Page 334

I can barely breathe. “Not on our wedding day.”

“Tomorrow, then.”

“And,” Chiara continues, raising her voice over everyone, “he even learned one of the dances from our homeland.”

“Oh no,” Jude mutters.

“Oh yes.” I grab his hand.

“The tarantella!”

My Italian family erupts. Chiara points straight at us.

“So here it is, Jude. Get your ass and your wife onto that dance floor because tonight we party Calabria style!”

“And country style too!” Jace calls from somewhere behind us.

Everyone laughs. Chiara points towards him.

“Deal!”

The first fast notes of the tarantella burst through the speakers.

My mouth falls open. “Oh my God!”

Hands start clapping immediately. My family knows exactly what’s happening. Jude’s family very clearly does not.

Which makes it even better.

I tug his hand. “Come on, Grumpy!”

“No.”

“You danced it in Calabria.”

“Twice.”

“You’re my husband now. You can’t say no.”

“Pretty sure that’s not how marriage works.”

“It is in Italy.”

I pull him towards the dance floor while he grumbles something under his breath, but I see the smile he’s trying to hide.

Then everyone starts joining us.

The Hawthornes have no idea what the hell they’re doing.

Jace is enthusiastically doing something that bears absolutely no resemblance to the tarantella. Dex is laughing too hard to follow the steps. Someone grabs someone else and spins them in completely the wrong direction while my relatives shout instructions nobody listens to.

Jude actually knows it.

I laugh when he takes my hand and turns me.

“There he is!”

“Don’t start.”