Page 45 of Forbidden Surrogate

And when Luigi finally leaves and exposes the depths of his coldness towards the baby I can't help but start to love, I know I'll lose every confusing sentiment that bonds me to him.

I forget that I had a past before Luigi until pretty late into my pregnancy when we have a family dinner at a new pasta place in town. The Taviani family has a cultish ritual of visiting pasta places, ordering as many dishes as they can, and comparing every last recipe to old Sicilian recipes in their family.

Their new target, Il Forno, popped up a couple months ago and Luigi's younger twin brothers, Renzo and Gino, made reservations for the entire clan of cousins. Luigi insists that the two of us arrive early so he can "scan the perimeter" and act like a paranoid asshole for thirty minutes at the bar before dinner.

Renzo has the task of picking up Angela, who needed more time to get ready. Luigi snaps at the bartender when she asksme what I want to drink. Her name is Kayla, and she stumbles backward like she's never had anyone talk to her like that before. Rude asshole.

"She's pregnant. Get her a seltzer," Luigi says with this rude ass tone.

Truly, a situation that doesn't require barking aggressively. Luigi's fatherly instincts have bordered on insane lately. When I glare at him, he just puts his arm around my shoulder and kisses my cheek, like that will make his attitude more acceptable.

"Delphine?"

Luigi stands up with his hand in his pocket the second he hears a man's voice call my name out at a restaurant. I freeze and wish for the first time in my life that Luigi would shoot first and ask questions later. This can't be happening.

"Delphine? Hellooooo." Not just him. Her too. Luigi freezes in confusion, but he doesn't shoot. I slowly turn around and face my past head on with a growing, very pregnant belly sticking out in front of me.

It's my ex-boyfriend. Lance. If he were alone, that would have been bad enough. He's with her. My ex-best-friend who he fucked on my couch. My stomach almost sinks into my ass, and it's not just the baby giving me inconvenient heartburn.

Marla and Lance clasp hands and wave at me with broad, awkward smiles on their faces, as if any of us are happy about this chance encounter.

"Who got your ass pregnant?" my ex asks. I glance at Luigi, hoping he doesn't overreact now that it's too late for him to actually put me out of my misery.

"I'm good, Marla. How are you?" I respond, my voice far more tense than I had originally hoped it would be. I want to sound calm and collected, not like a nervous wreck. I don’t want these people to think they got one up on me, because they didn’t.

Marla performatively smacks his chest. "Don't be silly. Delphine isn't pregnant."

She looks Luigi up and down like a thirsty hyena.

"Excuse me," Luigi says as rudely as you can string those words together. "I'll need you to leave Delphine alone now."

"Excuse me?" Lance says. "And who the hell are you?"

"Her fiance," Luigi says. What the fuck? Since the fuck when?

Marla squeals. Now that I've seen her true colors, it's incredible how faked all her emotions seem to me. Girl, you fucked my ex-man on my couch and then stole it when y'all moved out. Don't act fake happy that I'm pregnant for another man.

"I can't believe it, Delphine! I can't believe you're getting married!" She says. "I'm sure it's not just because of the... unplanned pregnancy."

What the hell is wrong with that shady ass hoe?

Chapter Twenty-Five

Luigi

My blood boils after dinner for more reasons than I can keep track of. Mikey is the only person at that fucking table keeping me sane and only because his father just assigned him the task of providing a home for his sister Cosima. We’re in roughly the same predicament now with our fathers, except Pino exacts much stricter control over his family than my father.

Dad thinks it looks more powerful if his biological sons remain unbound by the laws that govern the rest of the mob. We’re loyal, we work hard, but he allows us far greater discretions with our personal life. I’m certain he would have forbidden a surrogate like Delphine but… he understands that men are men, ultimately ruled by their desires and whatever satisfies those desires at any particular moment.

Then, there was the incident with Delphine’s ex-boyfriend. The second he looked at her, I knew. They had history. My emotions descend into nothing but pure jealous anger when I offer to kill him for Delphine and she refuses, giving me some excuse about not wanting the father of her child to end up in prison.

Ridiculous.

She’s up to something far more sinister. I can sense it. The increasing closeness between us has obviously been getting under her skin and she has this persistent reluctance to open up to me and admit it. Clearly, she wants to make me jealous to force the emotions out of me so she can feel safe enough to express what she only seems capable of unleashing in the bedroom.

But Delphine’s sinister plot to trick me into sharing my feelings with her troubles me deeply. Haven’t I been obvious? Why sink to provoking my jealousy? It’s a low emotional state and I could make it much easier if I were to simply kill her ex-boyfriend. I spend most of the night musing over ways I could kill him and that funny looking woman he was with who seemed to upset Delphine with her irritating squeals. I can relate to that.

Why wouldn’t she be grateful?

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