first place.

"I have the list, I'll find somebody." Nico shrugged, walking towards the door.

"I could go get him." Betty volunteered in an obvious effort to get out of there as fast as possible. Actually, she was already out the door.

"She can find someone else. There's lots of people on the list." He said putting an arm on Betty's shoulder to keep her from leaving.

"Isn't this touching. If you need a family moment I can come back later." Wilhelmina snickered and looked impatiently at her nails.

"I was trying to get your daughter out of her because, unlike you, I don't feel the need to embarrass you publicly." Daniel said as he shut the door and lowered the blinds.

Betty was petrified. For weeks, she has been trying to figure out how to tell Daniel about Alex in a way that would not result in him hating her forever and then Wilhelmina did it for her in the worst possible way. She's sure that as soon as she gets out of this meeting everybody who didn't know that Alex was Daniel son would know. The MODE rumor mill was vicious that way. Half the people in this office already thought that she had her job because she is Faye Somers stepdaughter. She doesn't need them to think that she slept her way to the top, as well.

She was surprised that Daniel didn't look angry. Actually, his initial reaction was to smile. She's not even sure how to interpret that. When Hilda told Justin's father about being pregnant his reaction was - his reaction was the reason Betty was completely terrified when she found out she was pregnant in the first place. This is not the reaction that Betty was expected.

However, as the door was closed Daniel looked furious. Now this was the reaction that Betty was expecting from the beginning. She closed her eyes, bracing herself for Daniel's anger, but it never was directed at her.

"What the hell were you thinking announcing our personal business like that in front of the entire office?" Daniel screamed as soon as the blinds were successfully closed.

"I thought you had a need to know that you had personal business with Ms. Suarez." Wilhelmina said coldly and Daniel just started laughing. Betty wasn't expecting that reaction.

"Oh Willie, you didn't think I knew?" Daniel said mockingly. "You don't think I can keep up with you? I know all your plays. I know you think I'm some lost idiot child, but that guy died when his brother did."

As far as everyone else knew, Alex Meade was still dead and Alexis Summers was the illegitimate transgender daughter of Bradford and one of his former secretaries. Betty knew it was necessary to keep the charade up with everybody, but especially Wilhelmina. Although, honestly Betty cared more about the fact that Daniel already knew Alex was his son.

"Personally I would love if you would leave my child out of your schemes to take over. Because the only thing it accomplishes is making a lot of people angry with you. I mean threatening a scared 21-year-old with the life of our unborn child in an effort to keep me out of the country so it would be easier to get your hooks into Bradford. You expected that to work?" Daniel asked cynically.

"I don't know what you're talking about." Wilhelmina said nonplussed.

"Of course you don't. But I'm not stupid and I had a second DNA test ordered the moment Alex was born a preemie. If he was Wilbur's child, he wouldn't have been in the neonatal intensive care for two weeks. The DNA test thing was too obvious. I mean we would have figured it out eventually when Betty was 6 weeks late, if nothing else. Really, this has to be your worst ridiculous scheme ever, but it's better than what you did last time."

"Sometimes I think you're as delusional as your mother." Wilhelmina said walking towards the door.

"Whatever you say Wilhelmina. I don't talk about the fact that your sister is in a psychiatric hospital because she killed her ex-boyfriend or about the implosion of your marriage to Nico's father, so I preferred if you leave my kids out of whatever little head games you want to play. Alex and DJ are off-limits. Do we understand each other?" Daniel asked, looking directly at Wilhelmina.

"Perfectly," Wilhelmina said as she grabbed the door. "I'll just leave you two to make out then. I'm sure the table will support someone of her weight. One would think you would have lost the baby weight already."

"God, I hate her." Daniel mumbles as soon as Wilhelmina was gone.

"You knew?" She asked angrily. She's been worrying for the last year how to tell him and he already knew everything. "You knew everything and you never said anything? I had to deal with Wilhelmina's mind games alone for nearly a year for no reason." Betty was yelling at him at this point. "Do you know how much I've agonized about telling you?"

"Yet, you never told me, not about the fake test and not about Wilhelmina threatening our child." Now this was the anger, she was expecting from the beginning. "Do not get overly self-righteous on me right now. You knew for the last year and you never told me."

"Actually, it's only been 11 ½ months, but so have you." Betty spat back.

"I just lied to Wilhelmina to keep her off balance. Despite how obvious it was, I didn't figure it out maybe because I was too busy dealing with Lucy. I don't know. Maybe I was afraid to accept something that I wanted so badly. Unfortunately, I found out the Alex truth from your stepmom after Amanda accidentally told my 11-year-old that not only is Alex his little brother, but I'm not his biological father." It is at that moment that Betty realized that she never considered how this would affect DJ and she should have.

"Marc told me about that or rather the last part anyway. Is he okay?" She asked with genuine concern.

"Not at first. He was a crying mess and I had no idea why until I accidentally overheard Amanda's voicemail. So actually, I found out Alex was my son from Amanda."

"I'm sor…" Betty started, but couldn't get the words out

"You don't need to apologize."

"I want to." She whispered as Daniel grabbed her hand.

"Not right now. We are not ready for apologies, especially when you don't completely understand what you did wrong." That last part was whispered that Betty still heard Daniel.

"Okay, but why didn't you confront me earlier? Why didn't you…" Again, the words were caught in her throat. She didn't exactly know how to articulate everything she has feared for the last few weeks if not months.

"Part of me would like to say it was because it was better for Alex's safety if Wilhelmina assumed I was just another clueless trust fund baby for as long as we could keep up the charade. Now I think I was trying to avoid this confrontation." Daniel said sitting on the edge of the conference room table.

"So you hate me?" To her surprise reached out his hand and guided her to sit beside him.

"I don't hate you." Daniel said putting an arm around her. "I don't think that's possible, even after this."

"I thought you would," She whispered into his chest as tears started to fall.

"I'm sure Wilhelmina assumed the same thing." Daniel started to joke, before his face became serious. "That fucking bitch. This was just another trap and we almost walked right into it."

"You mean she wants us to not be able to work with each other?" Betty asked worriedly.

"Possibly or maybe she assumes I will get so angry that DJ and I will be back on the first plane to Paris and she will have her magazine back." Betty's entire body tensed at the suggestion.
"Even if I were upset and confused right now, I'm not leaving." Daniel said actually, kissing her on the forehead.

"You're not?" She asked hesitantly.

"Look, even if I wanted to DJ wouldn't let me. He threw a fit at just the possibility of being away from his new baby brother." Daniel's words made her feel even worse about keeping Alex from DJ.

"I'm sorry-I didn't think about DJ and I…" She was cut off by Daniel's fingers to her lips.

"Look, we can talk about this stuff later, tomorrow even. Wilhelmina expects us to be so distracted by our personal issues that I let her step in and take over the magazine. But we can't let that happen. She hurt both of us and I refuse to let her take anything else, including MODE." Daniel said forcefully.

"You're right we need to focus on other things right now. Also, I'm not entirely sure who Nico got to pick up Justin and DJ, so we probably should have over to the school." Betty said getting up from the table.

"I'll go. I'll even bring Alex with me, he could use the sunshine." Daniel said, standing up.

"I'll go with you because we still need to talk about this. We need to make up a visitation schedule and…" Daniel pressed his fingers to her lips again.

"Tomorrow is going to be the last day of sanity before pre-fashion week craziness begins. Breakfast tomorrow at that cute diner two blocks from your apartment? I'll bring DJ you bring Alex."

"Okay," by the time she answered him, Daniel was gone.

After arranging for someone to pick up Justin and DJ that will probably result in Daniel wishing he could fire her, Nico made her way back to her mother's office to pick up her computer and other things so she can move into. Because she couldn't stand working next to Carlo Wilhelmina set aside a portion of her office for Nico to work from. She just had a desk in the corner, but it gave her a place to do her class work.

After much negotiating or rather arguing between her mom and Faye, it was decided that Nico would be doing online classes this school year, along with her internship at Mode instead of going back to France. She prefers this. None of her real friends went to that overly pretentious school anyway and this way she would get to see her friends more than twice a year at breaks. She was a grabbing a few things from under her desk, such as her favorite pair of Tenney shoes that her mother hated for her to wear when Carlo and Wilhelmina ran into the office.

"You're making me work for him without even asking?" Carlo said in a tone that was as close to yelling as anybody would use on Wilhelmina. At that point, Nico decided it was best for her to sit under the desk until this was over.

"You forget, I'm your boss. What I say goes" Wilhelmina told him forcefully.

"And before that, Marc St. James had my job. I was his replacement. Now you want me to work for him." Obviously Carlo was unhappy about his demotion.

"Yes, and within two years he has my old job. I only work with the best and I need you to help me get him back on my side." Wilhelmina told him.

"It might be possible if you stop antagonizing him." Nico thought to herself.

"I don't think that's possible, he hates you. Besides, you don't need him. You have me." Carlo told her. Nico could sense a hint of jealousy in his words.

"Then, I want to know what he's doing, and you're the only one I trust to get that information. The Tim and Chloe thing caught me off guard. I didn't even know the legacy was godmother of the most sought out child in the celebrity universe right now. I need to know stuff like this." Wilhelmina almost yelled.

"If you knew in advance, you would have made sure that you were the one in charge." Carlo suggested.

"Now, Daniel Meade's baby's Mama is in charge of the most important shoot that MODE has had all year. I need eyes and ears in the enemy camp. The Betty situation should keep Daniel occupied for a while, but I need you to keep an eye on Marc."

Nico rolled her eyes. She obviously doesn't know Betty and Daniel as well as she thinks she does. Things may be awkward but Nico had full faith that they would still be able to get the job done solely for the fact that Daniel refused to let Wilhelmina takeover his magazine.

"You know I would do anything for you. You just have to ask." He closer to Wilhelmina.

"There is one good thing about me no longer being your assistant." Carlos said going in to kiss her mom. But she pushed him away. Carlo looks very upset. Nico was happy for this because that may have induced vomiting otherwise.

"Why are you pushing me away now? You said that we couldn't be together anymore because I was your assistant but now that I'm not…" Okay, Nico may vomit, anyway. She did think her mom had better taste than that. The man made her skin crawl.

"Just because you report directly to Marc now doesn't mean anything has changed. Sleeping with you was a mistake. I was lonely because Bradford and I just broke up because he was trying to put his marriage back together again. It was just sex." Wilhelmina said coldly.

"It's always just sex with you. I didn't expect anything else. But at least, it was good sex. You never cared about Bradford. You were just with him to get ahead. He was just another part of your brilliant plan." Carlos said trying to put an arm around her but Wilhelmina pulled away.

"I wouldn't say that. If nothing else, Bradford was a very good friend. That man cared more for Nico than her actual father. He put her in his will. In contrast, I have yet to see a penny from my former husband since I caught him with Nico's fifteen-year-old babysitter. I even have to put his name on her Christmas presents. In addition, I've been working very hard these last few weeks to make sure he can't touch what Bradford gave her. He wasn't perfect but at least Bradford never fucked the underage and he took care of his family."

Okay, that was something that no one ever told her. She knew that her dad did something bad to trigger the divorce, but that was… Nico doesn't even know how the process what she just heard. (Although, coughing probably wasn't a good reaction.) Also, she wasn't expecting her mom to talk about Bradford so fondly, especially because she most likely killed him.

"I'm not ready for another relationship and I don't want you to be a fuck buddy. That arrangement isn't conducive to the work environment."

"But you're not my boss anymore now that I'm working for Mr. St. James." Carlo tried to kiss her again.

What is with this guy?

"Even though drunk and drunker have essentially clipped my wings, I'm still EIC of this magazine and I can't be screwing around with the assistance." Wilhelmina said rebuking him again. "That's Daniel's job. He's probably screwing her on the conference table as we speak."

"I'm going to need to call the cleaning crew." Carlo quipped.

"Don't think of this as a demotion, but as a special project. I already told you that I need you to keep an eye on Marc. I wasn't expecting him to get something like the baby Elizabeth exclusive. He's good and I want to make sure that he doesn't have my job in two years. If you care about me, you'll keep an eye on him. And then once I have control of MODE, you will have his job."

"That's not necessarily the reward I want, but I'll take it," Carlos said leaving.

"So how much did you hear?" Wilhelmina asked walking over to Nico's desk and pulling her up. For a moment, Nico was worried. It wasn't like she was purposely spying on the woman, well, no more than usual.

"I was trying to get my tennis shoes before I move into Daniel's office. Unfortunately, I now know my mom slept with her creepy assistant post breakup with Mr. Meade who was like the only decent boyfriend you've had in the last 10 years. I also found out my sperm donor destroyed our family and your marriage by screwing my babysitter, my underage babysitter. I'm older than her right now. Also I am not even important enough for him to send gifts to. It's enough to make me raid Betty's chocolate stash." She said with a shiver.

"How long did you know I was there?" Nico asked once she composed herself as her mother looked for her desk.

"Not soon enough to know not to say anything about your father. That's something I never wanted to do know." Her mom sounded sincere as she spoke. "Here," Wilhelmina handed Nico a box of French chocolate.

"If you're going to eat something that calorie laden it should be something good. Betty's chocolate drawer is probably stuffed with Hershey bars." Although what shocked Nico the most was Wilhelmina had one of the chocolates. She also drink entire glass of wine, but that wasn't surprising at all.

To be continued.

Bonus points to whoever guesses the identity of the person picking up Justin and DJ.