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Just for one night.

* * *

‘Are you sure?’ Gina checked.

‘Absolutely.’ Stella smiled.

Gina had been brilliant and certainly deserved a night off.

* * *

‘There you are.’ Daisy smiled when she returned to the set. ‘A couple more hours and then you can start putting the place back to the way it was.’

It could never be the way it was, Stella thought sadly.

Yes, the furniture and paintings and all the antiques would go back, but it was as if love had been forbidden in the palazzo since the accident.

‘It’s dress-up tonight,’ Daisy warned. ‘Have you got anything to wear?’

‘Just my after-party dress.’

‘Wear that,’ Daisy said. ‘Damon likes an effort.’

‘Yes.’

He was tricky indeed, but gosh, he’d brought out the best in everyone.

‘Are there any rooms at the hotel?’

‘Who for?’

‘Sophia and I and one for Gina.’

‘Won’t it be easier at the palazzo?’

‘No need,’ Stella said. ‘Now the shooting’s over, I don’t need to be so nearby—I’ll be closer for the town shoots.’ She meant it.

If Gabe didn’t lift his game, and soon, Stella would do the one thing she’d never thought she could do.

Be the one to leave.

* * *

Sophia loved her bath, she kicked her legs and laughed, and it really was a treat to have this time.

‘We made it,’ Stella said, because now the palazzo filming was over with, for her, things would be less intense. ‘And tomorrow…’ She squeezed water on her tummy and was rewarded with Sophia’s first giggle, as she nearly swam her way out of the bath in delight.

Gosh, he was missing out on so much.

Sophia was fed and in her little sleepsuit and settled in her crib when Stella headed to her own suite.

She made an effort, a real one, because it wasn’t every day she went to a party for Damon Keller, and it would be nice, mid shoot, to be sociable.

So she put product in her curls, and put some make-up on, then the silk dress that she’d chosen for the after party.

It was rather daring.

Violet silk, it was modest at the front with a cowl neck and it dipped very low at the back…and she felt like herself again.