Five Star Hotel

11. Stella

(Stella means star in Italian)

I woke up a few minutes before my alarm went off, refreshed. It had been so long since I slept through the night.

To my surprise Dante did stay the night even though I fell asleep almost immediately after we finished. I ran my fingers across his rocky abs– up, down, back up, all the way down...

I still wasn't entirely sure where this was going or what we were. Was it a relationship or just another night? I didn't have the courage to ask, because I was afraid of his answer. Dante was here with me and I wanted it to stay that way.

I pulled my hand away and tried to sit up from the bed when I felt a strong arm wrap around my waist and pull me back down. "I don't think so." A deep voice croaked. "You didn't let me leave yesterday. And that thing you were doing with your hand," He rolled over onto his stomach. "Just made morning wood that much worse."

I laughed quietly. Dante had only one eye opened but firmly kept his arm around me, running his hand up and down my inner thigh. "I need to go to work." I told him, trying to push his hand away.

"Call out."

"I'll get fired."

"So, you're a rich girl. It's not like you need this job." What an asshole.

His hand stopped teasing me and his grip loosened, so I tried to get up, thinking that he already fell back to sleep. Apparently he was still awake. "I'm not sleeping, Stella."

"Stella?"

"Si." He closed his eyes again. This time I waited until I was sure that he was asleep. I waited until his arm was a dead weight over me, and his breathing became even.

Silently, I stood up, took a quick shower and got dressed. Every time he moved I would freeze and wait a couple of minutes, watching the muscles on his back contract with each breath he took, until I was sure that he hadn't woken up.

***

Almost everyone at work noticed my good mood. "Feeling better?" Gavin asked me as I brought him a cup of coffee. I was even nice to Stephanie. Well, I'm always nice, but today I was nicer than usual. And on top of the good mood we got a lot of work done.

But then my mother called.

"Hello?" I asked, confused. She wasn't supposed to call me, I was supposed to call her when I was ready to talk to her.

"Skyla, dear how have you been?"

"Good I guess, how come?"

"Well, I haven't heard from you in a while. Nick told me that he saw you back at the hotel. Why are you back there?"

I never actually told her I moved out. I guess father didn't say anything either. "You spoke to him?"

"Yes. Now, I know that he walked out on the wedding, but it was only because he still loves you. You know how Nick doesn't have much family. I couldn't leave him alone while he was going through such a rough time."

"Oh." That's all I could say. Mothers and daughters were supposed to be on the same team. She was supposed to see him as a cheating piece of sh!t just like I did. When she didn't like someone I shared her hatred simply because she was my mother.