The Contract

When Marcus met Eliza, it wasn’t love. It wasn’t even lust. It was strategy.

She walked into the lounge like she owned the city—elegant, sharp, with that kind of wealth that spoke softly but moved mountains. She ordered a drink he couldn’t pronounce and sat at the bar beside him like fate was playing poker with loaded dice.

They talked. She listened. He laughed. She didn’t. And yet, she took him home.

Marcus wasn’t blind. He saw the private elevator, the triplex penthouse, the Picasso that hung like a casual afterthought. She was the kind of woman who didn’t need a man. Which is exactly why he stayed.

Two months in, she dropped the bomb. Over wine and silence, she turned to him and said, “I want a child. I don’t want a marriage. I want you.”

He blinked. “You want me… to father your child?”

“I’ll pay you,” she said plainly. “You’ll sign over rights. I’ll raise the child. You walk away. Five hundred thousand, tax-free.”

Marcus swallowed hard. He could use the money. His mother’s house was hanging by a thread. His sister was drowning in hospital bills. Half a million could fix everything.

But… a child?

“You’re serious?”

“I’m thirty-nine, Marcus. I don’t want to waste time pretending this is more than what it is.”

He didn’t answer that night. But three days later, he signed.

Year One.

He kept his distance, just like she wanted. No check-ins. No photos. But late at night, he’d find himself scrolling parenting blogs, wondering if the baby had her eyes. Or his smile.

Year Two.

He saw her by accident. At a park. A nanny pushed a stroller, and there she was—Eliza—laughing, sunlight softening the usual steel in her eyes. And the child—God—the child had his dimples.

That night, he drank until the walls spun and cursed his own price tag.

Year Three.

He showed up at her building. No call. No warning.

“I want to see him,” he said.

She looked like he’d spit on her carpet. “You signed away your rights.”

“I didn’t know I’d care.”

“That wasn’t part of the deal.”

He stepped closer. “He’s mine.”

“He’s mine,” she snapped. “I paid you.”

Her voice was cold, but her hands were shaking. The baby started crying in the background.

“You can’t buy a father, Eliza.”

“No,” she said bitterly. “But I bought silence. And now you’re breaking it.”

They stood there, a war brewing in the space between them.

“Let me be in his life,” Marcus pleaded. “I’ll give the money back. All of it.”

Her eyes filled, but she didn’t let the tears fall. “I don’t want your guilt. I want peace.”

“He’ll ask about me someday.”

“I’ll tell him the truth,” she said. “That I wanted him more than anything. And that his father didn’t.”

He flinched like she’d slapped him. “That’s a lie.”

“It’s the deal you made.”

He left without another word. But the story didn’t end there.

Six months later, she sent him a photo. No message. Just a little boy, grinning in a messy onesie, with a gap-toothed smile that could shatter him.

He stared at it all night.

Now, people debate. Friends argue. The internet eats it alive.

Was she cruel for buying a child like a handbag?

Was he heartless for selling his blood for money?

Some say she’s a queen—unapologetic, independent, decisive.

Others say he’s the victim—a man haunted by a choice he didn’t understand until it was too late.

But between the headlines and hashtags, there’s a child.

And someday, he’ll ask: “Why weren’t you there?”

And Marcus will have to choose: tell the truth, or tell the story.