The CEO Surrogate

5

Sofia came back from Porto on a Sunday.

Camila knew this because the clinic called that same afternoon to schedule a routine check-in that Camila suspected was not entirely routine. There was a particular quality to the receptionist's voice — careful, overly pleasant in the way of people performing neutrality — that put something cold in her chest.

She went anyway. You went, when you had a contract and a sick mother and forty-seven thousand reasons not to disappear.

She was called into a consultation room she hadn't used before. Dr. Pereira was there. And Sofia.

Sofia was in white, which felt almost theatrical. She sat with perfect posture and an expression that Camila had never seen on her face before: grief, performed with extraordinary skill, or something so close to grief that the distinction didn't matter.

"I'm so sorry for what I have to tell you," Sofia said.

Camila said nothing.

"My husband came to me," Sofia said. "He told me what happened." A pause. A careful breath. "Between the two of you. On Thursday night."

The room was very quiet.

"I need you to understand," Sofia continued, "that I'm not angry at you. I know how these things happen. Leonardo is—" she glanced down, then back up, her eyes wet with tears that were either real or the most impressive Camila had ever seen "—he can be very persuasive. Very compelling. And you're young, and you're in a vulnerable position. I don't blame you."

Camila felt the trap closing before she could see its shape.

"What I need," Sofia said, "is for this to end. The contract will be terminated. Dr. Pereira will take care of everything medically." She paused on the word everything. The pause had weight. "And you'll receive fifty thousand euros as agreed, and an additional twenty-five thousand in recognition of the disruption to your life. In exchange for your silence, your cooperation, and your signature on an updated confidentiality agreement."

Camila looked at Dr. Pereira.

He was studying the table.

"She's eight weeks pregnant," Camila said.

"Yes," Sofia said.

"And you're asking me to—"

"I'm asking you to sign the agreement and allow Dr. Pereira to schedule a procedure."

The fluorescent light hummed above them. Somewhere outside the building, a car horn. Ordinary sounds, from an ordinary afternoon, from a world that had nothing to do with what was happening in this room.

"No," Camila said.

Sofia blinked. It was the first genuine reaction Camila had seen from her. The first c***k in the performance — just for a second, like a tile shifting.

"I don't think you fully understand your position—" she began.

"I understand it completely." Camila stood up. Her legs felt strange, but her voice was even. "I understand that you lied to your husband, forged his medical consent, and are now asking me to destroy a pregnancy so that no one finds out. I understand that you've been waiting since October to have leverage over me, and you think Thursday night gave it to you." She picked up her bag. "And I understand that you're wrong."

She walked to the door.

"Camila." Sofia's voice had changed. Still quiet. Still controlled. But the warmth was entirely gone, and what was underneath was something that had been there all along. "Leonardo will not believe you. Whatever you think happened between you — he'll say you manipulated him. That you engineered it deliberately to compromise the contract. To get more money." A pause. "I will make absolutely sure of that."

Camila stopped with her hand on the door.

She stood there for one long breath.

"Then I guess we'll see," she said.

She walked out into the corridor, and then out through the building's glass doors, and out into the November afternoon where the light was already going gold and low above the Cascais seafront. She walked until she found a bench near the water and sat down and shook for five minutes, which she felt she had earned.

Then she took out her phone.

She needed to call someone. Rafael — but Rafael worked for Leonardo, which meant Rafael's loyalties were not, ultimately, hers. Bianca — yes, Bianca. But first she needed to think.

She needed to think because Sofia had been right about one thing: Leonardo would not believe her easily. Whatever had happened Thursday night — whatever fragile, extraordinary, impossible thing had existed in that penthouse between midnight and morning — it was private, and unprovable, and surrounded by a narrative that Sofia had clearly been constructing for some time.

He'll say you manipulated him.

Her phone buzzed.

A message, from the same unknown number he'd called from before.

Camila. I need to speak with you. It's urgent. I know what Sofia has told you, and I need you to know that I—

The message cut off there. Not sent. Started, stopped, unsent.

Then another buzz.

Please don't sign anything. Not yet.

She stared at it.

The sea was very still and very grey and very indifferent, the way the sea always was when you needed it to tell you something.

She typed back: It's too late for that conversation, Leonardo.

Then she put her phone in her pocket, stood up, and started walking.

She was eight weeks pregnant. She had no powerful friends, no lawyer, no safety net.

She had herself.

She thought of her mother sleeping through a full night for the first time in months. She thought of the letter on the kitchen table. She thought of Thursday night and the look on his face when he'd said I believe you and the feeling it had given her, which she still refused to name correctly.

It's just a feeling, she told herself.

She walked faster.

Three weeks later, under circumstances she had not fully anticipated, she left Lisbon.

She did not say goodbye.

Five years later, she came back.