Page 43 of My Wedding Mafia Style

The tight thing in my chest loosens and tightens all at once. He keeps doing that. Giving me exits. Opening doors I don’t seem to want to walk through.

I should choose the sensible one. Bianca’s cabin. A locked door. A pillow I can scream into while reviewing the entire evening like evidence in court. That is what a rational woman would do.

Unfortunately, rational women do not climb into strangers’ laps at weddings.

Rational women do not board yachts because a man with dangerous eyes offered his hand.

Rational women probably have their purses, passports, and emotional boundaries in better order.

I look at Bianca. She is still smiling, but there’s something softer behind it now. Isabella, for once, says nothing. Adriana watches with quiet interest, not judgment. And Luca waits. That may be what undoes me.

“I’ll stay with Luca,” I say.

Bianca clasps both hands to her chest. “Fashion saves another romance.”

“This is not a romance,” I say automatically.

Luca looks down at me. “No?”

The question is soft enough to be unfair.

I swallow. “It’s… under review.”

Isabella presses a hand over her mouth. Adriana turns away, but I see her smile.

From the salon doorway, Nonna’s voice carries with perfect timing. “Do not review too long, Lucia. Good things expire when ignored.”

I close my eyes. “She heard that?”

Luca’s mouth curves. “She hears everything.”

“I’m beginning to think the yacht is wired directly to her earrings.”

“It would explain several things,” Adriana says.

Bianca steps forward and kisses my cheek like we have known each other for years instead of hours. “Goodnight, Lucia.”

“Am I ever getting Lucy back?”

She considers. “Maybe for taxes.”

“Comforting.”

Isabella squeezes my arm. “If he becomes broody and silent, poke him. It resets the system.”

“I heard that,” Luca says.

“You were meant to,” Isabella sings.

Then, somehow, they let us go.

The hallway feels longer with just the two of us. Quieter. The sounds of the family fade behind us. I am suddenly aware of everything. Luca’s hand around mine. The brush of my dress against my thighs. The warm air slipping through the corridor vents. The fact that I have just agreed to sleep in his cabin after knowing him for one impossible evening.

When he stops outside a dark wood door near the end of the corridor, my heart climbs directly into my throat and sets up camp.

“This is me,” he says.

“Your cabin?”