I gaped at the woman who gave me life, not believing the nonsense coming out of her mouth.
“You never gave her a chance!”
“I don’t want to have her part of our family. She isn’t in our class, and I won’t hear her name in this house ever again. Is that clear, Luca?”
The large framed hand-painted portrait of my father suddenly caught my attention. Every room in the house had one. Mum insisted that we see him here wherever we went to not forget the man who worked so hard for his family. If only Mum remembered that.
“Meadow is my life, she is the most important part of me, and if you can’t accept that, then I have no other option but to leave.” Standing there quietly, I said the words that I never thought would ever come out of my mouth.
Mum’s narrowed her eyes at me, her lips thinned, and for the first time, I saw what Ace and Meadow knew was hiding beneath the surface.
“You will not choose her over your family, Luca Massimo, I will not allow it.”
“I really don’t care what you think, Mum, as you have no say in what I do or who I chose to love. I can’t believe it has taken me this long to see how you really are. I can’t believe I took your side time after time. Meadow got it right, Ace and the guys too, but I didn’t see it.” Shaking my head, I silently called myself all kinds of gullible.
“Ace is not worthy of the position he holds at the company, and I do not like that person,” Mum sniffed, working hard to conjure up some crocodile tears. But her efforts were wasted on me, it was too late. Finally I was onto her.
“Tell me, did Kayla know, was she aware from the start of your plan to break Meadow and me up? And Sandy, Holly and Phoebe?”
“They just want what is best for the family, Luca.”
“They want what is best for themselves! And so do you.”
“Do not raise your voice to me! I am your mother and I deserve respect.”
Meadow was right. Mum was never going to accept us, and no amount of time could see to that. Looking at my father’s picture, I felt the weight of what I had to do.
“I’m done. I’m going to go find Meadow and beg her to forgive me, and then we are going to spend our lives together. Meadow, me and our baby.”
Hearing her surprised hiss, I ignored it and headed to the back door. I needed to get out of this house as quickly as possible, and I didn’t want to go back through the main part of the house.
“Baby? Luca, are you going to be a father?”
“Yes,” I confirmed, not looking at her.
“I am going to be a grandmama?” she asked with awe.
Steeling myself, I stood ramrod straight, my back still to my mother.
“No. You aren’t.”
Then I continued to walk to the door, opened it and let myself out. Maybe for the last time.
“Meadow, you aren’t listening to me,” Michael complained as he drove me to my shop. This would be the first time I’d left Michael’s house in three weeks, and I was not excited about it. All I wanted to do was dash back to the one-bedroom bungalow in the backyard and climb back into the bed, pull the blankets over my head and dream of Luca. That routine had served me well for twenty-one days, and I saw no reason for it to stop just because Spring was having trouble at the shop.
She could close the doors for all I cared, and I told her as much, but my sister used dirty tactics against me. Calling Michael, Prue’s brother, in to force me out of the house.
When I walked away from Luca, leaving my heart shattered at his feet, I had no idea where to go. I knew I couldn’t go back to my place, being the first place he would look, my parents’ house too. Spring and Prue were out also, then I walked out into the parking lot and saw Prue waiting for me in her brother’s car. Being her stepbrother, Michael was not someone I had talked to Luca about, so I jumped into the backseat and left with them.
Michael and his partner Jeff settled me in their bungalow and for three weeks had doted on me. They also worried a lot. They took turns sleeping on the sofa in the small one-bedroom dwelling. Normally, they rented it out for extra income, but being the sweet and kind guys they are, they readily agreed to let me stay as long as I needed to.
So far, I had no plans to leave. Nothing in the tiny space reminded me of Luca, and there was not a hint of his scent other than the shirt I wore to bed and basically all day. When Spring and Trish went to my house to grab clothes and supplies for me, Trish took it upon herself to add one of Luca’s shirts from the laundry basket. It hadn’t been washed, so his smell of sweat and cologne became my constant companion other than my misery and, of course, my bundle of Luca growing inside.
My hands moved to my stomach, as they always did when my baby and his father entered my thoughts.
“Meadow, sweetheart, are you alright?” Jeff asked, reaching around from the front seat to place a hand on my knee. I liked Jeff, he and Michael were the perfect couple, and the topper on the cake … both sets of parents got along together and liked their son’s choice of partner.
Smiling sadly at Jeff, I patted his hand. “Yeah sweetie, I’m fine. Just a little nervous about being out, that’s all,” I admitted truthfully.
“I know, darling girl,” Michael said from the driver’s seat, looking at me in the rear-view mirror, “after you see Springy, then we’ll head to
