AllFreeNovel
Share Us
JEWEL
Two weeks had passed since my argument with Nicu. I’d caught him stalking me a few times, which only irritated me because of the huge wave of relief I felt whenever I spotted him. I hated that a part of me, one that I failed to stifle, that feared he’d give up on me. But no, he was around. What he was thinking, I had no idea, since he hadn’t tried to approach me.
He’d given me long, lingering looks at the rehearsal dinner, which I returned with angry glares. Other than that, he kept his distance. Seeing him, even while throwing daggers at him with my eyes, made me ache for him. We were in limbo, but we were nowhere near done with each other.
I’d noticed bruises around one of his eyes and found similar marks on Cristo, so I figured they’d had another clash. I rolled my eyes. Those two couldn’t help themselves. And yet, as stupid as Nicu could act, I missed him. Which only further convinced me that I was in love with him. He was such an idiot that, really, it was the only explanation for wanting him after that ridiculous proposal.
I sensed he was waiting for me to make the first move. To stand before him, stripped of my defenses as he had so often done for me, and publicly claim him. After kicking him out yet again, it made sense he’d want me to fight for him. He’d straight out told me I had to choose, and he was waiting for my answer.
Which left me facing the proverbial fork in the road. Either I accepted him as he was, with his family and his faults, or I walked away.
I’d thought long and hard about this, about him, his family, his lifestyle. There were risks involved in being with a man like Nicu, but that no longer bothered me too much. I’d already seen the havoc that could be wrecked on a family that supposedly had everything one could dream of in terms of wealth, status, security. Nothing was guaranteed, and I had come to accept that.
I was ready to throw myself into the crazy whirlwind of being with him, but the only thing holding me back was his total disinterest in marrying me, and if we stayed together, marry we must. Yes, he wanted me, but he’d been so lackadaisical about marrying me that I couldn’t help but hang back. He was waiting for me to act, but I didn’t want to put my heart on the line only for him to marry me for his family. I might not be the most romantic woman in the world, but that would kill me.
It put me in an untenable situation. My parents may have broken up, but they had been devoted to each other while they were together. They’d doted on each other. Even now, they hadn’t divorced, which I was convinced was one of the reasons that kept my father sane.
The day of Cat’s wedding finally arrived with all the fanfare associated with such an important joining. The bridesmaids congregated at Cat’s house, where we helped her get ready. Luca and the Lupu men came to take her to the church. Luca was newly clean-shaven, having gone through the wedding tradition of the “shaving of the groom,” signifying that he’d passed from boyhood to manhood. The bridesmaids, along with Cristo’s help, put Luca through his paces, making him answer silly questions and other challenges that included prodigious amounts of ?uica before we allowed him to whisk Cat away to the church.
At the Orthodox church, everyone stood in their designated spots around the altar in the sanctuary, waiting for Cat to come up the aisle. The church was sumptuous, with an elaborate chandelier above the altar illuminating Luca and the priest. Behind us stood the iconostasis, a screen with multiple layers of painted gold-leafed icons that separated the nave from the altar. I was holding Cat’s crown, elegantly shaped of gold leaves, like Caesar’s laurel wreath. I was to hand it over to the priest during a part in the ceremony called the Pirostrii or Crowning. He would then place it upon her head. Witnessing all the trappings of this special wedding right on the heels of Nicu’s botched proposal stirred longing in me.
Accompanied by her father, Cat was a vision in her gorgeous Vera Wang wedding gown made of Chantilly lace, organza, and tulle. Her hair was braided elaborately, intertwined with flowers and ribbons. After the rings were exchanged and the Crowning, the couple shared wine from the same cup while their hands were bound together with a ribbon. The ceremony touched me, leaving me discreetly wiping the sniffles from my nose. As Cat and Luca walked around the altar, my eyes drifted toward Nicu, and the last remnants of my anger fell away. He was so heart-stoppingly gorgeous, in a tuxedo that fit him like a glove, his hair styled with a rogue lock curling toward his forehead.
I wanted this experience for us. The love, the commitment, the give and take, the communication that Cat and Luca shared…it could be ours. Okay, the last item on that list still needed work, but the others were already there.
Nicu snagged my gaze across the platform and locked on me. My heart cracked open at the pining in his eyes. His gaze scored down my fitted dress to my shoes and then back up, bursting with raw hunger and ownership.
If nothing else, he still wanted me.
Too soon, the ceremony was over, and we exited the church, throwing rice and confetti on Cat and Luca as they walked under a bridge of flowers held up by several guests. In the crush of people on the narrow street outside the church, luxury cars were lining up to take us to the restaurant for the wedding party, which would last till the break of dawn.
I found myself being pushed toward a waiting car. Excited to get to the celebration, especially for the fake kidnapping of the bride from the wedding party, I ducked into the backseat. The men were normally in charge of this wedding custom, but Emma and I decided to hijack it from them and spirit Cat away before they had a chance. Luca would have to find her and pay a “ransom” before he could have her back.
The car door was slammed shut behind me, and I found myself with the last two people I ever expected to spend time with: Nicu’s mom and twin sister. The car lurched as the fleet of sleek black vehicles started moving. My spine hit the leather back of the seat. Shit, shit, shit. Nerves fluttered in my tummy. Of all the people in the world, I was not prepared for this. But prepped or not, I was going to have to fake my way through this encounter. Plastering a smile on my face, I nodded to them both.
An elegant woman, Nicu’s mother was dressed in a gorgeous champagne-colored, scooped-neck dress made of chiffon and lace. Tasa was wearing a matching dress, her long brown hair swept down in luxurious waves, her large melted-chocolate eyes curiously inspecting me.
Nicu’s mother nodded to me with a bright smile on her face. “Ah, you must be Jewel, Cat’s maid of honor.”
Tasa’s eyes expanded slightly, confirming that she knew who I was to her brother. I groaned inside, spreading my lips into a smile so wide it was almost painful. Although Tasa had moved out of the city, she and Nicu were still close, so I suspected she knew far more than her mother, who viewed me as nothing more than her newly minted daughter-in-law’s outsider best friend and maid of honor.
“Yep,” I replied brightly. “That’s me.”
Really? That’s it. That’s all you’ve got?I thought to myself. Cringing, I shrank deep into the back seat, wishing I could disappear. Of course, we’d been introduced and attended the same parties for the past several months, but we’d never spoken to one another. The sudden shock of being stuck in a car with Nicu’s closest female relatives had turned me shy. Here I was, having an ongoing love affair with her youngest son, her baby boy, for the past several months, and she hadn’t the slightest clue he’d proposed to me, no matter how badly he’d done it. I couldn’t even consider the more salacious activities we’d engaged in. It was so awkward. I was the farthest thing from a potential daughter-in-law this woman would ever conjure up for her last son.
She chuckled knowingly.
I raised my eyebrows in surprise, uncomfortable and bracing myself for… I didn’t know what exactly.
Tasa turned to her and asked softly, “What is it? What’s so funny?”
Nicu’s mother turned her gaze on me, and I was hit with a mixture of shock and yearning. She was giving me the same penetrating blue-eyed stare her youngest son often did. Now I knew where he got it from.
“Oh, you know. I find it amusing that Luca is already married,” she confided in a faux whisper, leaning in close to me as if she was about to impart a great secret. “They think I don’t know they had a civil marriage months ago. They think they’ve gotten one over on me, kept me in the dark, but I know almost everything that happens in their lives.”
“Mama!” Tasa gasped.
My own eyes widened. That was not what I had expected. Before I could stop myself, I stammered out, “H-how do you know that?”
