Submitting to My Best Friend's Dad-Chapter 757 : Mood Swings

*Cat* 𝓯𝙧𝙚𝙚𝔀𝒆𝓫𝓷𝙤𝓿𝒆𝙡.𝒄𝙤𝓶

Contrary to what Elio believed, my bad mood followed us all the way. From the early morning rush, we packed everything back up, which wasn’t difficult seeing as we hadn’t even had time to unpack, and then the drive to the plane, in which I sat stewing in silence.

Elio didn’t even try to talk to me, staying in business mode as he did work on the plane, focused so intently that he forgot he even had a pregnant fiance sitting next to him. Meanwhile, I was so fed up that I wanted nothing more than a drink.

And because I was knocked up and couldn’t have one, my bad mood was now Elio’s problem. I didn’t feel bad for him in the slightest either because not only had he lied to me multiple times in the span of a few minutes, but he’d been keeping something this huge from me for months, potentially.

I felt I deserved to be pissed at him.

“Elio,” I declared boldly in the plane, giving him an angry look. “I’m hungry.”

Elio popped up from his laptop, giving me a frown as he came back to where we were. “Okay. Can you wait until we get home? It’ll be like an hour.”

“I’m hungry now, Elio,” I demanded crankily. “You’re really going to starve our daughter?”

“What?” He looked at me, at a pure loss of words, but I saw his mind turning as he relented, grumbling as he took off to the back area, scrounging around for what he could find.

He gave back a soda and a bag of chips, offering it to me with a helpless look. But I wasn’t about to make it easy on him and spent the next few minutes expressing my demands.

“I don’t want those kinds of chips.”

“I wanted ice in my soda.”

“Now there’s too much ice in my soda. It’s too watery.”

As I threw a fit, Elio realized halfway through that this was me being petty but he didn’t say a word, just rolled his eyes as he kept fetching my requests over and over. Eventually, we got home after the long, arduous process.

Elio rushed to put our suitcases in our room and then grabbed all of his stuff for work, running down the stairs. I sat on the couch, waiting for him with my arms crossed when Elio dipped in, his laptop bag and briefcase in one hand.

He leaned his arm against the doorway, huffing from the rush of going up and down the stairs to find everything.

“I’ve got to head to work right away,” he said gently.

I looked at him, unphased by the sad eyes he gave me.

“I’m really sorry about everything, Cat. I wanted a vacation with you but it just... didn’t work out.”

“It’s fine,” I said curtly.

“Cat–” Elio started.

But I cut him off with a shake of my head. “I understand, and we’ll talk about all this later, but you’ve got to get to work right now, so go,” I said with a frown, really wanting to grab him by the collar and force him to stay with me, but he’d listened to my selfish petulant demands all morning.

He turned to leave and just like he did every morning before he left, I could hear the coffee pot starting in the kitchen.

I had a few minutes and knew he would be driving himself into work today. I quickly stuffed my nest of pillows on the couch under a big blanket, turned on the TV to a cartoon, and then got to my feet, my worn tennis shoes ready to go as I snuck out the door before he could notice anything.

Luckily, his car was already unlocked, as it always was once safe in the compound. I shimmied my way into the back, settling down in the backseat so I was completely hidden from view. Also luckily, it was a huge car, and Elio always stashed a blanket in here in case I got cold, so I threw that over me.

The car door opened and the car moved as Elio got in and it rumbled to life. I bit my bottom lip, wondering if this was going to work and I grinned in victory as he pulled out of the driveway.

I kept a hand on my large belly, making sure she was okay as it was quite bumpier than I expected. But we pulled in and I smirked before realizing this was a very bad plan.

This car only locked with the button and I wasn’t sure where the emergency releases were. If Elio locked the car without knowing I was in there....

What the fuck was I thinking?

Luckily my soon-to-be husband was smarter than I was at the moment and I felt the blanket I’d tucked over me be thrown away as Elio gave me a pointed, exasperated look. I froze like a criminal who had been caught.

“You’re not coming to work with me, Cat,” Elio said tiredly, and before I could protest, he had gotten out of the car. I fumed, unwilling to believe I’d gotten caught. The back door opened, the sunshine brightly pouring through. “Come on.”

I unhappily and embarrassedly squeezed out of the car, holding my belly with one hand until my feet landed on solid ground again. Elio helped me up with one arm. I was a bit disoriented from the sudden light after being shut in darkness the whole way.

“I’ll take care of her, I swear–” I perked up as I spotted Anna standing there in the driveway of her house and not the office as I thought. I only realized I’d been played once Elio thanked her and then got back into the car.

“Wait a minute! You can’t just leave me here!” I protested, but Elio gave me a heartless smirk and was pulling out of the driveway before I could start a fight about it.

“What the fuck?” I stomped my foot like a child, glowering as I whirled on my best friend. “You planned this?”

“Not really,” Anna shrugged, giving me a grin. “But he texted me on the way here and I think I figured out everything else.”

“That son of a bitch!” I cursed, and I knew all of this was just my hormones talking, that everything I’d done today had been completely irrational, but the anger and helplessness I felt ran deep.

I wanted to prove that I wasn’t as useless as I felt, that just because I was pregnant didn’t mean he could manipulate me into what he thought best. I was still his partner.

Angry tears slipped out of my eyes and Anna sighed as she brought me into a hug.

“I’m sorry, babe,” Anna soothed me, rubbing circles on my back as I cried out of frustration. “Wanna go shopping? We can get some more things for you and for the baby.”

And despite how utterly furious and sad and bitter I was, I still pulled back from Anna, a small smile tugging at my lips.

“That sounds nice,” I sniffed.

“Yeah.” Anna gave me an awkward smile. “But just so you know, we’ll have to take the guards.”

Anna then pointed behind me and I whirled around to see a black SUV and a team of two sheepish-looking guards as they waved to me.

“Son of a–”

A gelato cooled me down pretty quickly, much to Anna’s and both guards’ relief. My mood swings were getting worse. But even though I couldn’t drive a car by myself since the guards insisted on driving us everywhere, I got my revenge by spending as much as I could.

Mostly, I bought things for the baby to finish up her room, decorations, and books I wanted to read to her, and as I shopped, throwing items into the cart, I told Anna everything about how Elio was keeping things from me again, then I cried because I felt bad for giving him so much trouble and then I bought a flat-screen TV that we didn’t need so the baby could watch cartoons in her room.

Anna humored me, pretty much letting me rant and only occasionally throwing out a, “Yep, he’s an asshole,” and, “You’re right.” But it did honestly make me feel better. Pregnancy was a bitch to me right now, and I had thought the morning sickness was the worst of it.

I was glad to have my best friend by my side though, especially one who knew all the craziness of my life and accepted it. The guards were incredibly uncomfortable as I spilled everything I knew to Anna, probably things they didn’t even know but I didn’t really have the mind to care at the moment.

“So, these weirdos are targeting you guys, right?” Anna asked, sipping her smoothie as she watched me devour a whole plate of chili cheese fries from the food court at the mall.

Our guards were a table away, awkwardly sitting there drinking smoothies I had forced them to get, next to piles and piles of bags that they needed to deliver to the car.

“Yes, there’s probably more but that’s all he would tell me,” I sighed. “Am I so untrustworthy that he has to go back to hiding things from me? I’m so goddamn sick of this. Just cause I’m pregnant doesn’t mean I’m helpless!”

“Well, yeah,” Anna said thoughtfully then gave me a worried look. “But it might be more serious than he’s telling you, Cat. Have you considered that since he’s had us tailed already, maybe they’re targeting you? Or worse... the baby.”

My blood ran cold as the thought struck me.

I put a hand over my belly where our daughter was slowly growing bit by bit, and tears welled up in my eyes as panic clenched around my lungs, sweeping the air out of me.

“I didn’t... I didn’t think about....” The panic had a hold of me now as held my pregnant belly with both arms like I was shielding her from harm.

“I didn’t mean to freak you out, Cat.” Anna grabbed my hand. “I’m probably wrong, you know. Not many people know about your pregnancy anyway, and you rarely go out like this, so I’m sure it’s nothing.”

“No, you’re right.” I wiped the tears from my face, the terror still gripping me as I thought of my unborn baby girl being the target of those monsters. After everything we’d been through, Elio had only ever lied to me when it came to my safety.

The fact that he was going overboard now meant that Anna was probably right.

Either I or my baby were now in danger... or perhaps, I thought, both of us.

“Thank you.” I stiffened up, clearing my head from all of the selfish thoughts that had been pouring around all day. I knew my unstable emotions were partly due to the pregnancy, but I had also been feeding into those thoughts.

Elio loved me and he loved the baby and if someone was targeting us, he would do anything in his means to take care of them, even if it meant lying to me and pissing me off.

“I have to talk to Elio about this,” I said determinedly.