How Caring for a Baby Changed a Spoiled Heiress

TL;DR

Catalina agrees to care for an abandoned baby after Adrien condemns her plan to let her father’s lawyers handle him. What begins as an attempt to impress her crush quickly becomes an exhausting test involving diapers, feeding schedules, constant crying, little sleep, and almost no support.

Transcript

Hi, I'm Catalina Cortez, the only legitimate child of Richard Cortez, a billionaire with the emotional range of a potato. There was a time when we were a happy family. But after mom left when I was 5, dad went on a world tour of Girlfriends. Some standouts are a Spanish teacher, an Indian yoga influencer, a Kdrama actress, and a Russian pop star. H... Read More

Key Insights

• Catalina is aware that most of her classmates value her wealth, invitations, club access, and social media influence rather than genuine friendship. Despite understanding their motives, she continues seeking their company because she does not want to spend her final high school summer alone.
• Adrien is a self-made technology executive who was orphaned at twelve, attended MIT on a full scholarship, and became a chief executive before twenty-three. His education platform offers custom tablets, AI tutoring, and skill-building modules to schools serving students from low-income communities.
• Adrien’s mission matters more to him than selling his company for a large payment. When Richard proposes discussing ownership, Adrien rejects a buyout and asks for an investor who believes in the educational purpose of the platform and will help it expand.
• Catalina’s attraction to Adrien grows because he does not care about her fame, is not intimidated by her father, and wants to change the world. His refusal to grant her automatic attention makes him different from the people who normally surround her.
• Catalina creates an education foundation proposal primarily to impress Adrien, but completing it requires genuine effort. She studies government policy websites, reports, grants, education, and foundation planning with Mike, producing a detailed proposal that impresses both the birthday guests and Adrien.
• The abandoned baby exposes the gap between Catalina’s public claims and her initial behavior. Moments after presenting herself as someone who cares about children, she hands the baby to a staff member and assumes her father’s lawyers can remove the problem.
• Adrien’s childhood experience shapes his reaction to the abandoned child. Having grown up believing nobody wanted him, he condemns the idea of passing the baby to lawyers and potentially an orphanage, then challenges Catalina to demonstrate empathy through direct responsibility.
• Caring for the baby immediately overwhelms Catalina with dirty diapers, accidental urination, feeding, crying, and lost sleep. The following days become even harder because she can barely eat or shower, while Mike stops answering her desperate calls and Adrien refuses to take over her challenge.

Questions & Answers

Q: Why does Catalina agree to care for the abandoned baby?

Catalina agrees after Adrien accuses her of lacking empathy and treating the baby like a package that lawyers can remove. She identifies with being left behind because her mother departed when she was five, and she says she does not want another child to feel abandoned. She also wants to prove Adrien’s judgment of her is wrong.

Q: How does Catalina try to impress Adrien Carter?

Catalina first engineers encounters at his jogging route, charity gala, favorite coffee shop, and office, but Adrien remains distant. She then develops a more substantial plan: an education foundation for children who cannot afford school. With Mike’s help, she studies policies, reports, grants, education, and foundations before presenting a detailed proposal at her father’s birthday celebration.

Q: What is Adrien Carter’s education project?

Adrien is seeking investment to expand a technology-based education platform for schools in low-income communities. The project includes custom tablets, AI tutoring, and modules designed to build skills. Richard Cortez views the initiative as potentially helpful to both the community and his mayoral campaign, but Adrien refuses to sell because he wants a mission-aligned investor rather than a buyout.

Q: Why is Adrien uninterested in Catalina’s wealth and fame?

Adrien is focused on expanding an education platform he built from the ground up, and he openly values its mission over money. He dismisses Catalina’s references to her magazine cover, millions of followers, and trending series, while also rejecting her offer to influence her father. His behavior shows that status and favors do not automatically earn his respect or attention.

Q: What challenge do Catalina and Adrien make about the baby?

Catalina promises to care for the abandoned baby herself until his mother is found, then asks Adrien to admit publicly that he judged her unfairly if she succeeds. Adrien says that if she fails, she must admit she is shallow and entitled and spend a year in a developing country without her money. He also requires her to move into his home so she cannot secretly hire help.

Q: How difficult is caring for the baby for Catalina?

Catalina quickly discovers that infant care requires constant, unpleasant, and exhausting work. During her first night, she struggles through a dirty diaper, gets urinated on, cannot stop the baby’s crying with rocking or dancing, and finally settles him by feeding him milk. Over the following days, repeated diapers, feeding schedules, crying, and sleep loss leave her barely able to eat or shower.

Q: Why does Adrien react strongly to Catalina handing away the baby?

Adrien was orphaned at twelve and knows what it feels like to grow up believing that nobody wants you. He fears that handing the child to lawyers will simply lead to an orphanage, so Catalina’s casual attitude strikes him as deeply insensitive. Her response also contradicts the concern for children that she had just displayed through her education foundation proposal.

Q: Who is Mike, and how does he influence Catalina?

Mike is Catalina’s older neighbor and the only person she considers a genuine friend. He challenges her decision to keep classmates who use her, advises her to show Adrien that she is more than a spoiled princess, and helps research the education foundation. However, once Catalina begins caring for the baby, he leaves for a college project in Korea and stops replying to her desperate messages.

Summary & Key Takeaways

• Catalina Cortez is the privileged daughter of billionaire and mayoral candidate Richard Cortez. Although classmates seek her company for invitations, club access, and online attention, she recognizes that Mike is her only genuine friend. Her sheltered life shifts when she meets Adrien Carter, a self-made technology entrepreneur focused on educational access.

• Catalina pursues Adrien because he ignores her status, resists her father’s money, and wants to improve underprivileged schools. Hoping to prove she is more than a spoiled heiress, she researches grants, policies, education, and foundations with Mike, then presents a detailed plan for supporting children at her father’s birthday celebration.

• An abandoned baby arrives during the celebration with a note assigning responsibility to the elites. After Adrien criticizes Catalina’s dismissive response, she promises to care for the child until his mother is found. Living in Adrien’s penthouse, she faces dirty diapers, interrupted sleep, feeding schedules, persistent crying, and disappearing support from Mike.