Hold On to Me (34 page)

Sully had been a great lover too. And he'd turned out to be horrifyingly wrong for her.

Was she about to make the same mistake again?

She and Luca were sharing a bed and, potentially, so much more, if she opened herself up to the possibility of it.

She was scared. Scared of making a mistake. Scared this might not be what she thought it was.

When she reached the door to her shop, she heard laughter and happy voices inside and was snapped out of her silent reverie. Molly was at the counter, a customer smiling broadly at her, and Style by Stella was full of people. She let out a deep breath and took it all in. Yes, so many things had changed in her life and she let herself smile about it.

She never thought she would let it happen: to trust someone with her biggest investment. There had been something about Molly she'd seen from the very beginning. She had a young woman's openness and curiosity and lust for her own life which Stella had admired.

The exact qualities she wished she had.

‘You ready?'

Luca twirled his car keys around a finger as he sat on the end of Stella's bed, waiting. He was studying her every move, trying to figure out why she'd greeted him at the door with a hurried peck and a scowl. He'd arrived half an hour earlier, surprised as hell he didn't get a speeding ticket on the way down to Port Elliot, having barely endured the Friday peak-hour traffic all the way from the city to the coast. Every minute longer away from her than he had to be had felt like an hour and he wanted to see her almost more than he'd wanted anything else in his life. There were things to say and he wanted to say them that night.

But Stella had been in a distracted rush when he'd arrived and, after a quick and entirely unsatisfying kiss, she'd stripped off her clothes and hopped in the shower.

Something was off. And while Luca waited on the bed, watching the light glint on his twirling keys, he tried to figure out what the hell he'd done.

A few minutes later, when she stomped back into the bedroom, a fluffy white towel wrapped tightly around her, he rested his flat palms behind him on the bed and called her name.

‘What?' she said, throwing him a quick glance before she returned to rifling through the top drawer of her dresser.

‘Come here.'

She shook her head. ‘We're in a hurry.'

‘I know that but are you going to tell me what's wrong?'

Stella stilled. She wouldn't look at him, concentrating instead on the lacy things in her fingers. ‘Nothing.' When she finally turned to him, he saw it again. That fake smile. The one she'd been sporting ever since he walked in the door.

Luca swallowed his frustration. He didn't want to leave it like that but he didn't want to be an arsehole, either.

‘Okay.'

Stella tugged on her knickers, slipped her arms into the straps of her bra and fastened it, and then came to him. She stood between his knees, put her hands on his shoulders, and leant down to kiss him. It was perfunctory and polite, as if it was what she should do rather than something she wanted to do.

But she was there and half naked and he'd missed her and he wanted her and he couldn't keep his hands off her. He reached for her waist, held her there, kissed a trail down her stomach from her belly button to the tiny pink bow at the front of her silk knickers. When he slipped a finger inside the elastic and flicked his eyes up to meet hers, she sighed and pushed herself out of his embrace.

‘I appreciate the sentiment but we have to go to the Middle Point pub and meet everyone for dinner, remember? We're probably already late.'

Luca clenched his jaw, trying not to hear that as a dig at him. ‘I got here as fast as I could,' he explained. ‘The traffic along the expressway was bumper to bumper tonight.'

Stella waved a hand at him. ‘I'm not having a go at you. I'm just … Don't worry about it. I'm exhausted. I'm so not in the mood. I don't know why we agreed to it. ‘

And wasn't she making that damned obvious? he thought. ‘So why did you?'

‘Summer bounced into the shop yesterday saying it was about time the whole group of us had dinner and when I mentioned we were already meeting Anna and Joe … god, it all just got out of hand.' Stella stomped to the wardrobe and pulled out a hanger. She slipped the vintage party dress over her head and then walked backwards to Luca, looking over her shoulder. He pulled the stiff zip up carefully.

‘God, you're beautiful,' he said quietly, close to her ear, hoping his words would soothe her, make her happy. That's all he wanted to do every day for the rest of his life. Make her happy.

Stella turned and smiled up at him and this time, finally, it felt real. ‘Thanks. We'd better get going.'

When they walked around the back of the Middle Point pub and into The Market at the rear, the only thing Stella could see was a crowd of people, smiling faces, cheering people, clapping hands, and almost immediately white noise filled her head and roared between her ears.

She'd been ambushed.

‘What's all this?' She turned to Luca. ‘Did you do this?' She hated the way she sounded, accusing and snarly, but the words were out of her mouth before she could take them back.

‘Don't look at me,' Luca replied as he reached an arm around her shoulders. She shook him off. She didn't want this. Didn't feel in the mood for handling all this. The urge to turn and run was strong and she fought it off with clenched fists.

And then Summer came to her and threw her arms around her friend. ‘Surprise! Happy birthday, hon! Well, happy birthday for next week!'

Her birthday. Another one of those rituals in life she chose not to observe because it was a reminder of who had given birth to her, of all the years no one had remembered, of all the years no one had cared.

‘What's going on, Summer?' The white noise had morphed into a throbbing at her temples.

‘It's your surprise birthday party, obviously.'

Stella dug deep for a smile as Summer urged her forward to the guests. ‘I may have to kill you later. Slowly.'

‘Oh, stop it. We thought you deserved a party after what you've been through and anyway, why should you want to hide turning another year older? The alternative is far worse, right?'

Stella's legs were taking her to the party but she didn't know how to deal with it so she reached for Luca's arm, gripping it hard. She needed him near her. She needed his strength at that moment.

Luca slipped an arm around her waist and whispered in her ear. ‘You didn't tell me it's your birthday.' And the look he gave her was one of sad confusion.

‘It's next week. The fourteenth.'

Someone cranked up the music so it began to sound like a real party and when Stella had pulled herself together enough to focus, she realised the party was filled with familiar faces. In fact, it was as if the whole south coast had turned up. Ry and Julia were there with Mary. Dan and Lizzie were serving drinks. Courtney and Molly were chatting and Duncan was there too. Sitting at a table, waving at her, were Anna, Joe and Francesca. Other traders from Port Elliot filled out the crowd and some of her most loyal customers had even come.

‘I can't believe it,' she muttered to no one.

Then someone started singing and the words
happy
and
birthday
began to pound in Stella's head.

All these people were a part of her life. She had managed to become part of this … she struggled for the word … family. And Luca was wrapping his arms and his love around her like a blanket too.

So why did she find it all so suffocating? Why was she not opening her arms in return to embrace them all? She felt as if the ground had fallen out from under her feet and she was plummeting right back to the life she'd had before she met Luca.

That thing she'd felt that was moving too fast?

It was now speeding like a bullet train through her, taking her heart rate up to two hundred beats per minute and making her skittish.

Luca pulled her closer and looked into her eyes, direct and probing. He knows, she thought. He can see it. He knows me now, and that made her shrink away from him even further. What had she done? Why had she told him her secrets? Why had she ripped herself open and let him in? His care stung instead of soothed.

‘Happy birthday,' he said and kissed her, long and passionate, claiming her in front of all these people, and the crowd whooped and hollered and Stella felt sick when she should have felt happy. She wanted to pull away and slip out of his arms and her heart thudded and she closed her eyes and wished she wasn't there.

The singing finished and she opened her eyes to see Anna, holding Francesca.

‘Happy birthday, Stella.' Anna's smile was warm and open and she kissed her on both cheeks.

‘Thank you, Anna.' Stella looked from mother to daughter and realised with a shock how alike they were. Two pairs of chocolate Morelli eyes looked back at her. Olive skin and the same full lips. ‘Hey, sweetie.' She tickled a finger under the baby's chin and Francesca responded with a pout and pulled away from the stranger touching her. Something inside Stella shrank at her reaction.

‘I'll take her.' Luca held his arms out and Francesca went willingly from mother to uncle.

Stella blinked. He was holding Francesca in his arms so comfortably he might have been her father instead. His laughter echoed hers, her giggly little-girl voice even softer against his husky laugh. His dark eyes were trained on the little bundle of softness and warmth. He lifted his free hand and stroked the baby's neck, speaking to her in a soft, soothing voice as he did, Italian words Stella didn't know. And something sharp and stinging pricked at the back of her eyes. She closed them to fight off the image that came, unbidden.

That's what his future should hold.

Luca deserved to be with someone who was easy. He should be with someone who would create that picture, that tableau of him with a wife and a darling baby in his arms. Stella imagined family photos of the three of them fitting together like three pieces of a jigsaw. His wife would be gorgeous—glorious skin, glossy hair and wide eyes. Someone his own age, maybe a little younger, with long legs and no thighs to speak of and a miraculously flat stomach considering she'd just been pregnant. A perfect couple with a perfect baby. And then, a year or two later, there would be four of them, two hilarious children and two stylish parents, and they would drive down to the coast on sunny days and sit in a café in Port Elliot with their designer pram and cute summer hats, buying babyccinos for their ever-more-adorable children. There would be matching outfits for the children, and smears of sunscreen on their noses when they were playing in the shallows of Horseshoe Bay. Sleeping babies on the way home to Adelaide, the parents staring at each other with pure bliss on their faces, marvelling at their good fortune at having such a perfect little family and such a perfect life together.

And Stella might be standing behind the counter in her shop one day, looking out to the street as she said goodbye to a customer, and she would perhaps catch a glimpse of Luca and his perfect family. He might glance inside the shop, remembering the work he'd done there, maybe even feel wistful for half a moment, but then he would turn back to his wife and his family and know in his heart, without a doubt, that he was where he should be.

And Stella would watch him, frozen, and her dead heart would flutter to life once again, just enough to ache with a longing that would never disappear, for the man she would never stop wanting.

The man she'd let go.

That's what Luca should have. She would never look right in that future. And as she watched him, jiggling Francesca and eliciting even more giggles from the perfect little girl, she saw in Anna's eyes the love and yes, expectation, that one day he would be a father himself. Luca: the only Morelli son. The one who would carry on the proud name.
Look at him with Francesca! Won't he make a good father! What a beautiful baby!
He would soon be at the centre of his family then; the invisible mantle being handed over from his father as he grew older, and Stella could feel in her very marrow that he would miss out on all that family, being part of the ongoing Morelli story, if he were with her. She couldn't ask him to let that go. She couldn't tear him away from what was expected of him. All that family was too much for her; it was something she didn't deserve and couldn't hold together even if she'd wanted it with everything she had in her heart and her soul.

When Stella opened her eyes, her knees unsteady, her stomach churning, Anna's curious expression was all she could see.

‘A bit of a surprise, huh? Summer swore us to secrecy.'

‘A big surprise.'

Anna came in close and slipped her free arm around Stella and held her, longer than a regular embrace.

‘Happy birthday. We all love you, Stella. Have a wonderful night.'

It should have felt right and natural, to be surrounded by all this love and friendship, but no matter where Stella looked for that feeling, she couldn't find it. She wanted to run from it all, to the safety of her house and being alone. Because being alone was the only time she ever felt truly safe.

‘You all right?' Anna asked in a cautious whisper.

‘Just a headache,' Luca piped up to answer when Stella couldn't.

‘Drink some water,' Anna told her. ‘That'll help. Have you eaten today, Stella? You look kind of washed out.'

‘Anna,' Luca warned in a low voice as he jiggled Francesca. ‘You're not a doctor now. Lay off.'

His sister raised her hands in mock surrender. ‘Sorry. Can't help it.' She held her arms out for her baby and under cover of Francesca's transfer said in Luca's ear, ‘Find me if she gets worse.'

‘Remember how I said you were turning into our mother?'

‘Ouch, that hurts,' Anna said as she turned with a laugh and headed off to find Joe.