The words settled into me with a weight I felt all the way down.
They didn’t make anything easier.
But for the first time since Pietro had told me the truth, I could see what choosing him might actually look like when it was lived instead of merely feared.
“I had not planned for this,” I admitted quietly. “For him.”
“No,” Lily said with a soft smile. “No one does. I think that may be part of what makes it right.” Then she waved a hand, dismissing her own insight. “Ignore me. Do what you need to do. But if you ever need someone to talk to, I’m here. I’ve walked this line, and I would have given a great deal in the beginning for someone who understood what I was trying to hold together.”
The simple generosity of that landed somewhere I hadn't expected.
“Thank you,” I said.
She squeezed my hand once and straightened just as Victoria appeared in the doorway, pulling Lily away.
Dinner was served a little later in a dining room large enough to intimidate me on sight and warm enough to make that intimidation feel slightly ridiculous. The table itself was long but not formal, set beautifully without crossing into pagentry. Candles. Soft lighting. Too much food, all of which smelled incredible. Somewhere between the second glass of wine Lily insisted I have and Victoria’s running commentary, the whole thing slipped from daunting to surreal to strangely lovely.
Sandro sat at the head of the table, which felt both inevitable and misleading. Yes, he was the center in one way, but the room still bent just as naturally toward Lily. Pietro sat beside me, one hand occasionally brushing my knee under the table. I wondered if he needed the reassurance I was still there, not running away. Across from us, Olivero looked far too relaxed for a man who, by all logic, should not have belonged to such intimate family dinners and yet clearly had for years.
Victoria, unfortunately, had no respect for atmosphere whatsoever.
“Nicolo is very handsome,” she announced apropos of absolutely nothing while methodically destroying a piece of bread. “I think I will marry him.”
There was one brief, perfect second of silence.
Then both Sandro and Pietro said at exactly the same time, “Over my dead body.”
Victoria rolled her eyes so hard I feared for her vision. “You’re both dramatic.”
“He’s twelve,” Pietro said flatly.
“He’s thirteen in March.”
“That,” Sandro said with deadly calm, “changes nothing.”
Lily took a slow sip of wine. “Perhaps let’s not start an inter-family war over a hypothetical child marriage before dessert.”
“It’s not hypothetical,” Victoria muttered. “He said I was pretty.”
“God help us,” Pietro said under his breath.
I bit down hard on the inside of my cheek to stop myself laughing.
Pietro looked at me, and his expression softened immediately when he saw I was trying not to smile.
“This is amusing to you?” he asked.
“Deeply.”
“Cruel woman.”
“You said I was dangerous.”
“I understated the problem.”
Lily’s eyes sparkled over the rim of her glass. Sandro, meanwhile, had gone very still, pretending he was not being manipulated by a ten-year-old with big eyes and absolutely no shame.
Later, when Victoria insisted on showing me three separate photo albums and Olivero got dragged into an argument about the superiority of Italian beaches versus everywhere else on earth, I found myself laughing more freely than I expected to.
