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“Shall we go in? I believe the chef has an amazing course of food laid out for us to eat.” He held open the door for us to precede him.
I went first so that my father wouldn’t accuse the Romanos of anything. He’s known for making outlandish remarks about other dons. I never knew if he liked to cause trouble or he was just extremely paranoid.
Angelo arrived in the dining room just as I came through the doors.
“Ah, so you’ve shown your face. That’s in our favor.” He scoffed immediately.
“Father, I need you to be civil with my future in-laws.” He stared down his father, “Accusations won’t do well.” Luciano put an arm over my shoulder to remind Angelo of our upcoming union and the benefits to the Romano family.
“Welcome to our home. You’ll have to excuse my husband and son. They have no manners no matter how many times I’ve sent them to finishing school. None of it seemed to stick.” Krysten breezed into the room with the grace and class of a well-educated and wealthy woman. Her hair and makeup were perfect and she wore lovely cream colored flowy pants with a white blouse. She brought poise to the Romano men.
“I know just what you mean.” My mother chuckled, her charming smile planted firmly on her face and held out her hand. “I’m Bianca Montrelli and this is my daughter, Carina. I’m not sure if you’ve met Marco, but obviously you’ve met Bria.”
“Yes, Bria and I got to chat yesterday. I don’t believe I’ve had the pleasure, Marco.” Krysten’s graceful behavior took the tension in the room down quite a bit. “It appears that lunch is ready, if I can convince everyone to take a seat.”
The men held out the chairs for us in an old-fashioned way as we took our seats.
“Carina, I know that Bria has some accounting experience, but she didn’t mention where you were going to school.” Krysten continued to control the conversation and I realized that she was truly the dominating presence in the room. The hot heads would have taken over if her cooler head hadn’t prevailed.
I needed to find a way to start learning from her. I could only imagine the amount of ice that ran through her veins to be able to stay calm when there were guards in the room to keep her husband from killing my father. Because who knew what the future would hold, and I would need to be able to keep Luciano calm in certain situations. Not all deals could be handled with bloodshed. Granted, I could be a loose canyon too, so hopefully he had picked up some things from his mother because there might be times he would need to keep me calm.
“With Bria doing the business aspect of school, Mother and Father thought that law would help balance out the family needs. I’ve got another year left, but I do paralegal work now for a firm that I hope will hire me when I have my license.” Carina smiled at me.
There were so many things going on in the room that weren’t being spoken with words. The glares Marco sent to my father. My father was acting interested in what Carina had to say, even though I knew he was indifferent. Our mothers, keeping the peace and the conversation flowing. Luciano kept glancing around the table, while he kept his hand on my thigh. It was hard to focus on the actual conversation in the room.
Our conversation later was going to be full of questions. Hopefully, Luciano knew what was being discussed and would remember it.
“Those are wise choices. I’m a bit partial to the accounting side, since that’s what I do for our family.” She nodded at me and I let out the breath that I’d been holding. “I came over from Italy in my teens and met Angelo while I was in college. Most women back then would have given up on school, but I knew that I needed to finish what I’d started.”
“That’s very admirable.” My father congratulated her. “Of course Bianca wanted to try to go to school, but when we found out we were having twins, it seemed the better option that she stay home. Child care back then was so expensive.”
I marveled that my father would mention child care costs to the enemy family. It wasn’t like that had ever been a consideration. Had it? Were my parents completely different people than I’d always assumed? I never took into consideration that they loved each other at one point. After all, their marriage wasn’t an arranged marriage like mine.
I glanced over at Luciano where he caught me looking at him and gazed into my eyes. Was an arranged marriage so bad?
“Thus, I know nothing that can be useful to the business.” My mother ducked her head as if ashamed of her lack of skills.
She’d never been a leader but always followed direction easily which made it hard for her to be included in the business because no one would take orders from such a mild spoken woman. People respected her, and didn’t treat her bad, but that was because she was the don’s wife and the underbosses’ mother. Or used to be underboss.
“There is nothing wrong with being a stay at home mom. Honestly, if I’d had twins, that might have brought me home for a while. I can’t sit still for long though. I start itching to work. Angelo finally gave in about a month after Luciano was born and realized that it was easier to give me some numbers to work with than to try to make me stay home.” She flashed him a loving smile. “So I took Luciano to work with me until he was old enough for kindergarten.”
“Since none of you have any children yet, Carina, what do you plan to do within the family business? Criminal law? Real Estate Law?” Angelo turned his attention to the weakest link in our family for answers.
Carina shuffled slightly in her chair; she hated when people called on her in the middle of a conversation. She hated the attention. “Um, I never really thought about it. I don’t do well with criminal types. They tend to think I’m super naive so probably corporate law or something similar. That’s not really something that will benefit the family though.” Carina shrugged, and I knew that she was having a hard time thinking of participating in the family’s business because she believed what we did was wrong. She’d been trying to find a way out for years.
“I’m really looking forward to finding out where I fit in the Romano family business. There are so many aspects to working in the business that I just never thought about working on those within our family,” I piped up to get the focus off Carina and her poor nerves.
“I’m sure there will be somewhere exciting for me to work.” Sarcasm laced my tone. “I want to be able to contribute like you do, Mrs. Romano.”
“Oh, honey, call me Krysten. We’ll find the perfect place for you that you can do and not get bored with at the same time.” She reassured me. “Something to keep you out of danger when you’re expecting.”
Angelo was simply shooting daggers at me, but that was half the fun of a family lunch. He couldn’t mistreat me in front of his rivals. It was the perfect moment for me to get it all out of my system. I’ll probably be punished later, but at least I got it out there. It was better than doing it in a destructive manner.
“I certainly hope I won’t be bored. If it’s anything like the past twenty-four hours, then I’m sure it’s going to be very exciting living here.” I winked at Carina, who went white as a sheet.
“Hey, it appears I’m bulletproof for now. Maybe I’ll manage to become Superman in the future.”
“Don’t push your luck.” Luciano squeezed my hand. “I’d hate to lose you while we’re just getting to know each other.” He leaned over and kissed my temple.
