All Chapters of Oops! I Signed A Baby Contract: Chapter 31 - Chapter 40

“He’s in custody,” Mia said, reading over Mateo’s shoulder. “Desmond’s in custody. How is Reyes still,”“Because Desmond going to prison doesn’t erase the debt. If anything it makes Reyes more desperate to collect before the money disappears into legal fees and asset freezes.” Mateo set the phone down, jaw working. “And apparently he thinks family debt is inheritable.”The email was short, businesslike in a way that made it worse. Four million, transferred by the end of the month, or Reyes would consider other avenues of repayment, unspecified but implied clearly enough that Mia’s skin went cold reading it a second time.“We’re not paying a criminal’s debt,” Mia said.“No. But we are protecting the people he might come after to collect it.” Mateo pulled out his phone again, already dialing security, already rebuilding the checklist he seemed to retreat into whenever fear needed somewhere useful to go. “Kessia stays here as long as this lasts. Your mother too, if she’s willing to exten

The safe room was smaller than Mia expected, a reinforced space behind what looked like an ordinary pantry, built decades ago for reasons no one had ever explained to her and that suddenly made painful, terrifying sense.Her mother’s hands shook as she gripped Mia’s arm. “What is happening. Somebody tell me what is happening.”“It’s a precaution, Mom.” Mia kept her voice steady through sheer force of will, though her own pulse hammered loud enough to drown out half of what anyone else was saying. “Just a precaution.”Kessia sat pale and silent in the corner, having already lived through one version of this fear at her own front door weeks ago, and Mia realized, with a fresh stab of guilt, that she’d dragged her best friend into the blast radius of a mess that had never been hers to carry.Outside, muffled through reinforced walls, they could hear raised voices, then something that might have been a car door, then a longer silence that felt worse than any of it.Mateo had stayed outsid

“Is it the baby?” Mia’s voice came out smaller than she meant it to. “Please, just tell me if it’s the baby.”The nurse’s expression softened slightly. “The pregnancy itself looks fine so far, given how early it still is. But your stress hormone levels are significantly elevated, understandably, given the day you’ve had, and I’d strongly recommend bed rest and close monitoring for the next week at minimum. High cortisol this early can complicate things if it isn’t managed.”Relief and fresh fear tangled together in Mia’s chest, indistinguishable from each other. “So it’s not, the baby’s not in immediate danger.”“Not immediate, no. But I won’t pretend the risk isn’t real if the stress continues. Whatever’s been happening in your life recently, Mrs. Moore, your body needs it to stop.” The nurse’s eyes flicked briefly toward the bandage visible at Mateo’s shoulder, drawing a conclusion she was too professional to say out loud. “I’ll have the doctor come by in the morning with a full pla

“Vanessa,” Mateo said the second Mia showed him the screen, no hesitation this time.“You don’t know that.”“I know exactly who benefits from this story running now, with names attached, right after Desmond’s arrest made her useless as a partner.” His jaw tightened, IV line pulling taut with the motion. “She’s got nothing left to lose either. Desmond’s in custody. If she doesn’t burn us down publicly now, she gets nothing out of any of this.”The article went live four hours later, full name, full details, a grainy still from the club’s security footage blown up across the top of the page. By morning it had migrated from a gossip site to two major outlets, and by noon Mia’s face was recognizable to strangers in a way that made her stomach turn every time she thought about stepping outside the hospital doors.“They’re calling me a con artist,” she said, scrolling despite Mateo’s protests that she shouldn’t. “One outlet used the word gold digger four times in one paragraph.”“Don’t read

The next twenty minutes blurred into a chaos of nurses and monitors and a doctor Mia hadn’t met before speaking in calm, clinical tones that did nothing to slow her own racing heart.“We’re seeing some irregular activity, but the heartbeat’s still strong,” the doctor said, eyes on the ultrasound screen angled just out of Mia’s direct view. “I want to be honest with you both. High stress, especially sustained over weeks the way yours has been, can absolutely trigger complications this early. We’re going to monitor closely tonight.”“Is the baby,” Mia couldn’t finish the question, throat too tight around it.“The baby’s heartbeat is present and currently within normal range. I’m not going to promise you more than that tonight, because I’d be lying, but I’m also not going to tell you to panic yet.” The doctor’s voice gentled slightly. “What I will tell you, bluntly, is that whatever’s been happening in your life needs to stop happening around this pregnancy. Your body is telling you that