Page 7 of My Wedding Mafia Style

Adriana’s face gives away very little, which means she is already dissecting Lucy’s dress, posture, motives, and bloodline. Isabella, predictably, is not even pretending to be subtle. She is smiling like she has just found a grenade in a gift bag.

And then there is Nonna. My grandmother sits at the center of the table, silver hair swept back, diamonds at her ears, posture perfect. She does not stare at Lucy the way the others do. She observes her. That is worse.

Lucy leans closer to me. “Are they always like that?”

“Like what?”

“Like I’m a strange dessert no one ordered, but everyone wants to taste.”

I look down at her.

She looks horrified by her own words.

“Please forget I said that.”

“I will not.”

“You absolutely should.”

“It was vivid.”

“It was stress.”

“It was accurate.”

Her mouth presses together, but the corners twitch. Good. She’s still nervous, but she’s not frozen. Most people stiffen under my family’s attention. Lucy seems to vibrate with the urge to either flee or say the worst possible thing. I am beginning to suspect she will say the worst possible thing.

“Come,” I say.

Her fingers tighten around mine. “To them?”

“Yes.”

“Now?”

“They’re staring.”

“That feels like a reason to leave.”

“It’s a reason to give them something betterto stare at.”

She turns her face toward me. Her eyes are very blue under the chandeliers, wide with disbelief and annoyance and something bright enough to make me forget, for half a second, that half the room is watching us.

“You are enjoying this,” she says.

“I am.”

“At least lie a little.”

“I prefer not to start our relationship with dishonesty.”

Her eyebrows lift when I say those two words. I said it deliberately, and she hears it exactly that way. A flush moves across her cheeks. The reaction should not please me as much as it does.

“Luca,” she says under her breath, “we do not have a relationship.”

“Not yet.”

Before she can answer, Bianca rises from the table. I nearly sigh.