Submitting to My Best Friend's Dad by Scarlett Rossi
Chapter 434 -

*Giovani*

I stood in Olivia's art studio, staring at the canvas on the easel. I'd sat on the bed for a long time after she stormed out, and when I finally got up, I didn't know where I was going.

After the yelling, even standing in there felt like a violation. She'd told me I was welcome, but I couldn't stop remembering the way her hands felt on my chest when she shoved me away.

I messed up. That glared back at me from every angle of the painting, a fury of reds and purples, blues and blacks, all coalescing around a face in the middle of the canvas. If I stood on one side of the painting, it looked like Olivia, but on the other, somehow, I couldn't see anything but Elena.

I pulled my phone out of my pocket and dialed her number. I needed to talk to her, to explain, to beg her to come home. Just like it had the last two times, it rang all the way through.

"Buongiorno!" she chirped on her recorded message. "You've reached Olivia Val-"

I hung up. I'd listened the last two times, and I couldn't hear her voice anymore, not with the way it made my vision blur and my heart ache.

I sat on the high artist's stool and scrubbed a hand over my face. Of course, I shouldn't have told her she was overreacting, but I couldn't deny the stab of hurt that came with her accusations. I loved Olivia with everything that I was. I would turn my life upside-down for her if she asked. How could she possibly believe I could even look at another woman?

The resentment that had driven me across the room, that had put my hand on her, bubbled under the surface again. I scrubbed a hand over my face. I had to get a handle on myself. I couldn't grab her like that, not ever again.

I opened my eyes and saw her paintbrushes in a mason jar of cloudy water. When we set up this studio, she complained to me that she needed new brushes too often because she always left hers overnight and that ruined the bristles. My words kept coming out wrong. I couldn't speak to her in person. She wouldn't answer my calls. Maybe I could show her how much I cared.

With a sigh, I got up and removed the brushes from the water, laying them out on a nearby stained towel one by one.

One of my guards, Marco, poked his head in the door. "Uh, Don?"

I whirled, smoothing my face into the heavy professionalism expected by my men. "What?"

"That, uh, lady is here, the surrogate. Says she wants to apologize for earlier." He shrugged.

I ran a hand through my hair. Why would Elena have come back? Why would she need to apologize when Dahlia was the one who chased her off? Why couldn't anybody see that she, too, was trying her best in a difficult situation? "Alright. Show her to the living room. I'll be there momentarily," I said.

I needed a second to collect myself. I couldn't let Elena see the turmoil in our relationship.

Marco nodded and closed the door behind him.

There was a small mirror in the room, and I used it to scrape my hair back into place. When I angled it down to fix my clothes, I blanched.

In the garden earlier, Elena had tucked a rose into my breast pocket. I thought the gesture was silly, maybe a little overly familiar, but in the mirror, I realized how much it looked like a boutonniere, the sort of thing a girl gives her lover.

I had folded Olivia into my chest and thought we could get over this. The rose must have been what changed her mind.

I plucked it out of my pocket, opened one of the wide windows, and threw it into the night air. I obviously couldn't see Elena with it still in place, and I didn't want Olivia replaceing it in her garbage can tomorrow.

Or whenever she got home.

Elena would be getting antsy, but I couldn't resist calling Olivia one more time.

"Buon-"

I hung up and headed down the hall.

Elena was perched on a loveseat in the living room, staring at the huge marble fireplace when I entered. She looked up at me with a wobbly smile, her belly protruding against the floral sundress she wore, and instinctively I started to go for her. The woman carrying my child should not be looking at me so sadly.

But I caught myself. Was this what Olivia had been talking about? Had I been too permissive with Elena?

I sat in the armchair next to the loveseat. She turned to me and laid her hands on the arm of my chair.

"I know it's late," she said. "And I'm so sorry for intruding. I just had to tell you and Olivia how torn up I was that I might have hurt you."

A fat tear rolled down her cheek, and unbidden, I wished to wipe it away. I did not want Elena to feel sad or lonely. What was going on in my head that I felt this way?

I swallowed.

"Where is Olivia?" she asked. "I told your man at the front I wanted to speak to you both."

"She's having a girl's night," I answered automatically.

My stomach flipped when Elena winced.

"Ah," she said. "With Dahlia?"

I nodded, and she stared sadly over my shoulder. I'd almost forgotten how close she'd been with the two of them at the beginning of the process. Now, when she came over to the compound, I was the only one who gave her the time of day, it seemed. Too often, I found her sitting a bit apart from Dahlia and Olivia, half-contributing to a conversation the other two didn't seem to want her in. That was why I had taken her on a spin around the garden in the first place today. "Well, I'm glad I got to speak to you, anyway. Is there anything I can do to make you more comfortable?" Elena leaned forward, putting herself right in my space.

"I'm not uncomfortable," I said. "But I will talk with Dahlia and see if I can get a better sense of what happened."

She nodded gratefully. "I'd really appreciate that. I couldn't sleep thinking I'd hurt you. I was sitting up watching old black-and-white movies, and my mind just kept drifting back over here."

I smiled. "You like old movies?"

She grinned. "Love 'em! There's a marathon right now of Rossellini's Rome trilogy that I've been looking forward to for weeks. There's just something about catching movies like that in the wild that all our on-demand streaming services can't recreate."

"A Rossellini marathon? Where?" I demanded. I tried to catch my favorite director wherever I could, and a marathon would give me something to do with the rest of my lonely night.

"You like him, too?" Elena smiled impishly. "Well, clearly you've got the night to yourself, and I'm sure you've got a TV here somewhere that would blow mine out of the water. Want to make some popcorn and watch them, Gio?"

I drew up short, suddenly realizing how close I had gotten to the surrogate. Mere inches separated our faces. Her eyes sparkled up at me in mischievous delight, and a faint blush colored her cheeks. At some point, I'd put my hand on hers. Blood roared in my ears. Olivia was right. Not exactly right-I felt nothing for the woman on my loveseat but protectiveness-but I had let that protectiveness cloud my vision in other ways. I'd let her get close, far too close.

I didn't even remember telling her she could use that nickname.

I snatched my hand back. She furrowed her eyebrows.

"I have work to do tonight," I said stiffly.

"Oh," she said. That lonely expression she'd had when she came in overtook her face once more, and she moved one of her hands to her stomach.

Something deep within me ached. That was my baby in there, and I wanted to do anything to protect my baby. But that urge had driven my wife out of my house, and there was no future for me without Olivia. I had to remember that above all else.

I leaned back in my chair.

"I'm sorry, I shouldn't have come. It's too late. I guess I just thought-" she mumbled.

"We appreciate the thought," I said. "I will speak to Dahlia. Guests are not treated in such a manner in our house. But I am needed elsewhere."

I stood, towering over her. She looked so small, so curled into herself, on the couch below me. That same something ached to comfort her. I'd been reading the baby books Olivia kept bringing home, and enough of them talked about pregnancy that I knew a pregnant mother shouldn't be stressed.

A pregnant woman... a surrogate... mine and Olivia's surrogate.

I stayed standing. To allow her further into our life, to watch movies with her and eat popcorn and laugh, would only hurt Olivia further, and that was the last thing I wanted.

Better to watch movies alone and think of how to fix this.

She stood unsteadily, leaning back to balance out her stomach. I did not put my hand out to help her, though it felt nearly inhumane.

"Alright," she said. "I guess that's all I wanted. I'll just... go home now."

She glanced at the door, and her eyes filled with tears. My phone buzzed in my pocket, and I whipped it out, praying it was Olivia calling to say she would come home.

It was a text from one of my men, a routine report. I shoved it back unhappily.

Elena looked from my phone to my face and nodded.

"Enjoy the movies." Her voice sounded thick. "I'll be watching them on the other side of the city."

"I haven't the time," I said. Her face fell even further. "But I hope you have fun."

I leaned so I could see through the entryway of the living room and gestured to Marco to lead her out.

She went slowly, the beginning of a pregnancy waddle already evident in her walk, and I remained standing by the armchair until the door shut behind her.

In the privacy of my own home, I let out a shaky breath. I didn't know which affected me more-realizing I'd called my wife crazy for nothing more than seeing something I didn't, or taking a step back from our baby in another woman's stomach.

I picked up my phone to call Olivia once more. It didn't even ring, just sent me directly to voicemail. She must have turned her phone off.

I hung up. Shame roiled in my stomach, contested in intensity only by the aching feeling that I ought to run after Elena and suggest she watch her movies here, even though I couldn't watch them with her.

Gabriele passed by the entrance to the living room, and I bolted after him before I could think it through. I caught his arm, and he turned in surprise.

"What's wrong?" he asked.

I swallowed and took my hand back. Grabbing people was becoming an unfortunate habit. "That check on Elena. Have you found anything?"

Gabriele glanced around the open hall, then shook his head. "All the same information... nothing suspicious, nothing even worth taking a second look at. Why?"

I shook my head.

My friend took a step closer. "Get some sleep. You look like you've been through a wood chipper."

I snorted. That more accurately described my riot of emotions than anything else I'd come up with. "Noted. Get back to work."

He moved off down the hall in the direction he had been traveling much more slowly than usual, but he didn't glance back at me.

I ran a hand over my face and slumped against the wall... nothing, always nothing. I trusted Gabriele with my life. I wanted to believe him. But I couldn't deny my wife's doubts any longer, or my own. Though I didn't know if I doubted Elena or myself anymore.