“When I grow up, I want to be just like you.”
“Liar,” Trish laughed, then took the chocolate bar back and ripped it open, and took a big bite.
“Hey! You gave that to me,” I protested, mourning the loss of the sweet treat.
“You snooze you lose.”
“Bet you don’t want to be like her now, hey sissy,” Breck whisper shouted, leaning over to give my cheek a quick kiss.
“He doesn’t know,” I announced all of a sudden. “And I don’t think we are going to make it to raise this kid together.”
“Meadow.”
“Fuck, sissy.”
Lifting my head, I looked at my mother first, then at my brother, and saw the pity I knew would be there in their eyes. “He chooses the baby and me; he will be miserable. He chooses them over me, and I will die. So I am taking the decision out of his hands.”
“Luca will never be free of the responsibility that comes with being the son of Massimo and Irena Donatella. They will never loosen the iron hold they have on him to be happy with me.” Tears streamed down my face as I make the hardest decision of my life.
“I won’t trap him as they do. I love him, but I don’t own him. So—”
Just then, the automatic doors that lead to the patient area flew open with an ominous hush, and Luca appeared looking grim, worried and tired. And oh, so sexy.
I watched as he scanned the room, looking for something, looking for me. The second his eyes found me, the calm that would normally flow over me … didn’t.
Quickly getting to my feet, I stood and waited for him to come to me. Watching for the last time his wonderous body, his handsome face; and felt my heart shatter into a million shards.
“Can we talk, please?” he asked, looking down at the floor, anywhere but at me.
“Luca, I don’t think this is the time,” Trish advised but she was cut off not by Luca but by me.
“It’s the right time and the right place,” I declared, finding the strength to say what needed to be said.
“I am sorry that your mum got hurt, Luca.”
“Are you, Meadow? I am having a hard time with all of this, but your behaviour is the hardest to accept,” Luca seethed, speaking to me like I was nothing more than a stranger not worthy of his time.
“Yeah I am; I am sorry that she deliberately fell and got properly hurt from her subterfuge.” Luca started to object, but I was over it. It was my time to speak and my time to be the one to say what needed to be said.
“They aren’t ever going release you from your obligations or their clutches. I know that now. I also know I can not sit back and let them dictate the terms of our relationship anymore. You might not realise it, Luca, but you let them do this to you. Because of some misguided loyalty to your father, you allow those four women to control you, and I have had enough of being fifth place.”
Luca’s eyes widened almost comically, his mouth gaping like a fish out of water, wanting to argue, but no words would come because deep down, he knew I was right.
“Those things I said about your dad were hurtful and unfair, I might not have known him, but I know you. I can’t believe that the man that raised such a wonderful son could possibly be anything other than just as wonderful. I also can’t help wondering if this is what he wanted for you. To be played and used as a pawn in the games your family obviously cruelly enjoy.”
“I won’t stand silent anymore, it’s not fair to me, to you or our baby.” Ignoring his shocked gasp, I took his hands and placed them on my flat stomach, happy that he didn’t pull back or protest. Just one last touch, one last feel of his hands on me and I would leave knowing I had Luca Donatella’s love for a brief time.
“Their evil will not touch my child. He or she will never hear their cruel taunts or endure anything other than love.” Stealing myself, I looked up at Luca one last time, his own cheeks dripping with tears, his eyes glued to his hands on my belly.
“I will never make you choose, Luca, but I won’t stay and be treated so abhorrently all because I love and adore you. I just can’t.”
My lips begged to kiss him, and my arms ached to hold him; instead, I pulled my hands from under his and stepped back on wobbly legs.
“I love you, Spunk, you are the love of my life. No other man will be able to hold my heart because you own it. I’m just not the one for you.” With that final decree, I allowed Brecken to wrap an arm around my shoulders and lead me away from the only man I wanted. The only man whose touch I would ever remember, the only man I ever wanted to kiss.
The man whose child grew inside me.
Then I felt the last shard drop and I wondered if I was ever going to survive walking away from him.
“Where the hell is she?” In my office late, as usual, I stormed around my phone in my hand. I had called everyone I could think of to call, and no one would tell me where Meadow took off to. Three weeks and I was about to go to the local television station and have her picture plastered on the evening news.
Three weeks since she dropped the bombshell on me that I was going to be a father … then she dropped me. I could still hear her words, her tears and the look of utter devastation on her beautiful face. The strength she showed me standing up for herself, like the Meadow I first met and fell in love with, before my stupidity took over
