“You’re right. I’m freaking the fuck out, Matteo.”
He pulled me in, but I tried to push away. I hadn’t had a chance to brush my teeth yet, but he didn’t care. He kept kissing my face, giving me no chance to escape his strong touch. But he was also in a rush, like getting me to the doctor in the next few hours was going to change the trajectory of my life.
He watched me brush my teeth, almost impatiently, and when I was done, he went back into my closet and picked out more clothes for me. He’d already done that, but I didn’t say anything. All I could think was that I made sense of why my grandmother had blamed my mother.
Maybe if they could have taken out the bad cells before she got pregnant with my mom, she might still be here.
Chapter 48
Matteo
Our December wedding came faster than I thought fucking possible, but then again, the days slow-ticked for me. One set of test results said Stella was in the clear, but the tests that would reveal the future—whether it was hereditary or not—hadn’t come back. The geneticist said that, even without the tests, her family history indicated she was at higher risk for having the harmful cells.
What the fuck was taking so long to get those test results back, if he was so sure?
Stella said it would take a while, but two months felt like torture. If we could save her from what her mamma was going through, I wanted to do it as soon as possible.
Her life was mine. We were tethered together. I couldn’t live without her. The thought cast a dark cloud over my world. I couldn’t seem to fucking escape it.
I was a man of action. I’d told her to get the preventive care that day. But she refused. Said she wanted to know what the test results said first. Waiting to act felt like wasted time to me, though.
I even wanted to cancel the second wedding, but Stella wanted to keep the date. She said it meant a lot to her that hermom would be there. I agreed for her sake—I’d steal the stars and give them to her if they made her eyes light up like they did when something made her happy.
After that day in the doctor’s office, I thought she’d be as panicked as she was the day her mom had told her she needed to get checked. But after she walked out of the doctor’s office, she seemed calm, and she told me everything was going to be okay.
At first, I thought she was so calm because the results of the genetic testing had come back and were fine, but I knew better. Those kinds of tests did take time to come back, but not this fucking long. I was going to speak to the doctor myself when we got back to Italy. We were supposed to take a honeymoon to Germany, to stay at the castle where I’d gone after I’d first found her, but I was debating on whether we would take a detour back to Italy first.
Something just wasn’t fucking right. The unease. The heaviness in my bones. Whatever anyone wanted to fucking call the rock in the pit of my heart that I couldn’t dislodge. It made me feel like I’d only felt four times in my life.
When my mamma almost died.
When I left Stella after finding her.
When we found Stella, and she had been unresponsive.
When Stella was grieving for her mamma.
And then.
The fifth time.
When I didn’t know what the fuck was going on inside of my wife.
My life felt like it was spinning me around, and I was out of fucking control.
Until a knock came at the door, and I closed my eyes for just a second. When I opened them, she was standing before me, shimmering like the star she was.
Then we were reaching for each other, our fingers entwining, the world orbiting around us.
We’d decided to see each other before the vows for the second wedding.
“I don’t even…” I set my hand over my heart, mimicking the beats of my heart. Too fast. I felt breathless. My heart at her feet, along with my knees, even though I was standing tall, pressing this gorgeous creature that would always be mine hard against me.
This gown was the total opposite of the one she wore in Tuscany for our first wedding. This one seemed to be made of glittering material. When the flames of the candles caressed her gown, she was going to shimmer, the brightest thing in my eyes. The dress was long-sleeved, showed off how tiny her waist was, but it flared out, and the train must have been at least eleven feet long. Her veil was even longer, decorated with embroidered northern stars. Her hair, which cascaded past her breasts, was pulled up on the sides, and her gray eyes seemed almost electric.
“Here,” she whispered, pushing us even harder together. “We don’t have to say anything. Our hearts will always do the talking.” She gazed into my eyes and turned my hand over, pushing up the sleeves of my tux jacket and shirt. Across my wrist, over my pulse, was the star coordinates from the night we’d met.
If my mind was ever lost, my body had the map to find her again. I leaned in and kissed her forehead. She closed her eyes.
