Scamming My Ex-Boyfriend's Baby Fund

Honestly, keeping this kid isn't exactly a hard requirement.

I lived paycheck to paycheck. To save up for a house, I opened a separate bank account and pretended I was raising a baby. Later, when the crushing weight of soaring bills and inflation suffocated me, I broke down and posted that status update.

My billionaire ex-boyfriend, Soren, saw it and immediately bombarded my phone with texts.

[Is it too early for him to use a baby walker?]

[You actually treated me like a free sperm bank just for my premium genes!!!]

[I bought you premium supplements. Drop your address.]

[Forget it. I'll just have my finance department wire five hundred thousand dollars into your trust account. Spend it for now.]

All I want to say is is it too late to actually get pregnant right now?

Chapter 1

I lived paycheck to paycheck. To pay off those damn student loans and finally escape my nightmare roommates, and to dodge all the fake, mandatory social mixers at work, I came up with a plan.

On my very first day at the company, I opened a separate bank account and lied, claiming I had a baby to raise. Then, every month, I funneled a chunk of my salary into it. Sure, there were some whispers at first. But over time, my "struggling single mom" persona took deep root.

People stopped inviting me to anything that required chipping in. Thanks to that, I actually built up a decent savings stash.

Everything was perfect.

Until I saw the announcement that my absolute favorite singer was going on tour.

I chewed on my lower lip, staring at the screen. Money could always be saved later. But concert tickets? That was a once-in-a-lifetime shot.

Plus, it wasn't like I had an actual tiny human to feed. Dipping into the fund wouldn't hurt anyone. After convincing myself, I went online to secure the tickets.

Lexi caught me staring at the checkout screen. She smirked. "I thought you were raising a kid? Still got cash for concert tickets?"

"We're pooling money to throw a luxury bash for the director," she continued, her tone dripping with fake sweetness. "Since you've got cash to burn, why don't you cover the entire sponsorship for the event?"

She had a point. I needed to solidify my cover. The poor, self-reliant, struggling single mom. I posted a new status update on my social feed.

[Baby formula is so insanely expensive, and my paycheck is already gone. But it's okay. As long as you grow up healthy, Mommy will do whatever it takes.]

I attached a pathetic photo of a discounted box of instant mac and cheese. It worked like a charm. After that, nobody dared ask me to pitch in to kiss the boss's ass. I was more than happy to keep my money.

However, while I could skip kissing up to management, I couldn't ignore my own cravings. The exclusive, limited-edition designer bag I had been dreaming of finally sent me a purchase invitation. Four years ago, fresh out of college and drowning in debt, I couldn't afford it.

For four long years, I had obsessively stalked social media, burning with jealousy every time some influencer flaunted it. Now that I had the cash, I had to strike.

But my finger froze a millimeter above the payment button.

It wasn't wildly expensive, but every dollar in my account was earmarked. To buy this bag, I'd have to raid the "baby" fund again.

The internal conflict kept me awake all night. I was so sleep-deprived the next morning that I blindly clicked "Add" when Lexi told us to save the new boss's contact info. I didn't even read the name.

I stared at a dying daisy on my desk and started plucking the petals off one by one. "Buy it. Don't buy it. Buy it"

The final petal fell. It landed on "Buy it."

Feeling like a criminal, I sneaked into the office bathroom, locked the stall door, and placed the order for the bag.

Just as I reached for the latch to leave, I heard voices outside near the sinks.

"The new boss is arriving today. We need to do something big to show our appreciation, right?"

"Absolutely. If we get on his good side now, getting a promotion later will be a breeze."

They were busy debating which high-end brand would make the best impression when I pushed open the stall door, sporting massive dark circles under my eyes. The gossip came to a dead halt.

After a beat, another female coworker broke the silence, her voice dripping with pity. "Staying up all night with the baby must be exhausting, huh?"

I blinked, caught off guard, and let out a vague grunt of agreement. I assumed that playing the tragic pity card would exclude me from their expensive brown-nosing scheme.

Wrong.

They cornered me, arguing that I couldn't risk leaving a bad impression on the new boss. They bullied me into chipping in. The exact amount they demanded?

My entire month's salary.

To survive next month, I would have to gut the baby fund.

Great. Just leave me to rot.

That night, staring at my severely depleted fake-baby-slash-real-estate fund, my resentment hit the ceiling. I aggressively typed out a status update.

[Honestly, keeping this kid isn't exactly a hard requirement.]

Barely a minute passed before a single notification popped up. A comment.

[?]

I squinted at the screen. Soren?

I scrubbed him from my contacts the day we broke up. When the hell did he creep back onto my friends list?

Figuring I was just hallucinating from sheer bitterness, I ignored the notification and moved to block his account all over again.

Chapter 2

I tapped his profile, and a rapid-fire string of messages instantly flooded my screen.

[The kid is one year old?]

[When did this happen?]

[Don't you dare abandon him. We can talk about this.]

I was so dead.

Based on the fake timeline I had constructed on my social feed, my imaginary baby was exactly a year old. Soren and I had broken up less than two years ago.

He thought I had pulled a runner with his bun in my oven!

My throat tightened. My fingers trembled as I hit the "Block and Delete" button on his profile.

Thanks to that little heart attack, I spent another night staring at the ceiling. By the time the welcome reception for the new CEO rolled around the next morning, I looked like a walking corpse straight out of a zombie flick.

The new boss clearly thought my undead aesthetic was ruining the corporate vibe. He stopped dead in front of my desk, parting his lips to say something.

Lexi, ever the helpful coworker, chimed in. "Boss, she's a single mom. Raising a baby all alone is super exhausting."

I hadn't planned on explaining myself, but the boss's voice cut through the air. "A single mom? Where's the father?"

My blood ran cold. I snapped my head up.

Standing right in front of me was Soren. My ex-boyfriend. The exact same man I had blocked last night.

My toes curled so hard in my pumps they practically dug through the floorboards. I scrambled to explain. "No, it's not"

Lexi, brave warrior that she was, struck again. "Oh, she said the baby daddy is dead."

Soren stared at me. A dangerous, unreadable smirk played on his lips. "Car crash, or plane crash?"

Neither. I had no idea how the baby daddy was doing, but the baby's mother was currently dying a horrific social death. Insert fake smile here.

After extracting every pathetic detail about my "struggling" life from my gossipy coworkers, Soren forced me to unblock his number. The bombardment immediately resumed.

[Is it too early for him to use a baby walker?]

Yes, way too early. Considering I wasn't even pregnant yet.

[How is your health right now? I bought you premium supplements. Drop your address.]

My health was fantastic, seeing as my heart hadn't exploded from the sheer humiliation yet.

[Forget it. I'll just transfer you some money. Don't let yourself and the kid suffer.]

Great. Wait. What? I shot up straight in my chair, frantically typing out a message to stop him from doing anything crazy.

But it was too late. My phone buzzed against the desk.

A sharp, exclusive notification chime echoed through the dead-silent office, followed by an automated voice.

[Your account has received a premium VIP transfer of five hundred thousand dollars.]

The entire office exploded into chaos. Lexi practically slid across the floor to my desk.

"Hadley, you need a live-in nanny, right? Five hundred thousand dollars! If you strike it rich, don't forget to take me shopping in Beverly Hills! Hadley, I'm your mother's long-lost second daughter!"

My fingers gripped my phone so tightly my knuckles turned white. My brain spun out of control, hunting for an excuse.

Damn you, Soren. He knew I had my banking notifications turned up to the max volume. Why the hell couldn't he just do a quiet wire transfer?!

Drowning in the sudden, predatory enthusiasm of my coworkers, my survival instincts kicked in. "It's a prank ringtone!" I blurted out. "It's just an alarm to remind me to drink water. Who would actually wire me half a million dollars?"

They stared at me. Nobody bought it.

I doubled down. "I'm literally too broke to buy bottled water! If someone actually sent me that kind of cash, I'd be carried out of here on a solid gold throne!"

Right as I was sweating through my clothes trying to scam my way out of this, the temperature in the room dropped. Soren walked in.

His piercing gaze swept over the crowd swarming my desk. The parting of the Red Sea happened in three seconds flat. Everyone scattered, shrinking behind their monitors, too terrified to even breathe loud.

My fingers hammered random keys on my keyboard. I had zero idea what I was typing. Soren didn't rush. He simply stood right behind my chair, silently watching me "work."

The suffocating pressure was too much. I forced a painfully tight smile and turned around. "Boss, is there something you need?"

If he stood there for one more second, the entire office wasn't just going to freak outwe were going to spontaneously combust.

Soren stared at me for a few agonizing seconds. He leaned in, his massive frame casting a deeply oppressive shadow over me. His obscenely expensive bespoke suit radiated a faint, crisp scent of cedarwood.

His dark, unfathomable eyes locked onto mine without a shred of hesitation, as if he could see straight through my soul. He slowly opened his mouth. "Did you receive the money?"

My eyes widened in sheer horror.

What the hell was he doing?! I had just busted my ass convincing everyone the transfer was a fake alarm, and he immediately shattered my alibi into a million pieces.

He truly was the ultimate ex-boyfriendruthless, vicious, and lethal!

Chapter 3

I swallowed hard, my voice shaking under the collective, burning stares of my coworkers. "What money?"

Playing dumb was my only survival tactic. If Soren kept blowing my cover, my only option was packing up my desk and fleeing the state.

Thankfully, Soren just tapped a long finger against my phone resting on the desk. "I had HR notify you yesterday. You're heading up the upcoming corporate retreat. The budget has already been wired to your account."

I swiped open my screen. Right below that jaw-dropping half-million-dollar deposit, Soren had wired a second, smaller transaction. My frantic dash to mute all notifications meant I missed it.

Ah, what a lifesaver of an ex-boyfriend.

I let out a long breath, my shoulders dropping a fraction. I immediately swore to him that the retreat would be absolutely flawless.

Soren gave a crisp nod. Just before turning away, he dropped one last bomb. "Accept my contact request. You are the only person in the entire building who hasn't."

The second his broad shoulders disappeared down the hallway, my coworkers swarmed my desk, aggressively pitching luxury destinations for the retreat. I pretended to jot down their demands while discreetly hitting "Accept" on Soren's request.

Not even a full second later, a message popped up.

[I picked up a few things for you and the kid. Meet me in the VIP parking garage after work.]

Crap. The imaginary baby. I rapidly typed out a defense.

[I swear there is no baby. I literally made the whole thing up.]

[]

Message received loud and clear. He didn't buy a single word.

I hit the keyboard harder.

[When we were together, did I ever lie to you about anything major? I swear on my life, the kid is just a massive lie I spun for work.]

Soren ditched the ellipses.

[Yes. Constantly.]

My phone glitched, then a relentless barrage of texts flooded the screen.

[That time we almost broke up? You took the cat to the vet to get fixed, but you gaslit me into believing you sold him. I found out later you were just trying to cut me out of the picture and keep full custody.]

[Knowing exactly how your brain works, you are pulling the exact same stunt right now.]

[You just wanted the baby! You didn't want me!]

He punctuated the meltdown with a sobbing emoji.

I buried my face in a throw pillow, suffocating a groan. Soren had never bought any of my previous bluffs, so why the hell was he gripping onto this one like a lifeline? Where exactly was I supposed to procure a live infant for him?

His final text sealed my doom.

[If you think you are icing me out of this kid's life, you are dead wrong.]

Our messy split was honestly a massive trainwreck of timing. Whenever I caught a cold or scraped a knee, Soren was always instantly on top of it. But the one time I got dangerously sick, he was nowhere to be found.

We had already been trapped in a vicious fight that week. Fueled by a spiked fever and physical exhaustion, my defenses completely crumbled. The second his phone went straight to voicemail, I assumed it was a silent, cowardly breakup.

I snapped. I blocked him on absolutely every platform.

Flash forward through a twisted joke of fate, and now my ex is my new CEO. And thanks to my idiotic fake baby fund, he is utterly convinced he's a father.

After the office finally emptied out, Soren marched straight to my cubicle, demanding I follow him down to the underground garage.

I desperately laid it out for him again. No baby. No tiny human. Hauling a bunch of infant gear back to my apartment was completely pointless.

Soren didn't even bother arguing. He just shot me a dark look. "Half of the haul is for you. You are taking your half, at the very least."

Knowing exactly how ruthlessly stubborn he was, I surrendered and dragged my feet to the garage.

The second the motorized trunk of his matte-black SUV slid open, my jaw practically unhinged.

The massive space was crammed to the roof. Half was high-end baby gear; the other half was entirely for me.

Soren started pointing out the items with complete authority. "These are top-tier imported multivitamins and organic supplements. Word around the office is that you are constantly anemic and dizzy."

"It's obviously because your postpartum recovery was a disaster. I have already booked a premium private nutritionist for you for the next three months. We will start with that."

Chapter 4

Staring at Soren's intense expression, a complicated knot tightened in my stomach. My dear boss, the dizziness and stomach cramps were literally just my go-to excuses for slacking off at work!

Under his absolute, unyielding insistence, I had no choice but to drag the mountain of supplements and the luxury stroller back to my apartment. And then the premium stroller immediately became a very expensive cat bed.

Thanks to everyone's aggressive planning, the corporate retreat was finalized: a weekend at an ultra-luxurious mountain resort for a massive BBQ.

Soren unleashed the budget. I didn't hold back either, booking the highest-tier suites and the most premium ingredients. On top of that, the resort boasted exclusive natural hot springs. It was more than enough to shut everyone up.

By dusk, the entire team gathered around the massive outdoor grills.

I was forcibly dragged into a circle of married coworkers aggressively swapping parenting tips. If I chimed in, Id instantly expose that I knew absolutely nothing. If I stayed silent, my fake persona would crack.

I desperately tried to shrink into the patio furniture and blend into the background.

But as the gossip hit a fever pitch, they inevitably locked onto their target.

"Hadley, are you doing formula or breastfeeding?"

I took a long, slow sip of my ice water.

Seeing that I wasn't taking the bait, one of them shoved her phone in my face, pulling up a photo. "Is this your baby? She's actually gorgeous."

I squinted at the screen. That was a photo of my little niece. Everyone always joked that she looked exactly like a carbon copy of me when I was little. I thought it was hilarious, so I had posted it on my feed a while back.

Right on cue, Soren walked over carrying a freshly grilled Tomahawk steak on a platter. He set it down directly in front of me with an undeniable air of authority.

"This one is medium-rare, no black pepper. Just to satisfy your craving. Don't overdo it, or your stomach will start acting up again."

Only after delivering that command did he finally shift his intense gaze to the group of women. "What are we discussing?"

The aggressive parenting debate died instantly. I literally saw them exchanging sideways glances, mentally calculating exactly what the hell was going on between the CEO and me.

Lexi, the exact same overly helpful coworker who had previously outed me as a "single mom" to Soren, fearlessly struck again. "We were just looking at a picture of Hadley's baby. She looks exactly like her."

Shes my biological niece. No shit theres a family resemblance.

But Soren was oblivious. His dark eyes locked onto the screen for a few agonizing seconds. He gave a slow nod. "She's cute. It's a little girl?"

Realizing he was literally trying to confirm the gender of his imaginary spawn, I snatched the phone away. "It's a picture of my niece. Obviously she looks like me."

To my utter horror, none of my coworkers bought it.

They immediately launched into a full-scale forensic analysis to prove the kid was mine.

"No way. Nieces don't look that identical."

How the hell was I supposed to explain this? How do I logically explain that my niece completely bypassed her own parents' DNA and somehow ended up looking like a clone of her aunt?

The lethal part was that Soren actually absorbed their ridiculous conspiracy theories. He shot me a heavy, loaded look. He might as well have pointed a finger straight at my face and yelled, Look at the hard evidence! You lied to my face about not having a kid!

It got worse. While everyone else was distracted by the food, Soren leaned in close, his voice dropping an octave as he tested the waters. "Can you send me a few of those photos? I haven't even seen her yet."

So, for the rest of the agonizing night, I exhausted every brain cell trying to prove to Soren that the toddler in the photo was not our secret love child. I seriously just wanted to launch myself into the hot springs and drown