30
Jace
This isn’t how I wanted Olivia to find out.
I didn’t intend on her discovering that I’d been responsible for the fire that night her family died.
It had been an accident—an easy mistake. One of my men had dyslexia and screwed up the numbers on the address.
A mistake that won’t ever happen again.
He’s dead.
I had him executed.
But it doesn’t bring back the two innocent lives lost. Before I met Olivia, they were just a number, a body count that had been added to the tally of deceased individuals who had died in a war I didn’t want to be a party to, but I’d inherited the position.
Men were counting on me. And if I didn’t protect my men and the city, it would be overrun with drugs and weapons, murders, and men threatening innocent women, like Olivia.
Doesn’t she see that and realize I’m not the bad guy? I’m just caught up in the mafia. It sounds worse than it is. I swear I’m not the devil. Not by a long shot.
She barely looks at me, and I worry most of all that she’ll expose my secret and betray our vow, unwilling to give up my daughter that she is contracted to do so. If I take her to court, I’ll win, but my reputation will be destroyed. Barone Industries will be put under scrutiny. There are plenty of fronts I have to launder money, but it doesn’t matter.
Olivia has the power to destroy me.
I should never have involved her. The moment I realized the connection, the association between the past and the present, it was too late.
She was pregnant.
And now she’s holding my daughter in her arms. I should be grateful she’s feeding the baby, caring for her in a way that I can’t, but she shouldn’t be here. She’s done.
Her commitment to me is over.
“You don’t have to be here,” I say, reminding her of the deal we had. Her end is complete. She gave birth to my daughter. “You shouldn’t be here.”
While I want her at my side, that isn’t the arrangement.
“I’m not leaving,” Olivia says, staring at me pointedly. The nurse returns, taking the sleeping infant from Olivia’s arms as she lays her back into the incubator.
“Have you thought of a name?” the nurse asks, oblivious to the tension mounting between the two of us.
“Yes, Astrid Elisa Barone,” I say. I hadn’t known what I was going to call my daughter until I saw her, until this very moment.
“That’s a beautiful name,” the nurse says, jotting it down. She tends to little Astrid, making sure that she’s okay before checking on the next infant.
“I thought Astrid could be named after Austin. They both start with A’s.” I’m trying to get on Olivia’s good side.
Should it matter?
We will never have to see each other again. I’ll deposit the remainder of the funds that she’s due, and that’s it, the end.
Olivia opens her mouth and quickly shuts it. Like she has something to say but thinks better of it.
“I’m not leaving her bedside, Jace. Not until she’s released from the hospital.”
It worries me, her attachment to Astrid, her loss of one child already, and what it might mean. I wasn’t oblivious to the dangers when I went into this deal with her, but I didn’t think she’d discover my past and who I am.
I didn’t look too deep into discovering her past, or I might have thought twice about asking her to be the surrogate.