Submitting to My Best Friend's Dad-Chapter 747 : Time to Hunt

*Elio*

I woke slowly to the sun pouring in through our windows. Caterina and I had slept later than we had planned, but I was glad for it. We would need the sleep to help us stay up tonight.

Cat was still fully out. My arm was draped over her, my hand resting against her stomach. I imagined our precious baby sleeping in there, my heart warming as I thought of the tiny little thing curled up right along with us. I couldn’t wait to be able to hold our baby for the first time.

I rubbed my hand in a gentle circle around her stomach, wondering how long it would be before she started to show. I knew she would make the most adorable pregnant woman. I couldn’t wait to see her belly grow with new life. I would buy her a whole new wardrobe of maternity clothes that hugged her growing body perfectly. I knew she’d be absolutely gorgeous.

As I rubbed her, she started to stir. She rolled over to face me and looked up at me, her lips curving into a sleepy smile. She was so fucking beautiful it took my breath away.

I loved seeing her like this, in a way that I knew only I got to see... her face bare, her hair tangled from rolling around in her sleep—it was such an intimate view. Seeing her like this reminded me how unbelievably lucky I was, and how desperate I was to keep her and my future baby safe.

The first step was taking out Artem Katz that night. But before that, we would need to find a way to occupy ourselves for the day.

“Good morning,” Caterina mumbled as she stretched her arms above her head. “How did you sleep?”

I kissed her just behind her ear lobe where I knew it would tickle her and chuckled when she squirmed around.

“I slept great,” I murmured in her ear, knowing it would tickle her even more and drive her wild. She arched against me, pressing her breasts to my chest. “How about you?”

“I did too. I always sleep well in your arms.” She rubbed her nose against mine.

“I can’t believe it’ll all be over tonight. We’ll have Artem in our control, finally.” I tightened my hold on her, as if I could keep her safe from Artem just with my love alone. I wished that would be the case with every danger that she might face.

“I know. I don’t think I’m going to be able to focus on anything today,” she said, her face tightening as she remembered what was going to happen. I felt terrible for reminding her so soon after she had woken up, but it was all I could think about.

“Just know that no matter what happens, we did our best. And you contributed so much to this whole operation; you should be so proud of everything you’ve done to get us to this point.” I brought my hands up to cup her face and pull her in for a kiss. It was soft and sweet, full of the best kind of emotions.

“I love you so much,” she sighed as she nuzzled into my chest.

“Alright, I’ve got to get up and get into work, even though I’ll hardly be able to focus,” I said, squeezing her tighter against me before letting her go so that I could get out of bed.

She stretched again once she was in the bed by herself, taking advantage of the warm, empty space that I left behind. She reminded me of a cat as she searched for the warmest place in the bed.

“Are you going to get up soon, or should I bring you your tea in bed?” I asked.

I didn’t always have the time to bring her something while she laid in bed, but today I had purposefully kept my schedule loose because I knew I wouldn’t want to have to rush around all day in case things went down with Artem Katz sooner than we expected.

“I think I would like that,” she smiled up at me.

“You’ve got it.”

I wandered down to the kitchen to make her tea and the cook handed me her breakfast plate. I knew that when she was anxious about something, she had the habit of skipping breakfast, but now that she was eating for two, her body needed the nutrition.

I had never been one to track how much she ate and drank, but now that I knew she was supporting our baby, I couldn’t help but worry about it. I knew that pregnancy was difficult for many women, and the last thing I wanted was for her health to suffer as she carried our baby. I knew I would do everything within my power to make the process easier for her.

I placed the tea and breakfast on a little tray and brought it up to her, setting it up for her in the bed. She chuckled as she looked down on the spread. “Feeling fancy today, huh?”

“I just want you to feel spoiled,” I told her. “You deserve it.”

She ate and drank while I got dressed, watching me thoughtfully the whole time. I straightened my tie and glanced back at her. “What are you thinking about?”

“Just wondering how tonight’s going to go. I know I’m going to spend the whole day thinking about it.”

“Do you want to come to work with me today?” I asked. “Maybe we can help each other focus on other things.”

“That actually sounds nice. I would like to spend the day with you.”

She sipped the last of her tea and set the tray aside so she could get up and get herself ready. I caught myself staring at her stomach as she pulled off her shirt, trying to memorize what it looked like so that I could notice any changes as they happened.

Before I knew it, we were headed to the office to meet Leo. We just needed to grab some paperwork before heading out to a few meetings. When I had scheduled out the day, I knew that the last thing we’d want to do would be to sit around the office and try to focus on paperwork. It would work out well for the three of us to attend some meetings in the field together to try to take our minds off of things.

“Hey, you two,” Leo greeted us as we walked into the office. “We’ve got three on-site meetings, one with the construction team and two with investors, so it shouldn’t be too long of a day.”

I nodded and reached out to grab the files from him, looking them over before handing them to Caterina so that she could do the same. It never failed to amaze me how well she could adapt to new situations, and I had a feeling she would do just as well today as Leo and me. She was such an incredible people person when she wanted to be; she knew how to read people and tell them what they wanted to hear without ever coming off as overly charming.

The three of us drove together to meet our client with plans for his office building, designed by me. It was going to be a ten-story glass and steel structure that was extremely imposing. The windows would be all tinted so that the whole building was a dark gray color on a cloudy morning, but when the colors of the sunset hit it, it would reflect them beautifully. Inside, each office would be filled with massive windows that were sure to keep people interested in coming to work. The only downside was the location; the site he was considering was several blocks away from the nearest parking garage and didn’t have much parking nearby.

Our client met us in his office. He was an older man who had made his money in medical tech and was now starting a new company focused on selling computer algorithms to hospitals that could help them improve patient care outcomes. He was a no-nonsense kind of guy who didn’t like to be schmoozed.

“Hey, great to see you again, Lenny,” I said as he walked up to us. I immediately turned and introduced him to Caterina.

I could see in his eyes that he was dazzled by her brilliant smile. Before we had even given him the plans, she had him laughing so hard I was afraid he was going to have a coughing fit. I wasn’t sure what she had even told him that had tickled him so much, but whatever it was, it was working. The man grinned as he looked over the designs.

“So, what are you thinking?” I asked. “Tell us your pros and cons. We want to know every thought.”

“I’ll be honest, I can’t think of any cons,” he said. “This whole building design is magnificent! I can tell that you really thought about every little detail.”

Leo glanced toward me, his eyebrows raised. We had been regularly showing Lenny different design ideas for three weeks now, and he always had something negative to say about what we showed him. He was an extremely critical man.

Caterina nodded as he was speaking. “You are so right, Lenny. I thought the same thing when I looked it over. It’s going to have that charm that you usually only see in historic buildings, won’t it?”

“It sure will!” he said enthusiastically. “I think this is the one, Elio. You did a great job with this design. It’s perfect.”

“Wow, I’m glad to hear that,” I said. “Should we head back to our office and draw up the paperwork, or do you want us to fax it over to sign here?”

“I need to get to a meeting by your office anyway,” Lenny said. “Let’s go do it there.”

He nodded and headed out of his office and out to the parking lot. Caterina caught up to him and the two of them discussed whatever it was that they had been talking about before I asked for his pros and cons.

Leo looked at me with a huge grin on his face. The deal was going to be massive. Both of us had been hoping that it would happen soon. Now, thanks to Caterina, Lenny was going to sign with us for his development sooner than we had hoped.

After bringing Lenny back to the office and spending a few hours dealing with his contract, then heading to the other sites for shorter meetings, it was already time to go. The day had flown by thanks to Cat’s presence, and it was finally time to do what had been on all of our minds since we had woken up. I couldn’t believe the time was here. My stomach was tangled up in knots.

“We should go home and get changed into something more comfortable,” I told Cat. “It’s time to hunt Artem.”