Surrogate For My Baby Daddy

chapter 5

Santorini was everything Vanessa had promised and more. White buildings cascaded down cliffs like frozen waterfalls, the Aegean Sea stretched endlessly blue, and every sunset looked like God had decided to show off.

I felt like a fraud in paradise.

The hotel Vanessa had booked was the kind of place where they gave you cold towels when you checked in and the bathrobes probably cost more than my rent. My room had a balcony overlooking the caldera, and for about five minutes, I let myself pretend I belonged there.

Then I looked at the price of a bottle of water from the minibar and remembered who I really was.

Mrs. Rodriguez was watching Noah back home—she'd insisted when I told her about the wedding, practically pushing me out the door with promises to spoil him rotten while I was gone. "You need this, mija," she'd said in her broken English. "You need to remember you're more than just mama."

If only she knew what I was really here for.

The bridesmaid luncheon was at a clifftop restaurant that probably had a six-month waiting list. I arrived fifteen minutes early, wearing the one decent dress I owned and hoping nobody would notice it was from Target.

"Elena!"

Vanessa swept toward me like a designer hurricane, all flowing blonde hair and perfect makeup and arms that felt too thin when she hugged me. She looked exactly like she had in college, except more polished. More expensive.

More perfect.

"You look amazing," she gushed, though her eyes did a quick scan that told me she was lying. "Come meet the girls!"

The 'girls' were exactly what I'd expected—a collection of size-two socialites with names like Tiffany and Bree, who smiled with their mouths but not their eyes and asked what I "did for work" with the kind of curiosity usually reserved for exotic diseases.

"Elena's my oldest friend," Vanessa announced, her arm around my shoulders possessive and protective. "We were roommates in college. She's like a sister to me."

Sisters don't abandon each other when things get hard, I wanted to say. But I smiled and nodded and ate the tiny portions of food that cost more than I made in a day.

"So where's the groom?" asked Tiffany, or maybe it was Bree. "I'm dying to meet this mystery man who finally tamed Vanessa Blake."

Vanessa practically glowed. "He's at his bachelor party—sailing around the island with his groomsmen. But you'll meet him tonight at the rehearsal dinner. Elena, you're going to love him. He's... he's everything I never knew I needed."

The way she said it made my chest tight. Not jealousy, exactly, but something close to it. When was the last time someone had talked about me that way? When was the last time I'd felt like someone's everything?

"How did you meet?" I asked, picking at my salad.

"At a charity gala in Manhattan. He was hosting—his company donated half a million to children's literacy programs. I knew right away he was different. Successful but not arrogant, you know? And when he looks at you..." She sighed dreamily. "It's like you're the only person in the world."

I knew that feeling. Had felt it once, for one night, with a stranger whose name might not even have been real.

"What's his last name again?" I asked casually.

"Wolfe. Damien Wolfe. He owns this tech company—something with data management, I don't really understand it but it's hugely successful. He has houses in New York, LA, and the Hamptons." She leaned closer conspiratorially. "Between you and me, the prenup was... significant."

Damien Wolfe. The name meant nothing to me, which was somehow both relieving and disappointing.

---

The rehearsal dinner was held at a villa that clung to the cliff like it had grown there. Candles flickered on long tables set with white linens, and the sunset painted everything gold and pink and impossibly romantic.

I felt underdressed again, despite borrowing a cocktail dress from one of the other bridesmaids. (Tiffany, as it turned out. Bree was the one with the nose job.)

"Elena!" Vanessa appeared at my side with a champagne flute. "You made it! Come on, I want you to meet Damien. He's been asking about you all day."

My stomach fluttered nervously. Meeting the groom felt like crossing some invisible line, making all of this more real somehow.

We walked across the terrace, past couples murmuring intimately and groups laughing over cocktails. The whole scene was like something out of a movie—beautiful people in expensive clothes celebrating love and money and happily-ever-after.

"There he is," Vanessa said, her voice soft with affection.

He was standing at the edge of the terrace, his back to us, looking out over the water. Dark hair, broad shoulders, the kind of confident posture that came from never having to worry about anything.

"Damien, darling?" Vanessa called.

He turned around.

The world stopped.

Time stopped.

My heart stopped.

It was him.

The stranger from Murphy's Dive. The man who'd held me while the storm raged outside. The father of my son, standing there in a perfectly tailored suit, smiling at his fiancée with no recognition in his storm-colored eyes.

"Elena, darling, meet the love of my life, Damien Wolfe."

He stepped forward, hand extended, smile warm and polite and completely blank.

"Lovely to finally meet you, Elena. Vanessa's told me so much about you."

I stared at his hand like it might bite me. Three and a half years fell away, and I was back in that cheap motel room, tracing the scar on his shoulder blade while he whispered that I was exactly enough.

The scar that was hidden now beneath his expensive shirt.

"Elena?" Vanessa's voice sounded far away. "Are you alright?"

I forced myself to take his hand. His skin was warm, callused in the same places I remembered. When our palms touched, I saw something flicker in his eyes—confusion, maybe, or the shadow of a memory.

"Nice to meet you too," I managed.

He held my hand a beat too long, studying my face like he was trying to solve a puzzle.

"Have we... have we met before?" he asked slowly. "You seem familiar."

Terror shot through me like ice water. "I don't think so."

"You sure? There's something..." He tilted his head, and for a terrifying second, I thought he was going to remember. Remember the storm, the dive bar, the way I'd fallen apart in his arms.

Remember the night we'd created Noah.

"Darling, Elena's from Portland," Vanessa said with a laugh. "When would you have met her?"

The spell broke. Damien smiled apologetically. "Sorry, you just reminded me of someone. But I suppose everyone has one of those faces, right?"

If only he knew.

"Right," I whispered.

We stood there for another awkward moment, the three of us forming an impossible triangle. Vanessa, glowing with happiness. Damien, looking confused but charming. And me, holding the secret that would destroy everything.

"I should... excuse me," I mumbled, pulling my hand free. "I need some air."

"But Elena—" Vanessa started.

I was already walking away, my legs shaky, my breath coming too fast. I needed to get out of there. I needed to think. I needed to call Mrs. Rodriguez and hear Noah's voice and remember why I was here.

Behind me, I heard Vanessa say something about jet lag, heard Damien's rich laugh in response.

I made it to the edge of the terrace before my knees gave out. I gripped the stone railing, staring down at the waves crashing against the rocks below, and tried to breathe.

*He's here. He's marrying Vanessa. And he has no idea Noah exists.*

The irony was so cruel it was almost funny. Almost.

My phone buzzed with a text from Mrs. Rodriguez: *Noah asked me to tell you goodnight. He says he loves you to the moon and back.*

I stared at the message, tears blurring my vision.

Noah. My beautiful boy with his father's eyes and stubborn chin, sleeping peacefully in his little bed, trusting me to come home and make everything right.

How could I possibly carry a baby for the man who'd given me the greatest gift of my life without him ever knowing it?

Behind me, the party continued. Laughter and music and the clinking of glasses toasting a love that was built on secrets and lies.

I pressed my hand to my stomach, where Vanessa wanted me to carry her child.

Where I'd once carried his.

The waves crashed below, relentless and unforgiving, and I wondered if some mistakes were too big to ever make right.

"Elena?"

I turned to find Damien walking toward me, concern creasing his handsome face.

"Are you alright? You looked pale back there."

*Tell him,* a voice in my head whispered. *Tell him about Noah. Tell him the truth.*

But what came out instead was, "I'm fine. Just tired."

He moved to stand beside me at the railing, close enough that I could smell his cologne—the same one that had haunted my dreams for three years.

"Beautiful, isn't it?" he said, looking out at the water.

"Yes," I whispered, not looking at the view.

"Vanessa says you have a son."

My heart lurched. "Yes."

"How old?"

"Three." The word came out strangled.

"That's a great age. I bet he keeps you busy."

*You have no idea.*

"He does."

We stood in silence for a moment, the impossible weight of everything unsaid pressing down on us.

"Elena?" His voice was soft, uncertain. "Are you sure we haven't met? There's something about you..."

I looked up at him then, really looked at him. At the face I saw every day in my son's features. At the man who'd held me while I fell apart and then disappeared like smoke.

At Noah's father, who was about to marry my best friend.

"I'm sure," I lied.

He nodded slowly, but the confusion didn't leave his eyes.

"Well," he said finally, "I should get back to Vanessa. But Elena?"

"Yeah?"

"I'm glad you're here. Vanessa's been so excited about reconnecting with you. She talks about you all the time—how much your friendship meant to her, how sorry she is that you lost touch." He smiled, and it was the same smile that had stopped my heart in that dive bar. "She loves you. I can tell."

*If only that were true.*

"I should go too," I said.

We walked back toward the party together, and I felt like I was walking toward my own execution.

Tomorrow was the wedding.

Tomorrow, I'd watch the father of my child marry someone else.

And somehow, I'd have to find a way to survive it.

The secret felt like a bomb in my chest, ticking down to an explosion that would destroy us all.

I just had to figure out how to keep it from going off.