Page 34 of My Wedding Mafia Style

We stand there one second too long.

Then Nonna’s voice floats from inside the salon.

“Luca, if you are trying to hide her in the hallway, you are doing it poorly.”

Lucy closes her eyes. “She can hear through walls?”

“Yes.”

I guide her forward before she can decide the hallway is safer. Nonna sits at the far end of the salon in a cream chair angled toward the windows. She has changed nothing about herself, yet somehow she appears more powerful here than she did at the reception. Perhaps because this is her territory now. Not the wedding. Not a room filled with people who do not know better than to underestimate her.

This is family space. Now, Lucy is in the center of it.

My mother sits nearby with a glass of wine. My father stands at the bar.

Nonna lifts one hand, summoning us closer with a small movement that everyone obeys. “Lucia.”

Lucy releases my hand only because Nonna extends hers. I dislike the absence immediately.

Lucy steps forward and takes my grandmother’s hand. “Nonna.”

My grandmother’s eyebrows lift. Lucy freezes.

“I’m sorry,” she says quickly. “Am I allowed to call you that? Everyone else does, and now I’ve accidentally joined the chorus.”

Nonna watches Lucy for one long, silent moment.

Then she pats her hand. “You may call me Nonna.”

My mother’s face softens. My father’s mouth curves.

Lucy looks only relieved.

Nonna gestures to the space in front of her. “Let me see you.”

Lucy glances toward me, but she obeys, stepping back with a little turn that is half awkward, half graceful. The emerald dress catches the light and moves around her body like it belongs to her, not to Bianca, not to this yacht, not to this family.

To her. My grandmother notices that too.

“Bianca chose well,” Nonna says.

“I usually do,” Bianca says, entering the salon with my sisters.

“Do not ruin the compliment by accepting it too quickly.”

Bianca lifts her glass. “Noted.”

Nonna’s gaze returns to Lucy. “But the dress is only cloth. A beautiful woman makes it matter.”

Lucy’s cheeks warm. “Thank you.”

“You do not know how to take compliments.”

“No,” Lucy admits. “But I’m working on not rejecting them out loud.”

Nonna smiles. “Good. That wastes time.”

Lucy glances at me. “Your family is very concerned with efficient emotional processing.”