Filed to story: Submitting to My Bestie’s Daddy Read Online >>???
Maybe my faith and hope for a successful surrogacy were blinding me to the truth. Maybe Dolly was right, and everything would blow up in my face, but I had to believe otherwise.
It was just the kind of person I was.
“I’ll be careful, I promise, Dolly, but I can’t believe Elena would do something so cruel. She’s my friend and the woman carrying our child. You said you’re not a hundred percent sure, either. This could all be a big misunderstanding, and I don’t want to suspect Elena over something like that. I’ll watch her more closely, though, and if I see anything alarming, I’ll be sure to tell you, alright?” I smiled.
Dahlia breathed out heavily, giving me a small smile. “I guess that’s the best I can hope for.”
And perhaps, if it were anyone else, that would’ve been the end of it. If it had been Tallon or Alessandro who came to me with concerns, I would’ve been able to brush it off easily, but this was Dahlia–my best friend.
We’d been stuck at the hip since we were babies. I knew everything there was about her, and she knew everything about me. And the little thoughts I had tried to ignore about Elena, the anxieties and worries, all began to pile up in my mind.
That unwavering trust I had placed in others began to falter.
Gio had important business that day and wouldn’t be back until late. Tallon and Alessandro were who knows where, and Elena was working at her job. It was just me and Dahlia that day, but Dolly never could stay still for long.
She decided to go out for drinks and invited me along, but I was too consumed in my own head that I told her to go without me. We both needed a break from the heavy emotional conversation we’d just had, and Dahlia dealt with it by partying and cheering herself up.
I dealt with it differently.
As in, I didn’t.
Once she left, I was completely alone with my thoughts. The day flew by quickly, and the sun set before I knew it. I tried to relax, but the more I did, the more tense I got.
I couldn’t pay attention to the movies or shows on TV. The internet just made me feel frustrated. I even broke out my old sketchbook and tried to draw. Emptying my mind only made it worse, however, as I soon realized I was drawing Gio, and in his arms was a plain-looking woman without a face.
The tip of my pencil hovered over the sketch of the woman, and I tried to picture my own face, but all I could see was Elena’s flash across my mind.
I gave up, throwing the sketch to the side as I fell back onto my bed in the suite and stared at the ceiling. All the little seeds of doubt that had festered and grown over the day came back to bite me, and I groaned, throwing my hands over my face.
All I could think about was Elena–her smiling at Gio when he told her about the magnolia trees, the way she always took the seat to his left, her chair scooted just a little more toward him.
Even when she laughed, her eyes sparkled and never left Gio. I always thought it was innocent. Even when she kept touching his arm or his side, leaning in too close, I thought she was just an affectionate person.
But thinking back, she never did that to anyone else.
Just Gio.
I bit my bottom lip, a deep internal struggle having been triggered in my psyche. I wanted to believe in Elena’s sincerity. The thought of suspecting her made me feel like a monster—a jealous wife trying to keep all women away from her man.
But that wasn’t it, was it?
My emotions were playing tug of war with my mind—pulling me back and forth to the edge of each extreme. I had to protect my relationship with Gio—with my family—but Elena was my friend. I refused to suspect her.
But she had made a few questionable moves.
“Shut up!” I screamed in frustration, grabbing a pillow and throwing it at the door.
“Whoa,” a voice called out, and I flinched, whirling to face the intruder.
Gio stood there, an incredulous look on his face and a scrunched-up pillow held in his hand.
“When….” I swallowed, reeling myself back in. “When did you get back? Weren’t you going to be late?”
He raised an eyebrow, a hint of concern flickering across his face. “It is late. It’s nearly midnight, carina.”
I jolted, in complete disbelief as I turned to the window. I’d had the blinds closed all day, so I hadn’t noticed. I grabbed my phone, turned it on, and my eyes widened at the truth–11:39. It really was almost midnight.
Where had the day gone?
“Olivia, what’s going on? This isn’t like you,” Gio frowned, heading toward me. He gently set the pillow back onto the bed, took a seat on the edge, and pulled me into his lap. He ran his hand along my bare arms soothingly and dipped his head into the crook of my neck.
A small sob came out of my throat, and I shut my eyes, leaning back into his body and letting him be the rock to ground me.
Once my tears faded, everything came spilling from my lips–Dahlia’s concerns and my own doubts, my wavering faith in Elena, and how I wanted to trust her so badly, the emotional weight of the surrogacy and how none of this would have happened if I hadn’t been broken… unable to carry my own child.
Gio listened, keeping me wrapped in his arms and safe from everything that had been weighing on me. There was no judgment in his eyes. He kept silent, waiting for me to finish.
“I love you, Olivia,” he said after everything was done. He grabbed my face in both hands, forcing me to look into his eyes as he told me sincerely, “I love everything about you, and no matter what, I will always love you and you alone. Even if it’s true, and Elena is trying to get close to me, it won’t work. You are my everything, carina.”
“But–”
He shook his head, silencing me with a kiss.
“I’m glad you told me,” he pulled away, smiling lovingly at me as he brushed my hair from my face. “I want to be here for you, and I will do whatever you need to make sure you are comfortable. If that means not interacting with Elena, then so be it. But I need you to believe in me. No one could ever take me from you because I’m yours. I’ve always been yours, ever since that day we met. You are my wife, and I will be by your side for the rest of my life. Forget everything else, Olivia. That is what you can believe in.”
In his embrace, face-to-face with his love, all of my previous doubts seemed silly. I softened, clinging to my husband as he maneuvered us into bed, pressing kisses to the top of my head every chance he got.
He was right. Gio was mine. Nobody could take him from me, even if they were going to try.
My initial resistance to Dahlia’s concerns softened. Dahlia was right about one thing. Whether she was correct about Elena or not, it was important to be vigilant. For my family, I had to be the rock to keep us all grounded, and if that meant suspecting Elena’s motives despite considering her as a friend, then so be it.
Renewed determination filled me, and I knew that soon, we would have to address our underlying concerns with Elena, even if it meant facing some very uncomfortable truths.
*Giovani*
“We’ve repaired all bridges for our operations in Eastern Europe, which means we can finally start shipping in the volumes we were working with before Dmitri,” Gabriele said. “In terms of the expansion into the Middle East—”
A furious, pounding knock sounded on the door, and both of our heads whipped in that direction. I dropped the folder containing the data on our holdings. Gabriele placed a hand on the gun at his waist, and I ran my finger over the panic button I’d recently had installed on the bottom of my desk that would call all the guards in the compound to my location. I hadn’t had one previously because I didn’t like acknowledging that I might not be able to handle every threat that made its way to my office.
After a moment of knocking, the knob turned and the door swung inward. Gabriele’s gun was out of his holster before I could blink, but I hesitated a moment on the button. It was lucky I waited because the door revealed a panting, wild-eyed Alessandro.
Gabriele holstered his gun and waved the boy in. Despite his usual desire to seem as professional and capable as my second, Alessandro dropped bonelessly into one of the leather chairs in front of my desk and caught his breath.
Gabriele, with a slight frown, closed the door behind him.
My heartbeat, which remained perilously steady when I thought I was under attack, sped out of control. What could have induced Alessandro to burst in like this, clearly exhausted? He had reported attack after attack with the same cool demeanor during Dmitri’s reign of terror. Had something worse happened?
Something personal?
Only years of training myself to present a strong front when facing my men prevented me from tapping my fingers anxiously on my desk as he caught his breath.
“Sorry,” he wheezed. “I know this is your standing weekly review. I was out with a friend at that café a few blocks down. It seemed silly to take a car, but then I had to run home.”
Gabriele crossed his arms. Alessandro had become vital to the organization, but I knew my old friend was thinking he still lacked the necessary polish of a true right hand.
