Chapter 2

The café.

Layla couldn’t believe she actually came. She felt insane for even showing up. But when she spotted the man sitting inside, she wondered if the whole world had lost its mind along with her.

Lucas Moore, the man who all but controlled Rivergate’s economy. The financial magazines’ golden boy. Five years straight as the man women most wanted to marry. The president of Moore Group. And he might be the father of her baby?

Lucas looked much calmer than she felt. His first sentence was brutal.

“We’ve never slept together, Miss Spencer, so there’s no need to look so terrified.”

Layla’s face went numb.

“Mr. Moore, why did you ask me to come here?”

Lucas slid a hospital-stamped envelope across the table while holding it in place with his fingers.

“Your husband, Dylan Hall, has been cheating on you with your stepsister, Lily Spencer. A month ago, they planned to implant their embryo into your uterus so you would carry their baby for them.”

“It was the doctor’s mistake that led to my fertilized embryo being put into your body instead.”

Layla flipped through the documents. Even knowing she hadn’t been used as a surrogate by those two, she didn’t feel any better. She took a long breath until her expression relaxed.

“Mr. Moore, let’s stop dancing around it. What do you actually want?”

Something faint and almost imperceptible flickered in his eyes, a touch of admiration.

“I’m guessing you’ll divorce your husband after what he did. And I happen to need a child and a wife to reassure my grandmother.

“If you agree to be my contract wife and carry my child, I’ll invest one hundred million to save the Spencer Group and help you make a comeback.”

Layla let out a short, dry laugh with a hint of mockery. “You men are unbelievable. Marry you? That’s absolutely not—”

“Miss Spencer,” Lucas cut in, his voice low and firm. His fingers tapped lightly on the table. “Before you decide, think about whether courage alone can protect you from everything you stand to lose.”

He was right. She was surrounded on all sides. If she lost anything more, she wasn’t sure she could survive it.

Layla shut her eyes for a moment and ran through everything in her head. When she opened them, she had made her choice.

“One month from now, we register the marriage.”

“No problem.”

He sounded like he had known she would say yes.

“One month later at City Hall. I’ll see you there, my fiancée.”

The words were calm, but Layla caught an unexpected hint of warmth. She didn’t dwell on it. She stood and left without looking back.

She never noticed the way Lucas’s gaze lingered on her.

Layla moved fast. She prepared the divorce papers, the resignation letter, and gathered a stack of other documents. Then she knocked on Dylan’s office door.

The moment she pushed it open, she saw Dylan practically shove Lily away. His suit pants were unzipped.

“What makes you think you can barge in like this? Don’t forget this is a workplace. There are rules.”

Layla ignored the irritation in his voice. With both of them staring at her, she walked straight to the desk and dropped the documents in front of him.

“Urgent files. You need to sign them before anything else can move forward.”

Out of the corner of her eye, she caught Lily adjusting her clothes, deliberately tilting her neck so the red marks showed. She smirked, taunting.

These two were unbelievable. With how hard they had been going at it, it was a miracle neither of them had passed out.

Dylan was just about to flip through the documents when Layla let her gaze drift between him and Lily.

“I didn’t notice earlier. What’s my sister doing here?”

Her question made Dylan’s hand freeze for a split second. Almost as if he needed to cover something up, he grabbed a pen and signed every page without even reading them.

“Lily said she’s been having nightmares lately. I’ve been doing therapy for a while, so I know a little about that stuff. I was just talking her through it.”

Before he even finished the sentence, he had already signed everything.

Layla’s chest tightened with a bitter laugh she didn’t let show. She gathered the documents calmly.

“Then you two can continue. I have work to do.”

Back in college, she used to help Dylan with everything. He was the student council president, and she planned events, wrote proposals, handled reports.

Now at the company, she had become the employee everyone called the most capable and reliable. As his chief secretary, she prepared all his paperwork. Normally, he skimmed the pages before signing.

But today, he didn’t even glance at them.

The resignation of the chief secretary needed his signature.

The divorce papers also needed his signature.

Layla looked down at both signed documents, her chest tight with a mix of emotions.

Everything she had done for him might as well have been tossed to the dogs.

She went straight to Human Resources to submit her resignation, along with her official notice.

The department head was stunned, but once he saw Dylan’s signature, every question died on his tongue.

“Miss Spencer, we’ll start recruiting for a new chief secretary. Until then, we’ll still need your help.”

“I can finish the handover within a month. If you can’t find someone suitable, choose from within the company.”

Layla shook her head. She knew exactly who in the company was capable enough for this job, and the list was very short.

When she returned to her desk, she let out a long breath. Free from the toxic mess of her marriage, she suddenly felt lighter.

She had just turned on her computer when a message popped up.

It was an address.

“Hey, Fiancée. Stay here. You’re pregnant and need someone to look after you.”

“I’ll meet you in a month.”

A month. The exact day the divorce cooling-off period would end.

This marriage was over.