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2025-08-16 17:23:08Mateo stared at his phone, his heart still hammering.
"Unbelievable," he muttered, pacing the room like something caged. "I can't lose my company over this."
Felix had heard the whole call on speaker, and the furrow between his brows hadn't smoothed out yet.
"I lied about the fiancée to cover for you, and it only made things worse," he said.
"He set a deadline for a relationship that doesn't exist. A week to introduce a woman and start planning a wedding."
"That's ridiculous," Felix agreed.
Mateo let out a frustrated breath. "I'm not letting my father hand my company to someone else just because I'm single."
"So what will you do?"
"I don't know. What would you do?"
"Your dad's probably bluffing. Wait it out, he won't actually do anything."
"My father is a man of his word."
"Maybe he just wants to know there's a woman in your life. He probably doesn't actually want to force a wedding."
"You think so?"
"I do. Just introduce him to whoever you're seeing."
"There's no one."
"Then get into something real. You've been alone too long. Forget the past, let someone in for once," Felix said, and for once he sounded like he meant it.
Mateo was quiet for a moment, turning the advice over. "You're right. I do want that, deadline aside. I just... don't have feelings for anyone right now."
"Relax. Love takes time."
"Takes time? How am I supposed to find someone in a week, then? And since when do you talk like a love guru? You're the one in the unserious relationship."
Felix laughed. "Fine, we'll speed the process up a little. A week is plenty of time to find a fake girlfriend."
"A fake girlfriend?"
"Think about it. You don't have to marry her. You just need your dad to believe you're serious about someone. Introduce him to a woman who looks the part."
"So you're suggesting I pay someone to pretend to be my girlfriend for a week? Who agrees to something like that?"
"Don't underestimate money, Mateo. You're not paying for love, you're paying for time and effort."
Mateo shook his head slowly. "I don't know about this."
"Fine, do nothing, and watch Desmond take your seat."
Mateo paced, running his hands through his hair. "Where would I even find someone like that?"
"Anywhere. The club, for instance."
"Absolutely not the club. I just got robbed by a woman from a club."
"Fine, not the club." Felix rolled his eyes. "Something a little more unconventional, then."
"Like what?"
"I'll have the web team post a job listing. Say we're hiring, female applicants only."
"We're not hiring anything."
Felix grinned. "That's the point. Women will show up for the interview, and you pick whoever you like, then tell her the real deal. Offer enough money and she'll say yes."
"I hope someone actually wants the money that badly," Mateo said, nodding slowly despite himself.
"I'll get the team on it now," Felix said, already heading for the door.
**
Mia had sent out applications to half a dozen companies that week. Fresh out of college with no real experience, she knew a good job wouldn't fall into her lap easily, and she needed money fast. Robbing anyone again was out of the question, not just because of the risk, but because the guilt from last time hadn't faded.
She scrolled through listings until her eyes ached, most jobs demanding years of experience she didn't have. She was about to give up for the night when an ad caught her eye.
Personal Assistant to the CEO, the headline read.
The requirements were strange: basic education, must be single, ages twenty one to twenty five. She wondered why her marital status mattered for an assistant role, but the salary made her stop caring. It was more than she'd make in a year at most entry level jobs.
She filled out the application without letting herself think too hard about how odd it was, then closed her laptop and waited for a rejection she was sure would come.
It didn't. An email landed in her inbox within the hour, inviting her for an interview the next morning.
"Oh my God," she said aloud, to no one. "This can't be real."
She read it twice more just to be sure it wasn't a mistake, and then, despite everything, she let herself smile.
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Oops! I Signed A Baby Contract 55
“Something’s wrong at the house,” Mia said, already standing, chair scraping loud against the floor.Genevieve’s face shifted instantly, alarm replacing the careful vulnerability of moments earlier. “That’s not me. I swear to you, whatever’s happening right now isn’t my doing.”“Forgive me if I don’t have time to sort out who to trust right now.” Mia was already moving toward the door, security falling into step around her, phone pressed hard against her ear as she dialed Mateo directly.He picked up on the first ring, voice tight and urgent. “Mia, stay where you are, we’ve got it handled,”The line cut abruptly, replaced by silence, and Mia’s blood went to ice standing on the sidewalk outside a cafe three miles from her daughter.“Drive,” she said to the security agent beside her. “Now.”The ride home passed in a blur of terror, every red light an eternity, and when they finally turned onto the property, Mia’s stomach dropped at the sight of two unfamiliar cars abandoned at odd angle
Oops! I Signed A Baby Contract 54
“Your brother,” Mia said carefully, watching the woman’s visible terror with a strange, uncomfortable recognition. “She’s threatening him.”“She’s had him working off a debt for two years now, ever since our mother’s medical bills became more than either of us could handle alone.” Marguerite’s voice cracked entirely. “I didn’t want to do any of this. I needed the money, and then I needed to protect him, and every small thing I agreed to made the next thing harder to refuse.”Mia felt something complicated twist in her chest, anger and recognition sitting uneasily side by side. She knew this particular trap intimately, the slow, grinding logic of desperation that made betrayal feel like the only available choice.“Call Alvarez,” Mateo said quietly to Mia, though his eyes stayed on Marguerite, something calculating replacing the fury of moments earlier.“Please,” Marguerite said, voice small. “I would never have hurt that baby. I held her every night for two weeks. I couldn’t.”“I belie
Oops! I Signed A Baby Contract 53
“You want acknowledgment,” the Chairman said slowly, “for a partnership you tried to sabotage the moment it stopped serving whatever criminal connections you brought into it.”“Careful, Emeralds. I could say the same about the version of history you’ve spent thirty years telling everyone who’d listen.” Genevieve’s composure didn’t waver, though something sharper flickered behind her eyes. “I was twenty six years old and the only reason this company survived its first two years. You erased me because it was convenient, not because it was true.”“You introduced men into our early meetings who threatened violence when I refused their terms.”“I introduced men with resources you were too proud to accept on anything but your own terms. There’s a difference between organized crime and simply being willing to take risks you weren’t brave enough to take yourself.” Genevieve’s voice had gone colder now, thirty years of rehearsed grievance finally surfacing in full. “You built an empire on my e
Oops! I Signed A Baby Contract 52
“Thirty years,” Mateo said, pacing the length of the nursery with barely restrained fury. “Thirty years, and my father never once mentioned a business partner who might still want this company badly enough to orchestrate everything we’ve survived this past year.”“Maybe he doesn’t know,” Mia said carefully, adjusting Everly against her shoulder as the baby stirred slightly at the tension in the room. “Or maybe he’s spent so long erasing that part of the company’s history he genuinely convinced himself it didn’t matter anymore.”They brought the recording, captured discreetly on Mateo’s second phone the moment he’d recognized the call was serious, to the Chairman that evening, and watched his face age visibly through every minute of Genevieve’s calm, devastating monologue.“Genevieve,” he said finally, voice hollow. “I haven’t heard that name in decades.”“You knew her,” Mateo said. It wasn’t a question.“She helped me start this company. That much is true.” The Chairman’s hands trembl
Oops! I Signed A Baby Contract 51
Mia took the phone with hands still trembling from exhaustion, and the message on the screen made the small, perfect bubble of the last two hours crack straight down the middle.Congratulations in advance. I’ve waited a long time to meet the next generation of Emeralds Group. I’ll be in touch soon.“When did this come in,” Mateo asked, voice gone tight and careful, clearly trying not to alarm the baby now sleeping peacefully against Mia’s chest.“Last night. Before,” Mia swallowed hard, glancing down at Everly. “Before any of this. Whoever sent it knew she was coming before we even left for the hospital.”“That’s not possible unless someone’s still watching this family closely enough to know things that specific.”Detective Alvarez arrived within the hour, expression grim as she read the message twice over Mia’s shoulder.“We thought Constance was the last of it,” she said. “Clearly we were wrong.”“Or she wasn’t working alone either,” Mateo said, exhaustion and fear warring visibly a
Oops! I Signed A Baby Contract 50
The arrest happened quietly compared to Franklin’s, Constance led out through a side exit with none of the chaos or violence that had marked the boardroom weeks earlier, and the relief that should have followed arrived instead alongside a bone deep exhaustion neither Mia nor Mateo could quite shake for days afterward.“Two down,” Mateo said that evening, slumped on the study couch with his tie already discarded, the particular posture of a man who’d been running on adrenaline for months and had finally, briefly, let it drain out of him. “Alvarez thinks Constance was the last major piece. Franklin’s network is unwinding fast now that both anchors are gone.”“You sound like you don’t fully believe it.”“I want to believe it. I’m just not sure I know how to stop expecting the next threat anymore.” He rubbed both hands over his face. “Every time we think it’s over, it’s been a new name, a new shell company, a new person we trusted turning out to be part of something bigger.”Mia settled b
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