The Don Loved Me So Much that He Let Another Woman Carry His Baby

By the time my 11th round of fertility treatment failed, I had no tears left.

For five years, Dario had picked me up from the clinic himself after every treatment. After the first failure, he ordered his entire motorcade to pull over. He held me and said, "I don't care if we never have a baby. All I want is you." After the seventh, I developed a high fever, so he had an entire hospital floor cleared and sat with me all night. Everyone knew the Don of the Moretti family loved his wife more than life itself.

All those years, I'd believed that, at least when it came to losing a baby, we were hurting just as much.

"Donna, the Don was just here," the nurse said cautiously as she put the syringe away. "He's still next door talking with Dr. Russo."

I pulled on my coat and went to find him.

The door to the consultation room at the end of the hall wasn't fully closed. Before I even reached it, I heard Viola's name.

"Viola is eight months along. She can't be transported any real distance from now on," Dr. Matteo Russo said. "If you insist on keeping her in the east villa, the whole OB team will have to move there tonight."

I stopped outside the door.

Viola Cavallo.

Five years ago, the Cavallo family burned my parents' vineyard to the ground. My father died in the wine cellar. My mother never made it out of the fire.

Later, after Dario reclaimed control of the Moretti family, he personally crushed most of the Cavallo family's power in Sicily. I'd always assumed Viola had left Italy long ago.

But here she was, sitting at the consultation table.

Not even her loose, flowing dress could hide that she was eight months pregnant.

Dario stood by the window, his jacket draped over a chair and his sleeves rolled up to his elbows. His face, which I knew better than anyone else's, showed no sign of panic. He looked as calm as if he were reviewing an ordinary contract.

Viola rubbed her belly and laughed. "So she failed again today?"

Dr. Russo didn't answer.

Dario looked up. "That's none of your business."

"None of my business?" Her smile grew bolder. "I'm the one in this room who's actually carrying a Moretti baby."

I gripped the doorknob, and my fingers slowly went cold.

Dr. Russo lowered his voice. "Don, should we schedule another cycle for your wife?"

Dario was silent for two seconds.

"There's no need."

"But what if your wife insists?"

"Do what we did before." His voice was flat. "Carry the procedure through to the final step, then record it as a failed cycle. No embryo goes into her body without my written permission."

My ears started ringing, as if something had gone off right beside me.

Dr. Russo hesitated. "That makes 11 cycles now. Your wife still believes her body is the problem."

Dario's jaw tightened.

"Five years ago, during her first pregnancy, she hemorrhaged and nearly died on the operating table. Your team gave me the risk assessment."

"That assessment only said high risk. It never said she absolutely couldn't—"

"I won't let it happen again. My wife will not be exposed to even the slightest risk. I can live with her never carrying my heir, but I will not lose her. Do you understand?"

He hadn't even let the doctor finish.

Outside the door, I forgot how to breathe.

A chair scraped inside.

Viola pushed herself to her feet with a hand on her lower back. "If you need this baby so badly, why not just make me Donna Moretti?"

Dario finally looked straight at her.

"There's only one Donna Moretti, and that's Elena."

Viola's smile faded.

"Then what am I?"

"The woman who delivers this baby safely."

"And then?"

"You get the money and protection we agreed on. The baby stays. You leave."

He truly didn't love her. He had never once considered letting another woman take my place.

Five years ago, Dario had collapsed in our vineyard, badly wounded, and I'd hidden him in the wine cellar. After my parents died, he knelt at their graves before his stitches had even come out and swore that as long as he lived, no one would ever hurt me again.

At the first public banquet he hosted after reclaiming control of the Moretti family, he took my hand and seated me to his right.

When one of the elders looked down on me because of my background, Dario had him thrown out of the main house on the spot. When someone whispered behind my back that I wasn't good enough for him, they were banned from Moretti territory for life the very next day.

On our wedding day, he said I would be the only wife he ever had.

All of that was real. His love was real.

Yet a man who truly loved me had also kept me in the dark for five years, making one decision after another for me. My body. My children. My future.

I didn't push the door open.

As I turned away, I saw the nurse coming down the hall from the other end.

"Donna?"

I kept my voice from shaking. "Dario's busy. Don't tell him I was here."

Back in the recovery room, I closed the door and pulled up a number I hadn't called in five years: Luca Romano's.

When the call went through, there were two seconds of silence on the other end.

"Elena?"

"It's me."

I looked at the olive tree outside the window and realized I felt calmer than I'd expected.

"Luca, you once told me that if I ever really needed your help, you wouldn't ask why."

"I remember."

"I want to leave Dario."

He didn't answer right away.

I closed my eyes for a moment.

"And he has to believe I'm dead."