AllFreeNovel
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“I hate dresses, Mommy,” Jess whines. “I want to wear a suit like the boys.”
“I know, baby, but it’s only for a few hours,” Joey replies sweetly.
“You should have let her wear whatever she wanted.” My niece is every bit as headstrong as her mother.
“She told me yesterday that she wanted to wear a dress!” Joey throws her arms in the air. “The child is a law unto herself.”
“Sounds like someone else I know,” Dante says good-naturedly, giving our sister a kiss on the cheek.
“Hey!” Joey playfully swats his chest.
Max wraps an arm around her, their son drifting off to sleep cradled against his chest. “You look beautiful, baby girl.”
“Thank you,” she says, her cheeks flushed.
“What are you doing in here anyway?” Dante asks. “Did Mia send you in here to make sure Lorenzo wasn’t having a breakdown?”
I scowl at my brother in the mirror.
“Nope.” Joey shrugs. “That woman is as cool as a goddamn cucumber.”
Dante laughs. “She kinda has to be to put up with Lorenzo.”
The three of them start talking about the ceremony, but their chatter fades away and becomes white noise. I feel a heaviness in my heart that I was expecting, but it rankles just the same.
“I need to see her,” I say, interrupting their chatter and making the three of them stare back at me through the mirror.
“Who? Mia?” Joey asks with a frown.
“Yes.”
“You can’t. It’s bad luck,” she insists.
“I need to see her, Joey. Make it happen.”
She blinks at me. “Lorenzo? Are you—”
“Just do it. Please.”
“Okay. Okay. I’ll think of something.” She gives me a reassuring smile, but Max and Dante watch me with concern.
Five minutes later, I’m standing in the pantry with the door open waiting for my bride and under strict instructions from my kid sister that I will, under no circumstances, step out of this tiny room and look at Mia before the ceremony.
Her soft footsteps approach and my heart beats harder in my chest. The scent of her perfume makes my cock twitch. I’m so tempted to go out there so I can pull my fiancée into my arms, but I made Joey a promise.
“Hey you,” she says softly. Her shadow falls across the floor, and I figure she’s leaning against the wall right outside the door.
“Hey.” I reach my hand out for hers, and she laces her fingers through mine. Her skin is warm and soft like silk.
I swallow the thick knot of emotion stuck in my throat.
She squeezes my hand tighter. “She would be proud of you, you know that, right?”
Tears prick at the corners of my eyes. This woman has such a beautiful fucking soul, and I don’t know what I ever did to deserve her. How many women would comfort their husband-to-be on their wedding day because they thought they were thinking about someone else? “I love you,” I rasp.
“I know.”
“You have any idea how much restraint it’s taking to not pull you into this pantry with me and kiss you?”
