Hold On to Me (19 page)

She walked her fingers up his chest and teased her forefinger across his mouth. Full, soft, warm. She lifted her head, and pressed her lips to his. Slowly, teasing, she nipped his bottom lip and when he answered her by tilting his head and opening his mouth, she plunged into it. The outrageously hot kiss earlier had been fast and furious, hurried, kind of desperate. This was languid, teasing, tempting, filled with the promise of all night.

‘You want to sample the merchandise?' Luca said with a smile.

‘Oh, yes.'

Luca slipped his arms around Stella's waist and crushed her against him. He was hard, ready. He wanted her and she wanted him right back.

Something flashed in the corner of her eye. There was someone outside in the street. Stella pulled back from Luca, snapping out of her haze, realising they'd been about to put on a peep show for the whole of Port Elliot.

She heard Luca swear under his breath and he stepped back from her, turned towards the back of the shop, and ran a hand through his hair. His perfect, thick, black hair.

‘Shit,' she murmured and stomped to the front door. With a twist, she unlocked it and opened it a couple of inches.

‘Hi, Duncan.'

He raised a hand and waved it in her direction. ‘Sorry, Stella. I came by to see if you wanted to have that drink now, but I can see I've interrupted something. I'll head home.'

Stella was on the verge of combusting with sexual tension and dealing with a man who never seemed to get the hint was more than frustrating. ‘I'm sorry, Duncan.'

‘Really, it's no problem.' Duncan shrugged and slipped his hands into the pockets of his trousers. He looked sad and she felt even more guilty about what he must have seen.

‘Well, I'll catch you later, Duncan,' she said. ‘I've got a big day tomorrow, so it's an early night for me.'

‘Okay. Glad to see you're back in business.'

‘I appreciate that.' The lock snicked in the door but Duncan stood to study her for another sad moment through the big window. Finally, he walked away. Stella turned her back on him and looked at the young man standing in her shop, his lips still wet from her kiss.

Luca was intently watching her every move. He was so young, so beautiful. So … angry?

‘That guy doesn't get the hint, does he?'

Stella blew out a frustrated breath. ‘He means well.'

‘You didn't see the way he looked at me. Like I was about to put my hand in the till and steal all your cash.'

‘I'm sure he didn't,' Stella said. Who cared? Why were they talking and not kissing? ‘He's just being a little protective, that's all.'

Luca lifted his chin and his eyes bored down into hers. ‘What's he protecting, Stella?'

‘We dated a couple of times,' she told him, impatient, her arousal starting to drain away. Damn it. ‘He wants more. I don't.'

‘And by “dated” you mean … you
fucked
that guy?'

Stella suddenly felt wide awake. Luca's narrow-eyed fury was evident. He sounded jealous. He looked jealous. He
was
jealous. She kept her voice low and calm. ‘Newsflash, Luca. I'm thirty-five. I have actually had sex with other men.' Great sex, sometimes. But the way Luca had kissed her? That was a first. Could they do it some more now?
Please
?

Luca sucked in a deep breath. ‘Have you been playing a game with me all these weeks? The teasing? The flirting? That kiss?'

‘Luca, c'mon.'

‘Yeah, I know what this is about. You like a bit of rough trade, huh? You'll play in my corner but what you really want is respectable. When it gets down to it, you want a suit and tie guy, don't you?'

‘What? No, I don't,' Stella said through gritted teeth. She'd forgotten that some men came with egos; easily bruised and righteously outraged. She hadn't picked Luca as being one of them.

‘It's probably what you're used to, right? Guys like him.'

‘You are really pushing it now, Luca.'

‘C'mon, look at you,' he said angrily. ‘You grew up in one of those million-dollar beachfront houses in Middle Point. You own properties in Port Elliot. You play around in a boutique that surely can't be turning a profit supplying shoes to my sister. Swanning off to Sydney for a few years. You can't tell me you don't come from people like him. Who the hell knows why you've been slumming it with me.'

Whoa. Stella was suddenly so furious her throat clenched tight and she couldn't have forced any words out even if she'd had them. The Boy Wonder had a Working Class Hero chip on his shoulder—she knew it well because she had one too. And she didn't need a pissing contest in overcoming adversity to know she would win. Hands down. ‘You would think that, wouldn't you?'

‘You want someone just like you, right?'

He really thought she was like Duncan? If he only knew the truth of her life, how long it had taken her to get to where she was now. And even if he'd been right, and she'd had a family and money and all the privilege in the world, who the hell was he to come along and judge her for what she was and who she'd slept with, and then decide what that meant about what she wanted now?

Right at that moment, Stella didn't want any guy. Especially not a hot-headed Italian. She grabbed her handbag and felt for her keys. She jangled them in front of his eyes to announce the end of their conversation.

‘I'm switching off the lights and locking up now. Good night, Morelli Constructions.'

She didn't have to say it twice. Luca stomped across the shop, opened the door and was gone.

The next few days were crazy busy and Stella couldn't have been happier about it. The brilliant blue skies and warm early-summer winds had attracted bumper crowds to the holiday town and the first of the family groups had descended on the rental houses. Plenty of them hadn't had time for Christmas shopping in the city, so Style by Stella was the perfect destination for last-minute presents.

Each night, Stella made it home with weary footsteps but a happy heart.

And each night, she tried to think less and less about Luca Morelli and his half-arsed assumptions about her and her life. She'd been waiting for a final account so she could send all the paperwork off to her insurance company, and then that would be the end of their working relationship. The spell had been broken. She'd seen him for who he really was. Disappointingly, a man like every other man.

She had a business to run. She had to make it through until Christmas Eve on Wednesday and then, damn it, prepare herself to see Luca on Thursday at Anna's family Christmas.

Luca had been back in the city for a week and had desperately needed something, anything, to do, to keep his mind off Stella Ryan. There was plenty to do at his new place. More than plenty. Twelve months' worth of work if he was honest, but he couldn't get his head into any of it.

All his attempts at distraction had been a complete failure, of course. The more he tried not to think about, obsess about her, the more he did.

What the hell had the past four weeks been about? he asked himself as he stared at his account sheets on his computer. He still couldn't answer that question.

So Stella and Duncan had a history. Why did that bother him so much? Never in his life had he cared about what his lovers had done or with whom. But thinking about Stella and The Suit together made him nuts. He hadn't known people like them when he was growing up, but he sure did a lot of business for them now he was qualified and out on his own. People with money whose kids went to the best schools, not the local public school like he'd done. People who drove the most expensive cars down their long driveways on their enormous eastern suburbs properties, with sparkling pools and perfectly manicured tennis courts.

Damn it. Why did he suddenly feel like a tradie with a suburban accent and a taste for big-budget car-chase movies?

And why should he care about people like them anyway?

Luca pushed his chair back from his desk and stomped across his bedroom to the window, pushing the double doors wide open and stepping out onto the balcony. He leant over the wrought-iron railing and looked out to the west, past tin rooftops and the parklands. In the distance, playing fields were green despite the summer and the horizon was a faded shimmery smudge of blue. He'd done a little research on the location and found out that in the 1880s olive trees had been planted there by Italian migrants. Luca felt it was kind of appropriate that an Italian had moved in a century and a bit later.

It was a warm day and people were making the most of the sunshine below him in the square. Christmas lights were strung from tree to tree, looking like a party about to happen. A group of young guys were shooting hoops on the practice net. A pair of young lovers were lying on a rug, kissing, their bicycles flat on the grass next to them, and a group of students were sitting in a circle eating the noodles they'd no doubt purchased from nearby Chinatown. As Luca looked down on it all, he realised he'd been working so hard that this was about the first time he'd allowed himself the luxury of taking it all in.

But he was staring at it with a dead heart. He wasn't in the mood to celebrate Christmas. What the hell had gone wrong with Stella? They'd been about to get into something good. He was afraid it was his fault—that he'd screwed it up with an unfortunate display of jealousy he'd regretted every moment since.

His new business was going great guns. He lived in a nice place—well, it would be nice when he'd finished it. Whenever the hell that was going to be.

But none of that helped. He'd fucked up.

Later that night, he would get changed and head up to meet his parents for Christmas Eve dinner and then go to Midnight Mass, cross himself at the appropriate times, all to keep his mother and his nonna happy. And then tomorrow, first thing, he'd drive down to Middle Point for Anna and Joe's Christmas Day lunch.

Where he would try not to be bent out of shape by some woman he'd done a job for once. She thought she was out of his league, so screw her.

And he tried very hard to stamp on the awareness that
he
was the one—maybe the only one—who thought that.

Stella pulled up out front of Anna and Joe's house and turned off the engine. She felt as if she were about to go into battle. What did Luca's family know? What about Anna and Julia and Lizzie? Had they suspected anything was going on and would they now be more keenly aware of what
wasn't
happening between her and Luca? And in the middle of all that complicated mess, she was about to meet his family. Well, Anna's family too, but she hadn't been involved in a complicated non-relationship with the good doctor, had she?

Stella grabbed her bag and gifts and walked to the front door. In the glass reflection, her fifties-style summer dress and black flats looked perfectly appropriate for a special lunch. Deep down, she didn't feel appropriate at all.

She took a deep breath, pushed the door open and stepped into a cacophony of voices and people and laughter and Christmas carols blaring in the background … and family.

‘Stella!' Anna tottered towards her on her new red patent-leather heels and kissed her warmly on both cheeks. ‘You look gorgeous. Find Joe and he'll get you a drink.'

Stella couldn't seem to get her feet to move any further. Right across the room, Luca was leaning against the living-room wall, his arms crossed, glaring at her. It had been almost a week without a word. He was clearly still angry, judging by that look. She rolled her eyes behind her sunglasses.

Stella turned all her attention to his sister. ‘Here's a little something to thank you for having me today.' She handed Anna a box wrapped in silver paper and topped with a giant white ribbon bow. She'd packed three chunky, vanilla-scented organic candles inside it.

‘You didn't have to do that, but thank you. Come on in and meet the family.' Anna took Stella's hand and pulled her through the small living room to the kitchen. She could feel Luca's eyes on her with every step she took.

‘Ma,' Anna called. A short woman with dark hair and beautiful olive skin popped up from behind the kitchen counter. She plonked a pile of plates on the bench and smiled.

‘This is Stella. She's the one with all the lovely shoes in her shop. You know, the job Luca just finished. Stella, Sonia.'

‘Hi, Stella.' Sonia wiped her hands quickly on her apron. ‘How nice to meet you. What a lovely name.'

‘Thank you, Sonia. Is there anything I can help you with?'

‘Nice try.' Anna laughed. ‘If you think my mother is going to let anyone else in the kitchen while she's making Christmas lunch, you are officially crazy.'

Then a handsome man in his sixties appeared next to Sonia, heaving a bucket of ice onto the sink under the window.

‘Stella, this is Paolo. My Pappa.'

‘Very nice to meet you.' Paolo reached for Stella's hand and brought it to his lips, kissing the back of it loudly and dramatically. ‘You're the one who's kept Luca away from Adelaide all these weeks.'

‘Yes,' she said after a millisecond of hesitation. She knew full well he was watching these introductions and exchanges with his parents. ‘He's done a wonderful job on my shop. He's very clever, your son.'

Paolo winked at her. ‘He gets it all from me.'

And then Anna steered her towards the family matriarch. She was by the Christmas tree, watching the babies on the rug; the littlies were fascinated by the flashing lights. ‘Come and meet Nonna.'

‘Hello, er …' Stella looked at Anna, confused, and then turned to the grey-haired, elegant woman ‘… Nonna?'

‘Hello, bella.'

And then there were hugs and kisses from Ry and Julia, and Dan and Lizzie. By the time she found Joe, who pressed a champagne into her hand, she was mentally exhausted. Could these people understand how overwhelming this was for her? That this was about ten times the family she'd ever had?