Page 59 of My Wedding Mafia Style
Bianca throws herself in front of me like a one-woman security detail. “Absolutely not. You cannot see her.”
“I have seen her.”
“Not today, you haven’t.”
“I saw her this morning.”
“In pajamas. That does not count.”
“It counted for me.”
“Luca Moretti,” my mother says, and I have never loved her more.
The hallway goes silent.
Then Luca says, “Mrs. Phillips.”
“Go away.”
Isabella claps both hands over her mouth. Adriana looks delighted in a very restrained way.
Bianca whispers, “I love your mother.”
From behind the door, Luca sighs. “I only need one minute.”
“No,” Bianca says.
“Ten seconds.”
“No.”
“Five.”
“No.”
I step around Bianca before she can physically restrain me and move toward the door, lifting my dress with both hands. “Everyone breathe. I’m not going to let him see the dress.”
“You cannot negotiate with the groom,” Adriana says.
“I negotiated with him in a jewelry store in the Bahamas. I have experience.”
I open the door just enough to slip my hand through. Luca takes it immediately.
His fingers close around mine, warm and steady, and the noise inside me settles. It always does that with him. Even now. Especially now.
“You’re not supposed to be here,” I say.
“I know.”
“That has never stopped you.”
“No.”
His thumb moves over my knuckles, right over the ring. “Are you all right?”
There it is. The real reason.
Not impatience. Not control. Not even romance, though there is always that with Luca, woven through everything now like gold thread. He came because he wanted to know if I was okay. Because he knows spectacle can make me laugh and then quietly overwhelm me. Because he knows the woman who builds tiny worlds inbottles sometimes needs one small thing she can hold when the big world gets too bright.
