Submitting to My Best Friend's Dad by Scarlett Rossi
Chapter 417 -

*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 replace 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.

"But," he said, "you chose your wife to be Olivia."

I sighed and finished my glass of brandy, then poured myself another and offered one to him. He accepted and sat, and I felt the boundary of leader and follower dissolve. I was simply having a conversation with my old friend, like any normal man might in a difficult situation.

The thought brought a smile to my face. I had never been normal, but I imagined this might be how Dahlia and Olivia felt sometimes.

"What do you mean by that?" I asked.

He sipped his drink and shrugged. "You know her. You knew her when you married her. She doesn't like being treated like glass. She hates being left out or locked away. You're never going to be able to exercise the utmost caution with her if you don't want her to hate you."

I dropped my head back against the chair with a groan.

Gabriele was right, of course. One of the things I loved most about Olivia was watching her become the sort of woman who knew what she wanted, what she deserved, and she fought for it right before my eyes. I loved that she didn't follow my orders, and I loved that she was more than a decoration in my house. I had enough decorations and enough lackeys.

Had I been too cautious in this? Perhaps sending a mafia man to dig up our surrogate's medical records did overstep some boundary. Perhaps Olivia would be angry if she found out exactly how deep I had Gabriele look. I knew, after Dmitri, that she wanted to get back to a normal life. She wanted to make friends without wincing and background-checking every person she approached. I'd held her during the nightmares she'd had for weeks after we took him down, comforted her as she weighed the added stress of having a wedding photographer against not remembering our special day.

Olivia wanted to trust. My long-honed instincts urged me not to. Even with all of Gabriele's evidence, I still felt a frisson of nerves every time I thought about Elena, alone in her apartment with maybe a roommate for company. I wanted her here, and I absolutely didn't, for what that would reveal about our lives.

I picked my head up. We had to replace a middle ground before this tore us apart.

"Don't put the tap-and-track on her phone," I said finally.

"I think that's smart," Gabriele said. "It seems like the sort of thing that would upset your wife."

I smiled ruefully. "But I'd sleep much easier if we had it."

He laughed. "The compromises we make for love."

I raised my glass to him. "You can say that again."

We talked for a few minutes more about less serious topics while Gabriele drank his brandy. When he was done, he set the glass on my desk and stood.

"I feel very certain," he said, "that Elena isn't bad news."

Then he turned and left, abandoning me to my thoughts.

I scraped my hands through my hair. I couldn't face Olivia yet. She had bubbled with excitement and nerves all the way home, and nearly every other sentence out of her mouth had contained Elena's name. She really had developed a relationship with the woman quickly, much quicker than I would have expected, given all her nerves beforehand.

I liked seeing the smile on her face when she talked about Elena and the pregnancy. Her eyes brimmed with hope and trust, and I didn't want to destroy that with my cynicism.

I finished off my second and final glass of brandy, then lifted one of the pictures to study it more closely-my baby, my wife's baby. Over the next nine months, if these embryos took, we would be slowly agreeing on every element of this baby's raising, from names to religious upbringing, if we decided to have one. I loved Olivia, and I trusted her.

Perhaps I could trust her on this, no matter how much a little voice in the back of my brain urged me to keep looking.

I scooped up both pictures and stood to retire to our room. I simply had to trust Elena and embrace her presence in our life.

After all, she was carrying my children. I couldn't go back now.