Page 70 of Forbidden Surrogate

“You’re my family now,” he says slowly. “I have this bond of loyalty, and if I have to break it, I won’t lie and tell you it will be easy. But I will defy my family for you, Delphine. I will spare no expense.”

He takes my hand and presses it to his lips.

“You’re going to be my wife,” he whispers. “And soon, you’re going to have my baby.”

“And Angela?” I ask him. “We need to reassure her that when she comes back here with Lewis, nothing bad will happen to her. Pull some strings. Do something for her. Please.”

“She’s the one who drugged you,” Luigi grumbles. “Doesn’t she deserve a little time out?”

“I miss her, Luigi. And you do too. We both want her here and we want her as part of the wedding.”

“She asked to be our little one’s godmother,” Luigi says doubtfully. “Do you really think that’s the best idea?”

Strangely enough, I really do.

Chapter Thirty-Seven

Luigi

They separated us. I made demands. I screamed. I almost pulled a gun out on a nurse, but in the end, the hospital staff carted Delphine away, claiming there were “complications” in her pregnancy and that she needed to be rushed away from me to have an emergency C-section.

I can’t handle this. We had a plan. I invited the family down from Buffalo to the hospital because they’ve spent all our time away tiptoeing around me and respecting my desire to keep my family private. I excluded the twins for obvious reasons.

They’ll have to do a lot more for me to earn my trust after their kidnapping stunt. I could have lost Delphine for good.

I could lose her now.

Nothing went according to plan. Dad, Mikey and Peter are still about forty-five minutes away from the small town hospital. Nicoletta and Mom are traveling here in another car from their annual “girls’ weekend” in Hamilton, Ontario. But they’ll all be here soon and I don’t know whether I’ll be a happy father or stuck in a tragedy.

“Luigi, I’ve been looking all over for you!”

Her loud, panicked voice catches my attention. I leap to my feet and Angela comes running down the hospital hallway, expertly rotating her body around every obstacle without looking while a dark-skinned man dressed in a wool coat trails behind her, looking at my sister like she’s magical.

Lewis.

I recognize him from the picture my father showed me taken by his private investigators when he sought proof of the affair that allegedly “caused” my sister’s ex-husband to smash every bone in her foot. He has a deeply enchanted expression on his face as he watches her move and it’s hard not to see that this man loves my sister with it written all over his face.

She wraps her arms around me, ignoring the fact that I’m staring at the man I swore to my father I would kill if he ever came near our city. If Delphine wants me to protect all of them, then I’ll find a way to do it. Mikey and Peter love Angela just as much as I do, and I don’t think they give a crap about skin color or race the way our parents do.

“Where is she?” Angela says, her heart fluttering aggressively against her rib cage in a way that’s painfully obvious during our hug. “I’m going to kill someone if they don’t tell me where she is.”

“Emergency C-section.”

She turns over her shoulder, searching for support in the eyes of the man she chose over her family instead of her brother– the one crazy enough to bring a firearm into a hospital.

I shouldn’t allow the fact that she chose him to faze me, but it does. Lewis keeps his dancer’s body well-hidden in a pair of high-end wool pants belted at the waist, a black turtleneck and a black wool coat. He looks like an artist and more importantly, he won’t stop looking at my sister.

He won’t let her out of his sight the same way I am with Delphine. And he doesn’t seem anything like the men in ourfamily. Not in his mannerisms, or his less than impressive height. The guy is about five-foot-eight, which means if he changes his mind about hurting Angela, it will be easy to throw him into the Outer harbor with one hand.

“Lewis, this is my brother.”

“Nice to meet you.”

The guy shakes my hand with a surprisingly firm handshake and he doesn’t look scared as he makes steady eye contact while doing it. He puts one hand on Angela’s lower back as her body edges back towards his.

“Luigi Taviani,” I mutter, holding his gaze only momentarily before I seek comfort in Angela. Delphine is right to worry about my family after the hell they’ve put my sister through for this man. Lewis doesn’t strike me as a monster or like he could ever hurt my sister.

“I know you mean a lot to Angela and that means a lot to me. You will be safe here.”

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