Getting out of the message screen, I locked the phone and placed it on the counter. “What happened Luca, why is she practically in begging and pleading mode?”
Luca stared at the phone, his lips in a thin line, his eyes glazed and unreadable.
“Before we get into that, can I ask you something?” Nodding my head, I gripped the island counter for support. “Were you ever going to reach out to me? You disappeared and wouldn’t take my calls, leaving me no way to contact you?”
A fair question and one I could answer with complete honesty. “Yes, I was. I just needed time to get over my hurt and humiliation from that day. Everything got so complicated so fast, and we started tiptoeing around one another. We stopped communicating with honesty and were turning into strangers unless we were in bed.”
“I know, I let that happen all because I talked myself into believing I could handle Mum and the girls my way. When I should have stood up for you when they began their plan to break us up.” Luca hung his head, and his shoulders dropped in a gesture of defeat.
“A part of my brain acknowledged and saw what they were doing, all those interruptions and emergencies in the middle of the night. The phone calls for help, the way Mum got so clingy, always needing me. I just didn’t want to believe she … they could be so calculated. Playing on my loyalty to Dad, knowing how serious I took my vow I made to him.”
“But now you do see what they were doing? Why now?”
Luca raised his head and I was stunned to see tears in his brown eyes.
“Because I know them, and while I didn’t want to see the truth, I knew it was there for everyone to see. It isn’t an easy thing for me to get my head around the fact my mother is a bad person, baby.”
“She isn’t bad, she …” I hedged, rolling my eyes when Luca scoffed loudly. “Okay, she is, but it sounds like she wants to change.”
“I’m not sure if she is capable of being nice, Meadow. I won’t let her ugly touch you or your family. Lennie and Trish are on the way to forgiving me, Breck now works for the company and Spring doesn’t threaten me with cutting my balls off four times a day in a text message.”
“Progress!” I offered, laughing with him, then sobered. The main problem in our relationship was still his mother. Luca may think it was his misguided loyalty, but that was just a participating factor after the fact. Pushing her away and not seeing her did nothing to ease Luca’s guilt. It will still be between us, festering away until it got too much for him. I knew him too well; Luca Massimo Donatella was a good man and the son of a meddling shrew, whether he liked it or not. The solution wasn’t kicking her to the curb; he just had to learn to say no to her.
“Not having your mum in your life isn’t the answer, Spunk, I don’t want to be the reason you don’t have your family. The baby either. Families aren’t always perfect; look at my crazy loons, for instance. Trish and Lennie are certifiably nuts, but I love them and could not cope without them. Spring drives me crazy, and Breck does my head in most days, but they are my best friends, my biggest support team.” I had no Illusions that Mrs Donatella and I were ever going to be best buds, or anything like that. But, I was not going to be a wedge between mother, son and siblings. Luca might think this decision was in my hands but in reality all I was doing was using some clever reverse phycology.
“My sisters are bitches, and Mum judges everyone,” Luca reminded me unnecessarily.
Pursing my lips, I pretended to think about that. “True, but your sisters are also half of your dad. Somewhere under their prickly exteriors, there has to be something of him.”
Luca moved closer to me, his fingers dancing over the counter, coming to rest on mine. The barest touch warming me instantly.
“And Mum?” he asked, with a grimace.
Turning my hand around, my palm up, I laced our fingers together.
“The word no is a powerful word, Spunk Rat, learn to use it,” I sassed, giving him a wink. “I’m not saying that I want to see her or speak to her yet. As far as I am concerned, she has a big job in front of her convincing me that she is the type of person I want around our baby, but she can have a chance to prove it.” Luca nodded, his expression sage and thoughtful.
“I love it when you call me Spunk,” Luca murmured, cupping my cheek with his free hand. I didn’t miss the way he didn’t want to talk about his mum, not that I blamed him. Fixing us was the priority right now.
Rubbing my cheek into his palm, I relished the soft roughness and the contact.
“I know, I also know I love you. Being away from you is not something I ever want to do again, honey. This baby might not have been planned, but our love made this little miracle, and I can’t think of a better way of telling you how much you mean to me than getting fat and stretchmarks.”
Luca grinned, then picked me up, leaving my feet dangling off the floor, my arms flying over his shoulders to hang on.
“They are great ways of showing me, baby, but I can come up with a hell of
