To Tuscany with Love (21 page)

Bella and Stillman settled into a routine. On most weeknights, Stillman slept at her apartment, always leaving early in the morning to go home to shower and dress for work. On the weekends, she’d pack a bag, and they would be at one of his places, either his Manhattan apartment or his house in Connecticut.

He refused to keep clothes at her place, stating that he was an “all or none type of guy” and that their clothes shouldn’t cohabit until they did.

During those first weeks of intimacy, Bella told Stillman about David. Most of what she told him was true.

David had been the product, she claimed, of a one-night stand shortly after that summer in Italy. She had been devastated by the unexpected loss of her mother, and all alone. To fill the hole that her mother’s death had created, she told Stillman, she had taken up with a boy she had met a month after her mother’s death.

She shared how it had been a struggle—being a single mom and trying to work, take care of her baby, and finish college all at the same time. Bella confided that she had a career as an author and even how she had shielded David from this knowledge. It had been for security reasons, she claimed, that she had kept her identity secret.

“So, my darling,” Stillman said, running his fingertip over and around her bare breasts, “when do I get to meet your son? How about if he joins us this weekend at the beach?”

Thank God for small favors, Bella thought. “That might be a little difficult. David’s in an MD-PhD program at Stanford. It’s a grueling schedule, and he rarely comes home.”

“Too bad. Maybe next time I head to LA for work, you could tag along. We could fly up to San Francisco and see him on the weekend.”

“That might work.” In truth, she had no intention of taking Stillman to meet her son.

David’s relationship with her was improving, but she had lost so much ground after their blowout over Crystal that Bella was afraid to do anything that might drive her son away. Throughout David’s life, it had always been only the two of them. No men. Just Bella and David. Besides, if Stillman met David, he would know that her story about the one-night stand was a lie.

To get Stillman’s mind off the subject of her son, she distracted him. Bella ran her fingers through the white hair on her lover’s chest, down his stomach, and then lower, until she had him moaning with pleasure.

Bella loved being with Stillman. Always the chivalrous gentleman, Stillman never let her buy dinner, and he held open doors, walked on the street side of her on sidewalks, and helped her on and off with her coat. Little gifts—flowers, a book she might enjoy reading, a scarf that matched her eyes, a delivered box lunch on a busy day of writing—appeared at unpredictable intervals from Stillman.

As a lover, he was tender and considerate. She tried not to compare making love with Stillman to the playful and passionate times she had shared with Phillip. That was different, she told herself. Phillip had been her lover a quarter of a century earlier, when she was young and her sex hormones raged. Stillman truly cared for her, and Bella believed him when he’d whisper in her ear that he would never do anything to hurt her.

Three months after their first meeting in the park, they marked the occasion by having dinner together in Bella’s apartment. Well, they actually started the evening in the bedroom, as they often did.

Afterwards, they were ravenous. Stillman had promised to provide everything for the meal, and he was true to his word. Their dinner had been delivered from Bella’s favorite Italian restaurant, and Stillman had unveiled a different wine to taste with each course.

Bella loved every meticulously planned part of the meal. Some, such as the
Linguine ai Frutti di Mare
, were her favorites. Stillman surprised her with new items, too, like the tender butter lettuce salad with truffle dressing, which seemed to melt on her tongue, and its heady fragrance made her want to head back to the bedroom.

Now, with candles burning around the partially drunk wine bottles on her coffee table, the two of them nestled beside each other on her sofa.

Stillman raised her fingertips to his lips and kissed them. Then, without a word, he slid off the sofa to kneel before her. He clasped her hands in his. “I love you, Bella. And I will always take care of you,” he said with a smile, “if the independent woman that you are will let me.”

No, she thought. Don’t do this.

“Bella, will you marry me?”

Her heart sank. It was too soon. Bella truly cared for him and knew Stillman was the best thing that had happened to her in years. Did she love him? Yes. Enough to marry him? Bella didn’t know the answer to that question. She did know, however, that she wasn’t ready, and their relationship wasn’t ready, for Stillman to meet David. She looked down.

“My dear, this is where you’re supposed to tell me that you love me, too, and say that you’ll marry me.”

Bella’s eyes lifted and met his. Stillman’s face still held a smile, but it looked as if it had frozen on his face. She blinked. “I love you. I do. But it’s too soon for me. I’ve been single so long. I’m not ready for marriage.”

Stillman stood up and walked to the window. He stood there, his back to her, looking out at the lights of her neighborhood, for what seemed an eternity. When he turned around, she saw that his face had relaxed and his smile was genuine. He returned to sit beside her on the sofa and positioned himself so that his body was open to hers. A good sign, she thought.

“We’ve been dating three months today,” he said. “I knew by the third date that I wanted to marry you, but that’s me. You’re cautious because you have a son. I get that. Since I’m a problem-solver by nature, I have a solution.”

She saw, with dread, where he was headed.

“I’ll arrange flights. This weekend or next, whatever works for David, we’ll go out and you can introduce us. We’ll spend whatever time with him that his schedule allows. And we’ll keep flying west on weekends until you feel he and I know each other well enough for us to get married.”

Bella knew she couldn’t let Stillman meet David. What she knew, and wouldn’t tell Stillman, was that David bore a strong resemblance to his father. The most striking thing was that David had his father’s piercing blue eyes. No one, other than herself and her long-time friend and editor, Edie, knew that Phillip was David’s father.

“I’m not ready for that. My relationship with David is still too fragile.”

“How long will you make me wait?” His soft voice could not hide the intensity behind his words.

She shook her head and shrugged. She whispered her answer, afraid of his reaction. “I don’t know.”

“There is either a reason you’re keeping me from meeting David, or you’re using him as an excuse. So which is it?”

She looked at her hands, which were clenched in her lap.

“Bella, look at me.”

Bella raised her eyes. Tears threatened to spill. Why was he pushing this?

“Today, next week, or in a few months, will you marry me? Yes or no? Tell me.”

Agreeing to marry Stillman meant Bella had to show her hand—all the cards—not only to Stillman, but to David as well. How could she? Her mouth opened, but no words came out.

Stillman stood up, crossed to the door, and walked out.

23

Fort Lauderdale, Florida

M
eghan lifted her face to the sun. A perfect spring-break day for tanning. She wore a two-piece suit and was proud of how she looked in it.

Meghan rolled to her side and studied April, her eighteen-year-old niece, Karen’s only child. April had Karen’s charisma but Meghan’s eye for color, fabric and style. Last night over dinner, the two of them had plotted April’s path to join Meghan at the store. First design school, then an internship in New York, and finally Chicago with her aunt.

Karen would have approved.

It had been an emotional yo-yo for Meghan since they lost Karen to breast cancer five years before. Karen was her twin, her best friend, and her business partner.

After Karen died, Ed, the store’s majority owner and Karen’s widower, never set foot in the store and declined to meet Meghan in person to discuss the business. He made Meghan submit her ideas for the boutique to his accountant for review, who questioned every expense and was wary of every new idea. Annually, Meghan offered to buy Ed out. But why should he sell? The store paid him a handsome distribution each year.

Meghan loved April as if she were her own child and was thrilled that her niece wanted to join the business. Sharing the shop with April would be almost like it was during those early years, when she and Karen first opened it.

April’s eyes flipped open. She turned her head to grin at her aunt. “Awesome day, isn’t it?” She propped one elbow on the blanket to look over at Meghan. “This spring break trip is the best birthday present you could ever give me.”

Meghan smiled. “Don’t you realize it’s a present to myself? I don’t get to see you enough.”

April’s eyes followed the jumbo striped beach ball overhead, being volleyed down the beach by a group of laughing, screaming college kids. “I know. I wish we still lived in Chicago, with you. It took me a long time to understand why Dad moved us to Texas after Mom died.”

Meghan bit her tongue. She had given Ed the benefit of the doubt and imagined Chicago held too many memories of Karen for him to stay. Now she knew better. It was because he hated her. She had lived and Karen had died. It was as simple as that. That explained why Ed limited April’s visits with her to twice a year.

She would have gladly sold the store and moved to Texas with them if she could have been present in April’s life. But no. All Meghan could do was send April airplane tickets twice a year for visits preapproved by her father.

April’s face turned serious. She nodded at Meghan’s bikini top. “Have you talked to a doctor yet?”

Meghan pretended to mark her page in the paperback novel beside her. “No. But I do my breast self-exams religiously.” Something we both know that Karen didn’t do, she thought. “I’m fine. No lumps. Nothing out of the ordinary.”

“One of my friends at school has breast cancer in her family, too.” April rushed on, as if afraid her courage would dwindle. “Her mother had a double mastectomy because she lost two sisters and her mother to the disease. She had reconstruction. I saw her before Christmas. You’d never guess.”

“Maybe, but it seems pretty radical to me. You never feel the same.” Meghan lathered sunscreen over the exposed curves of her breasts. “It’s hard enough being a single woman today. If I had the surgery, who’d take care of the store?”

“I would.” April reached out to touch Meghan’s arm. “I’d stay with you over the summer. I could drive you to the doctor’s appointments and manage the store. We’d have a blast.”

“I’ll think about it.” Meghan’s promise sounded hollow, even to herself. She knew Ed would never allow April to spend her summer in Chicago. Meghan shifted the conversation to plans for dinner that night at a dockside restaurant within walking distance of the hotel.

At dinner, April bantered about her series of boyfriends at school. The sweltering heat of the day drifted out to sea with the receding tide. Quick-moving clouds shadowed the sky by the time they walked out of the restaurant. Meghan gazed up and hoped they would reach the hotel before it started raining.

“Maybe we should get a cab,” she said. “It’s going to rain.”

April skipped ahead. “It’s only a couple of blocks. We’ll be there and in our jammies by the time a taxi gets here. It’s spring break, remember?”

Cars whizzed by on the two-lane road that led to their beachfront hotel. “Let’s walk single file. There’s more traffic now, and it’s dark. You go first.”

April stared at the dark sky. “Too bad we can’t see the stars. I hoped we could pick out constellations again, like we did in Chicago during the summers when I was a kid.”

Meghan pushed April forward, her palm against the girl’s back. “C’mon. No stalling. We can study the stars once we’re back at the hotel.”

April’s giggle reminded Meghan of how her niece had always managed to stall when bedtime came.

As a little girl, she’d leave her bed and find Karen and Meghan, insisting that she wanted “girl talk” with them; she ate popcorn and giggled one minute, and then lay curled up asleep on the couch the next.

Meghan pulled her cotton shawl tighter around her shoulders. They walked on the shoulder with the flow of traffic, because the road was too busy to cross two lanes at night. The cars zoomed by. Meghan caught up to April and nudged her forward. “Let’s keep moving, honey. I want to get away from these cars.”

A massive bolt of lightning struck the lake on the other side of the road. The sky split with the shudder of thunder chasing the lightning a mere second behind. Rain—big, pelting drops of rain—sheeted down, soaking their thin cotton sundresses.

A car veered closer to them. April jumped to the side. She squeaked with fright, then jogged ahead, soon settling into a brisk race-walk speed. Meghan picked her way along the rain-slick shoulder as April widened the gap between them.

Suddenly, Meghan froze at the whine of squealing tires.