Filed to story: Submitting to My Bestie’s Daddy Read Online >>???
At that moment, as much as I loved my baby, I loved all of humanity just as much. It would have been impossible to do anything else.
Finally, Dr. Schmidt stepped back, and the nurses with her. “And it is done.”
Elena exhaled slowly, squeezed my hand one last time, and let go.
A wave of emotions welled up in my chest, almost impossible to parse.
“Elena, you’re going to have to sit here for half an hour or so, but then you’re free to head out. You have transportation home?”
She nodded. “The Valentinos are driving me.”
“Did it work?” I blurted as nervous anticipation took over.
I knew we couldn’t know if anything at all had just happened for two weeks, and I would have to pass those two weeks without annoying the shit out of everyone in my life, especially Gio. I could already feel the fidgety energy in my limbs.
Dr. Schmidt smiled indulgently. “The transfer went well, but you know as well as I do that no concrete answer can be given now.”
I nodded sharply as hope bloomed brilliantly in my veins. Elena could be pregnant right now. She could be sitting there, carrying our child–no dozen attempts, not even a second one. Sometimes it just worked, and Gio and I were owed a little luck by the universe.
Nine months from today, I could be cradling my baby in my arms.
Elena looked to me. “I’d like a little time by myself before we head out, if that’s okay?”
“Oh!” I said. “Oh, yes, of course. You might have just gotten pregnant, of course you need a moment.”
Dr. Schmidt let me out into the hall and pointed the way to the waiting room. “I’ll send her out when she’s ready.”
I walked down the warm but sterile halls of the clinic that I’d walked so many times now, my head spinning with more emotions than I knew what to do with. I clutched the embryo pictures in my hand and reminded myself that Gio lay at the end of this walk, that he would be excited and nervous in a way that steadied me.
As I took my last step into the waiting room, one final emotion rose to the surface–vulnerability. Whatever came next for us lay in the hands of fate.
*Giovani*
After we returned home from the transfer appointment, I gave a chattering Olivia an absentminded kiss on the head and left her in Dahlia’s excitable care. I had the folder with the pictures in it, and I marched up the stairs to my office. The excitement about the successful procedure was all well and good, but I could participate in it better after I handled some business.
I sat behind my desk, opened the folder, and stared at the pictures of the embryos Olivia had shown me so proudly in the waiting room. An intense, protective instinct had risen up in me, and it had not yet calmed. I knew that I would do anything to protect these embryos, even at this early stage.
Somewhere, in the back of my mind, I had worried about feeling connected to children Olivia hadn’t carried herself, though I hadn’t been completely honest with her about it. That fear had died as soon as I saw these pictures. These were my children. I would do anything for them–kill for them, wage wars for them, die for them. I was still in shock that they’d found enough viable swimmers from me.
There were celebrations to be had, certainly, but we both agreed they should wait until Elena could attend. Now, I needed to do whatever I could to protect my children.
We’d picked our surrogacy service for its discretion and thorough background checks, and we’d liked Elena so much that I’d been lax in my own preparations. As soon as we’d dropped her off, I had called Gabriele and asked him to expedite Elena’s background check through our avenues. I should never have let it get this far without being certain.
I couldn’t handle the aching disappointment of knowing I might have already let these embryos down.
I tapped on my desk anxiously and eyed the drink cart in the corner. One brandy couldn’t hurt anything, so I poured myself a glass of the amber liquid and sipped it slowly. The peaty warmth soothed my racing mind a little, but I couldn’t stop looking at the pictures and worrying.
Gabriele rapped on my door once, then stepped in without waiting for a response. The sight of my old friend was calming. An exhausted haze in his eyes reflected the hours he’d spent ensuring all our information was perfect, and I knew he wouldn’t let anything happen to Olivia or me that he could have stopped.
He offered me a tired smile. “The transfer went well?”
I put my glass down. “As well as can be hoped. What did you learn?”
Gabriele took a deep breath, and my heart sank. I had missed something. The agency had missed something. Elena was some horrible monster, a plant by one of those up-and-coming South American families, a long-lost cousin of Dmitri, someone sent to ruin our lives once again.
“I checked with all of our contacts, and I mean all of them,” he started.
My heart thudded unevenly, and I took a shaky sip of my drink.
“Her bank account is on the lower end, but not low enough to raise eyebrows about anything she told you. She could probably be bribed, but I see no indication she has been already. No sudden expenses, either.”
I nodded. “I know she and Olivia bonded over being from less extravagant backgrounds.”
“That’s reflected all over her history, but there’s no sign her family became involved in anything illegal to support themselves. I couldn’t find any convictions on her record, not even a parking ticket. She’s got a brother who got a DUI once, but all records indicate he went to his court-mandated alcohol assessment and treatment without complaint, and there hasn’t been an incident since. None of our bookies recognized the last name or the pictures–pawnbrokers either.”
I furrowed my brow as I absorbed the information. “This all sounds good so far. What about more serious crimes?”
Gabriele nodded. “No offences, no money launderers, no wheelmen. No connections with any family on our radar.”
I ran my finger around the rim of the glass. “All good. Medical?”
“Nothing the surrogacy center didn’t already have on file. No significant history of mental health treatment. We also checked out the obstetrician she picked, and they seem clean as well. We have a phone tap and tracker ready to go at your signal.”
My stress whooshed out of my body on a sigh, and I dropped my head into my hands. Gabriele had chased every lead, turned over every stone, just as I knew he would. I trusted him with my life, and I respected his attention to detail more than anything else as my second.
The image of the embryos floated back to the front of my mind, and I could have almost cried in relief. I didn’t miss anything. I didn’t doom our babies before we even knew if they took. I didn’t fail as a father already.
Gabriele took a step closer and said, “Gio?”
“Thank you for your diligence in this matter,” I said through my hands.
There was a pause. “Of course. But are you alright?”
I sighed and picked up my head. “I realized it was reckless to allow the transfer to go forward before we had vetted her our way.”
Gabriele put his hands in his pockets. “I’ll admit I was a little surprised. You usually like every ‘I’ dotted and ‘T’ crossed.”
I scrubbed a hand through my hair. “I got swept up in the process. Olivia brought home these pictures of the embryos, and it hit me suddenly that I have more people to protect now.”
“I get that,” he said. “For what it’s worth, she seems trustworthy. I had a couple of grunts even comb her social media, and they didn’t see a single sign of trouble. She seems like a student making a little extra money and helping people out.”
I studied Gabriele’s face. I knew it nearly as well as my own, and I would be able to sense any flicker of doubt in his mind. Instead, I found him open and forthcoming. He truly hadn’t found anything to raise his hackles, and his hackles rose easily.
I ran a thumb down the pictures. I didn’t know how to totally relax while my children were still inside a relative stranger, but Gabriele’s surety eased the worst of my nerves.
“It is difficult to trust those outside our line of work,” I admitted.
Gabriele shrugged. “Or in it–there’s no perfect solution in our situation.”
I nodded slowly. “Do you think I’m being overly cautious?”
He sighed. “My first instinct is that there is no ‘too cautious’ for a man’s wife and children.”
I took a sip of brandy and gestured my agreement.
