Page 58 of My Wedding Mafia Style

“There is definitely such a thing. I passed three arrangements on the way to the bathroom that looked like they had staff.”

“They did have staff,” Isabella says. “Someone had to keep them hydrated.”

I turn my head slowly. “The flowers have attendants?”

Adriana glances up from one of the phones. “Only the exterior installations.”

“That sentence should not exist.”

Bianca smiles at me in the mirror, her expression softening. “It’s your wedding day, Lucia. Let the flowers have assistants.”

I don’t even correct the name anymore.

Somewhere between the Bahamas, the engagement ring, Luca meeting my parents, Nonna ordering six hundred of my Dream in a Bottle kits as “family gifts,” and me learning that Morettis do not announce love so much as absorb you into an operational structure, I became Lucia to them. Lucy to my family. Mrs. Moretti to absolutely no one yet, unless Isabella was filling out novelty champagne flutes again.

Nine months ago, the name felt like a warning. Now it feels like belonging.

The door opens softly, and my mother steps inside. For one breath, the room stills. She looks at me, and her hands fly to her mouth. “Oh, Lucy.”

That does it.

Not Bianca’s tears. Not the dress. Not the flowers with their own hydration team. My mother’s voice, broken and full of love, reaches straight through all the sparkle and planning and Moretti-level excess to the part of me that remembers sitting alone after Derek, wondering if I had become the kind of woman people left behind.

I’m not that woman anymore. Maybe I never was.

“Mom,” I whisper.

She crosses the room and takes my hands, careful not to crush the bouquet Bianca has not yet allowed me to hold because apparently bouquets have a correct “moment.” My mother’s eyes move over my dress, my hair, my face, then settle on the ring on my finger.

The ring Luca bought in the Bahamas when we were both still pretending that anything about us could be temporary.

“It’s perfect,” she says.

I laugh softly. “The wedding or the dress?”

“You.”

My throat tightens. “Don’t start. I’m already emotionally unstable, and Isabella has steam.”

“I’m very responsible with steam,” Isabella says from the floor.

“No, you aren’t,” the other two sisters say together.

My mother laughs, and just like that, the room feels less like a bridal suite in an oceanfront estate and more like a family kitchen with better lighting and more diamonds.

The estate belongs to one of Luca’s cousins, though I have learned that Moretti cousin is a flexible category. It might mean blood relative, business partner, godson, man who once drove Nonna through a storm, or someone who knows where the good limoncello is hidden. The house sits along Florida’s southeastern coast, all pale stone, arched windows, and terraces spilling down toward the water. White chairs line the lawn. The aisle stretches between them toward an arch wrapped in roses and greenery. Beyond that, the ocean flashes blue under a sun so bright it feels like the sky is celebrating too.

When I first saw it this morning, I laughed. Then I cried. Then I asked Luca if we were legally required to notify air traffic control because the chandeliers in the reception tent were visible from space.

He kissed me and told me I was beautiful. So, as usual, not helpful.

A knock sounds at the door. Controlled and familiar sound. My entire body recognizes it before anyone speaks.

“No,” Bianca says immediately.

The door opens anyway, but only an inch.

“Is she ready?” Luca asks from the other side.