All Chapters of The Perfect Match; Billionaire's Surrogate Mother : Chapter 61 - Chapter 70

Louisa's point of view By the time we left his office, it felt like every single person on the floor knew exactly what had happened inside it. And me wearing nothing but his shirt as a makeshift dress did nothing to kill the rumors — it just confirmed them. God, how was I supposed to face my coworkers tomorrow, knowing they all thought I'd been sleeping with the boss? Nobody said anything outright, but it was written all over their faces. I was probably a calculating gold-digging slut in their eyes. "They know," I muttered, the second the elevator doors shut behind us. "They don't know anything." Damien didn't even have the decency to look embarrassed. "Damien. Your tie is crooked, my hair looks like I got caught in a wind tunnel, and this is not how I looked when I came in this morning." The corner of his mouth twitched — the closest thing to a smile he'd give me with the elevator camera watching. "Fix your hair, then." "That's not the point." I fixed it anyway, catching my

Louisa's point of viewWe didn't talk much more through dinner. He was working through his feelings, and I gave him the space to do it."Thank you for dinner, Kev." I hugged him again, my chest warm at the sight of him. He reminded me that good people still existed in the world."Can't wait to see you again, Isa." He was the only person who'd ever given me a nickname."Here, please take this." Damien held out a check. I hadn't even noticed him write it."Oh, please, dinner's on the house." Kev's laugh shook his whole belly.Damien smiled slightly. "It's not for dinner. Just something to thank you for being such a great person." He set the check on the counter."No, no, I can't—""You can, and you will. Please. For my sake."Kev's eyes watered as he finally accepted it, which made mine sting too."Thank you." He pulled me into one more hug, murmuring a blessing.We said our goodbyes and headed out."Thank you for that," I said.Damien hummed. "He deserved it."We got to the car before

‎Louisa's point of view‎‎The past week had been filled with passion, a hell of a lot of fucking, and something resembling love.‎‎We weren't official — at least, not as far as I knew. One thing I've learned and internalized is to never assume you're someone's girlfriend until they actually ask.‎‎Damien never asked. So technically, I was still single.‎‎Besides Damien, my new friend Nadia and I had been talking consistently. She'd become a steady, welcome part of my life.‎‎Work, Damien, and Nadia, that was the shape of my days now, and I liked it more than I would've expected.‎‎I spoke to Mom and Michelle too, but those conversations always felt draining, like they were only calling to get something out of me rather than because they actually wanted to talk.‎‎It was silly to think that. They were family, and if they needed something, it was my responsibility to give it. But sometimes I just wanted an ordinary conversation with my only blood relatives, and it always ended up

Louisa's point of viewI found myself curled up on the couch an hour later, laptop open more as a prop than anything I was actually reading, half-listening to Claudia run through another scenario while Damien chopped vegetables in the kitchen for what had started as dinner for two and quietly became dinner for three."What if someone on the board brings up my father directly," Claudia said, perched on a stool at the counter, chin propped on her hand."Redirect. Acknowledge the question, don't dodge it, but bring it back to what you control." Damien slid vegetables into the pan, oil hissing. "Don't let them corner you into defending someone else's decisions.""You're good at this." She said it easily, like a compliment between old friends — which I supposed they were, better friends than she and I would ever be."Louisa's better at the media side," he said, glancing toward me. "Louisa, come tell her the redirect thing. You explain it better than I do."I looked up, something tightening

Louisa's point of view I barely had time to set my bag down before the first fire started. "There you are." Priya, one of the junior associates, appeared at my office door looking like she hadn't slept, a tablet clutched to her chest like a shield. "We have a problem." "Define problem." I was ready for anything that would get my mind off the morning and the night I'd just had. "Define catastrophe." She pushed the tablet toward me, and I scanned the headline scrolling across the screen, my stomach dropping somewhere around the second sentence. A leaked internal memo. Hue Media, allegedly planning layoffs across three departments, timed suspiciously close to a quarterly earnings report, making it look like the company was trying to dodge rewarding staff for the work that had driven revenue up. The same workers who'd helped triple the company's quarterly numbers, conveniently laid off before they could see a cent of it. Screenshots of the memo were already circulating, shared and