My Cheap Boyfriend Signed the Pregnancy Contract

I had been dating Carter for three years, and we strictly followed a 50/50 split on everything. Dinner, movies—we split the bill right down the middle. If we ordered a dish he didn’t like, I paid for it. If we watched a movie I didn't care for, he paid for it. We lived this way for a long time. That was until my biotech lab developed a revolutionary new chip. A chip that allowed a couple to split a pregnancy 50/50. I brought the contract to Carter, and he signed his name without a second thought. But— It seemed he completely misunderstood how the chip worked. The day my pregnancy was confirmed, Carter’s attitude did a complete 180. He pulled out the calculator he always kept in his bag and started aggressively tapping the buttons. After five minutes of intense math, he finally looked up. "Sienna, you need to Venmo me $4,032.10." I thought I had misheard him. But looking at the deadpan, confident look on Carter’s face, he wasn't joking. I quietly folded my ultrasound report, put it in my bag, and challenged him. "Say that again." "I said, I calculated our 50/50 split for the pregnancy. You owe me $4,032.10." Seeing my dumbfounded expression, Carter dragged me over to a bench in the hospital hallway and started breaking down the numbers, line by line. "The estimated cost for hospital registration, regular prenatal checkups, prenatal vitamins, and delivery is about $2,000." "Postpartum recovery, nutritional supplements, and baby supplies will be at least another $2,000." "Our apartment is 1,000 square feet, and rent is $2,000 a month. But since you're pregnant, your physical volume will increase, meaning you’ll occupy more physical space. So, we should split the rent 70/30 instead of 50/50. That means your share is $1,400 a month, totaling $16,800 for the year." "Once you're heavily pregnant, you won't be going to the office. You’ll be home all day, which means utility bills and Wi-Fi usage will spike. Also, I just googled it—pregnant women pee at least three times more daily. That’s an extra 150 gallons of water a month. Adding it all up, that’s an extra $100 a month, or $1,200 a year for you." ... "I'm only going to split the rent adjustment and the future baby formula costs with you. So, your grand total of expenses is $14,032.10." "We agreed earlier that my budget for your engagement ring and wedding fund was $10,000. Deducting that from your share, you owe me exactly $4,032.10!" Carter looked incredibly proud of himself. He bounced his leg, waiting for the Venmo notification to pop up on his phone. Rage boiled inside me. I stood up, slapped him hard across the face, and walked away. "Sienna! Sienna!" Carter chased me out of the hospital and forced his way into the passenger seat of my car. "My mom said if we don't get married, you're the one who loses! Your belly is going to get bigger by the day. Besides, wasn't 50/50 always our rule? We even signed that 50/50 Pregnancy Contract!" I was about to blow a fuse, but when I heard his last sentence, the anger suddenly vanished. A cruel amusement washed over me. So, he completely misunderstood the terms of that 50/50 Pregnancy Contract. "I didn't realize you were such a math genius, Carter." I slapped his hand off my gear shift. "I'm in no rush to get married. You better not bring this up to me again." I let out a cold laugh. "Deducting wedding funds for rent space? Only your family could come up with something so pathetic." After kicking Carter out of my car, I drove straight to the lab. I booted up the computer controlling the prototype microchip, found the master control panel, and clicked [ACTIVATE] without a single second of hesitation. I couldn't wait to see who would actually be trapped by this baby.After leaving the lab, I immediately started packing. When I first moved in with Carter, I thought I had found my soulmate who shared my modern, independent values. Who knew he was a cheapskate who would literally charge me for the water I used to flush the toilet? Getting my things out of his apartment was the smartest move I could make. But the moment I unlocked the door, I found two women I absolutely detested sitting on my living room couch. One was Carter’s mother, Helen. The other was his incredibly annoying sister, Chloe. "Look at you, pregnant and still wearing high heels! What if you trip and hurt my precious grandson?" Helen sneered the moment I walked in. "Exactly. No maternal instinct at all. Pathetic," Chloe chimed in, rolling her eyes. They took turns throwing jabs at me, not giving me a single second to speak. I looked around the messy apartment. My boxes were stacked carelessly in the living room, while their designer suitcases had already been moved into my master bedroom. Carter walked out of the bathroom, wiping his hands. "Since you refused to pay the extra rent, you can't live in the master bedroom anymore. I calculated it. If you move into the small storage closet, our 50/50 rent split works out perfectly." "Since you're so good at math," I sneered, "why don't you calculate how much you owe me for the groceries and household supplies I bought over the last two years?" Before Carter could speak, Helen jumped up. "Sienna Vance! How dare you speak to my son like that! If it weren't for the baby in your belly, I would've made you sign an ironclad prenup and beg on your knees to join our family!" I ignored her, checking my boxes to see if they had damaged any of my things. Helen kept barking behind me. "You got pregnant before marriage because of your own loose morals. Now you're begging my son to marry you. If you can’t bring a $20,000 cash contribution to the marriage, just wait until your belly gets huge and the whole neighborhood laughs at you!" "Then we won't get married. It's not like you guys are in a rush anyway, right?" I pulled out my phone and dialed the moving company. "You can come up now." The movers arrived in less than five minutes. They began carrying my boxes out one by one under my direction. Carter stared at me, his face twisting with irritation. "Sienna, you're crossing the line! You're two months pregnant, what kind of tantrum is this? Do you really think anyone else would want you besides me?" He kept talking, but I completely ignored him. The movers I hired were all massive, muscular guys. When Carter tried to grab my arm to stop me, one stern look from the lead mover made him stumble backward in fear. An hour later, my things were safely unpacked in my luxury penthouse downtown. I had already hired a cleaning service and a personal chef. As I sat in my pristine, quiet home, ready to start my new life, the peace was abruptly shattered. At 3:00 AM, my phone began ringing off the hook. It was a barrage of calls from Carter, then from Chloe. The moment I picked up, Helen’s screeching voice blasted through the speaker. "Sienna! Get your ass down to the hospital right now! What did you do to my son?!" Ah. It seemed the chip had finally kicked in. When I arrived at the hospital room, Carter was screaming on the bed, clutching a trash can and dry-heaving violently. "Don't just dry-heave, Carter. You need to eat something to keep your strength up," I said calmly, placing a jar of high-end organic nutrient-rich broth on his nightstand. "Think about the baby." "I knew it! I knew this had to do with you!" Carter screamed like a lunatic, pointing a trembling finger at me. "Sienna! Why am I pregnant?! Why did the ultrasound show a fetus inside *my* abdomen?!" Beside him, Helen and Chloe were huddled together, pale and shivering with fear. I just smiled and pulled a document from my bag. "Did you forget the 50/50 Pregnancy Contract we both signed?"I had brought a copy of the contract specifically for him to review. When his eyes landed on the clause: *[Microchip implanted in the male subject. During the pregnancy, the female subject can transfer the fetus to the male subject's body via the chip, and the male subject will carry and deliver the child.]*—his face turned completely white. He pointed at me, his lips trembling, but no words came out. "I didn't scam you, Carter. You signed your name on this contract without even reading it. I told you to look over the terms, but you were just so confident, wasn't you?" "This is insane!" Helen jumped up. "Son, tell the doctor to get rid of it right now! A man being pregnant? This is unnatural and disgusting!" I sat comfortably on the empty bed opposite them, enjoying their sheer panic. Carter nodded rapidly, staring at his slightly bloated stomach. "Yes! I want an abortion! Take it out!" "Carter," I interrupted, my voice dripping with ice. "Let me remind you to check Clause 173. If you terminate this pregnancy without my consent, you owe me a contract breach penalty of fifty million dollars." He stared at me in disbelief. With shaking hands, he flipped to the very last page of the contract. Right above his signature, printed in bold, was indeed that exact clause. "No... this can't be..." He muttered, his world crumbling. "I didn't see this clause when I signed!" "A signed contract is legally binding. You're the head of a legal department, Carter. You of all people should know how the law works." "You were too arrogant. You didn't even read what you were signing. Now, that baby is in your belly. You either carry it to term, or you pay me fifty million dollars." "Fifty million?! Are you insane?!" Helen shrieked, lunging forward to grab the contract, but my security guard blocked her effortlessly. She turned and grabbed Carter’s arm. "Son, don't listen to her! This is a scam! We'll sue her!" "Yes! This contract is illegal! Men cannot get pregnant. It goes against the laws of nature! A judge will definitely declare this contract null and void!" I shook my head and tossed a newspaper directly onto Carter’s face. "Our lab’s technology has already been approved and patented. It's trending all over Twitter and Instagram. You want to sue me? Good luck finding a lawyer who will take on my family's legal team." As I stood up, my bodyguards took a step forward, their towering presence immediately silencing the Reed family. "Take good care of your body, Carter. I expect a healthy, chubby baby." "The contract states that our lab will monitor your vitals 24/7. Don't try anything stupid." Carter nodded numbly, suddenly turning docile. For the next month, he actually sent me daily updates via Snapchat, proving he was doing prenatal yoga, eating healthy, and staying sober. I almost thought Carter had accepted his fate. That was until my phone flashed with an emergency alert from the lab. *[WARNING: Subject's vital signs abnormal. Chip energy fluctuation exceeds safety threshold.]*