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It wasn’t until she lay over me that I asked her about her childhood.
It wasn’t until our bodies cooled and our breathing settled that I asked her about Italy.
It wasn’t until she closed her eyes that she asked me for another day of peace.
It wasn’t until her breathing evened in sleep, that I replied.
“One more day.”
XLIII
KATIA
Church bells rangin loud harmony. Each chime collided with the uneven beat of my heart. A numbing sensation scattered between my fingertips and swept over my nerves, casting chills beneath my skin. The thundering bolts of merciless clouds above had settled into a lullaby of soft sprinkles. A dull mist carried along with the shadowed sky that passed through the church as a glimmer of sunshine infiltrated the horizon.
I kept my eyes high above the second-story window of the church, watching as a few seagulls flew quickly while they had the time to escape the threatening return of rain. Their beaks opened in the air as they let out aha-ha-ha, andhuoh-huoh.It was a natural call they made, but I smiled as I imagined their laughter for defying nature.
They disappeared into the open air, and I lowered my eyes to the countless bodies that walked with closed umbrellas into the church. Oblivious of my gaze on them, or the short time we had to perform the outside wedding I wanted.
After all, you could only defy nature and fate for so long.
Nature, the rain.
Fate, marriage.
My thoughts quickly shifted to the man I would meet shortly next to a priest. In front of witnesses and under God’s eyes.
Today, I would marry Lucca.
Today, I would bear his name.
Today, and so forth, I would be called Katia Moretti.
Mrs. Moretti.
I played with my smile with a cherry pinched between my fingers, thinking, and…hopeful?
I had given up hope, and yet, here it was, knocking the air out of my lungs and punching my chest with worry for heartache. I shook my head.
I had asked for one more day of peace. I wouldn’t waste it in fear. Not today. Instead, I pulled the memories I’d spent underneath his body this morning, dragged the unsaid words, and bathed in the lips that stole my breath. I listened to the echo of his promise as he left me in the room I now stood in alone.
“You will meet me shortly, and even God will know you are mine.”
A shiver scurried in sweet possession. The idea to belong to one man and him to me.
The idea of our spirits uniting and our souls meeting.
Even if he only felt the hold and the idea of me being his.
It was more than I had anticipated. More than most arranged marriages had.
So I would agree to his seizure of my being. I would agree to the terms of who I was to him and who he was to me.
It was more than I had imagined.
More than what a cruel mafioso should be capable of, and yet, given to me.
It was not settling, It was twisting and mending.
