Page 38 of Forbidden Surrogate

I don’t even throw in a sassy comment about how I could have handled the situation myself. I’ll give him the credit he deserves for the rescue.

“You’re mine,” Luigi says. “I’ll always protect you. I mean… as long as we have this contract.”

But our eye contact lingers just long enough for me to feel like he meant it when he said ‘always’...

Luigi gets quiet as we close in on the meeting point with Angela. I don’t realize that’s what’s going on until he pulls off the highway and turns into a Mirabito gas station where two other black Chevy Tahoes sit outside along with a very distinct figure with dark red hair.

She jumps up and down and waves as she sees her brother’s car and a wave of realization hits me. We’re really going to be apart. For weeks. Maybe forever. We fucked in the club bathroom, almost lost our lives, and a few hours later…He’ll be far away from Buffalo, NY.

I don’t understand the way my body responds with immediate stress and panic at the thought of Luigi’s absence. I’ve lived most of my life without him and there’s really no reason I can’t survive this time apart. But I can also still feel his seed sloshing around inside me. I have vivid memories of him holding me at the club.

And more importantly… he came to rescue me. I’m not disposable to him and I don’t believe for a second it’s because we have a so-called baby that barely exists as a clump of cells and a line on a pregnancy test. I think he cares… but after a long mission in Pittsburgh, will he even be alive?

I want to ask him questions about my captors and what he did to negotiate my freedom, but Luigi’s serious demeanor doesn’t exactly encourage me to push my luck with his potential moody backlash. I’m just happy to be alive at this point.

This kidnapping has made me realize that being associated with Luigi is downright dangerous. If any of the gang members, mobsters, whatever you want to call them, saw me with Luigi… I’m a target.

This goes beyond the contract now. If I want to survive, I need to trust that Luigi is the big bad wolf he acts like. When he parks the car next to the black tahoes, I don’t even bother moving, expecting a lecture. But Luigi just exhales slowly and leans his head back in the seat so his thick dark hair cascades down his neck.

“I’m happy that you are physically unharmed,” he says. “And not just because of the baby.”

He looks over at me with slow, meaningful eye contact. Just when I trust in the moment enough to say something back to him, Luigi stops the words before they leave my mouth.

“I’ll leave you a cellphone so you can contact your family. Please trust that leaving my secure compound will only put yourlife in more danger, so any efforts to run away and prove to the world that I’m some sort of monster will only lead to my enemies ending your life.”

Luigi’s excessive anger yanks me straight out of the brief moment I thought there was anything affectionate about him. He’s a dangerous criminal totally obsessed with control, especially controlling my body and what I do with it. I shouldn’t read into his words any deeper than that. You can’t tame monsters, no matter how much every woman wishes she could.

“I’ll stay put,” I reassure him coldly.

“Good,” he says. “Now… go meet Angela. In ten weeks, I’ll be back.”

The abruptness shouldn’t surprise me, but it feels like Luigi owes me more than picking me up from the Marriott and dropping me off with some random men and his sister. We survived an explosion. I still don’t know who threw that grenade – or why. The men who kidnapped me dragged me outside after I was on the ground for about a minute, so they knew exactly who I was. This scares me almost as much as Luigi’s sudden disinterest in a proper goodbye.

But he doesn’t budge, so I know he won’t. This is his stubborn reaction to any intimacy that threatens to emerge between us. He unlocks the car doors so I can walk towards the tahoe’s. Alone.

So this is it. No goodbye kiss. Nothing but his cold demands and confusing hot-and-cold emotions. I want to make a joke about him missing me, but it would hurt too much if he responded with something more scornful to remind me of my place in his life.

I’m just his surrogate.

“Thank you for saving my life,” I muster up, because it’s the best business casual response I can find to say to Luigi without cracking open some of my own buried emotions.

“You’re welcome.”

I get out of the car and try not to let it bother me that he doesn’t even walk me to the door.I’m pregnant with this man’s baby. He’s a stone cold monster and for the rest of our lives, I will be the mother of his child.

The shiver running through me is enough to scare me senseless. Should I disobey his commands and try to run away? Because the thought of putting a child through Luigi’s stony withholding bothers me almost as much as the entire circumstances of our bizarre arrangement.

What am I really doing here? And why do I struggle to entertain the thought of escaping him when ten weeks is plenty of time for me to wriggle free?

Chapter Twenty-One

Luigi

My emotions paralyze me so much that I fold in on myself and return to a more familiar dynamic. I am cold and withholding. She gazes up at me with hope in her heart that I return her feelings. I give her nothing. It’s easier this way – for both of us. Ten weeks will give her time to grow my child, grow attached exclusively to that baby and forget all about me. Ten weeks will cure me completely of Delphine.

She’ll be at the lake house for the time I’m gone, locked away where I know she’s safe. Dad will be flying Renzo and Gino back home because we need more trustworthy hands. They each have one semester left at school, so the early departure won’t affect their ability to finish school or run the family business – or anything else required to keep the Taviani family operational.

I shouldn’t obsess over her fate. This is a woman I signed a contract with. Not a lover. Not a wife. She is nobody to me but a surrogate. I have to keep that straight and keep my emotions in check.

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