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“Thank you, Cecilia. You don’t know how grateful this makes me.”
“Of course I do, child. Even these blind eyes can read that face.”
I blush softly at being so easily discerned again, but I nod in understanding. I never thought I would want the old woman’s approval, but winning it unexpectedly makes me giddy.
Our session lingers past lunch, into the hazy afternoon, until the crickets take up singing in the backyard. For hours, I give Cecilia what I suspect she has wanted for decades—someone who is eager and hungry for an old woman’s advice.
I hide the jewelry box in my art room—assuring safekeeping for the wedding.
It feels like there is too much time and yet not enough. I do not have bridesmaids. I asked Vera, but she laughed me out of the room, saying the only place she was fit for at a wedding was the wine table.
She was even sober when I asked. Maybe that was the mistake. Ava may not attend, and Kay. . .I didn’t ask. I cannot convince myself it would be a good idea. Not again.
Though it will never feel like the perfect day without her, Salvatore is not the only one who doesn’t like repeating mistakes.
We have not seen each other in person since the party, though I’ve kept in touch through text now that Salvatore is no longer paranoid about me having a phone.
I am a nervous, stressed wreck as the time shrinks, bringing me closer to the big day.
We’ve chosen a gorgeous venue for the wedding. Though the house is undoubtedly the safest place, it’s tainted with too much memory. Fear and death are still fresh there. It would feel like getting married in a graveyard. For safety, we turned away all external event planners and coordinators, leaving me to spearhead the huge undertaking. I have found a few allies among the women of the house and formed our own ‘wedding planning task force,’ as Salvatore sarcastically calls us, always fussing over shades of blue or cream, this or that flower.
I wouldn’t be so particular, but it feels like my success as the don’s wife is somehow inexplicably tied to the success of the ceremony. The entire family will be in attendance, even those whom I have never met, coming from branches of the family in Chicago all the way to Las Vegas. Salvatore mentions even, oh so casually, that the mayor will attend. When I gawk and ask why the mayor will be at my wedding, Salvatore simply shrugs and says he wouldn’t dare not be there.
Fine. Sure. Great.
Might as well save a seat for the governor, too, just in case.
Traditionally, the bride and groom do not see each other on the day and night before the ceremony. Salvatore only makes it until 1:00 in the morning, when I hear him sneaking into our room like a stray cat. I should shoo him away…but I hate this just as much as he does.
The mattress dips as he sits on the edge of the bed. He seems hesitant, not knowing if I’m going to be cross with him for breaking tradition.
I whisper into the dark, “I won’t tell if you don’t.”
He crawls over to me, sighs, and says, “I fucking hate tradition,” between kisses.
We spend the night curled up with each other like always, whispering like two school children getting away with being naughty.
Salvatore Mori has honored his word to me every night since I came back here with him.
I have had my full freedom, with bodyguards when necessary. Salvatore keeps me informed on the family business, and when I sit in with him at his office, he no longer has me on his lap like a puppet. Once we are formally married, Salvatore wants me at all of his dinner meetings, at his side. I will be weighing in on business deals more and making small talk with trophy wives.
“Are you nervous?” he asks into the dark.
“A little,” I say, his arm curled around my middle, my back against his chest as he hugs me to him.
Predictably, I feel the tension ripple through him. I’m glad I’m facing away from him, smiling to myself.
“Are you having second thoughts?”
“I mean, it’s a week-long honeymoon, Sal. How am I going to walk after?”
Salvatore smacks my ass for making him nervous, while I laugh and roll on top of him, pressing kisses of apology to his mouth.
I straddle him between my legs.
“There’s nothing to be nervous about. Not for me. The ceremony—in a way, is just for everyone else. I already know that I’m yours.”
Salvatore brings me down into a kiss again and again, until he finally growls and pushes me off. He lays on his back, looking up at me like this as his chest rises and falls.
