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And yes, of course, the baby is yours. It could have only ever been yours.
All my love,
—FrankieFrancescaCes
TO BE CONTINUED
in LAST COMES FATE, coming June 2023)
Keep reading for the first chapter OR preorder here:
www.nicolefrenchromance.com/lastcomesfate
LAST COMES FATE
COMING JUNE 2023
Chapter One
“I do.”
It was the pair of words that couldn’t be said enough on this trip, apparently. After my brother and his new wife declared their intentions not two hours ago in a fourteenth century Italian church, they seemed to be using that particular phrases with with glee for just about everything.
Would you care for a refreshment,signore?
I do.
Nina, do you want someone to save your bouquet to dry for the future?
Why yes,I do.
Every time, the crowd went wild. Like right now, when approximately fifty people laughed like hyenas after Matthew shouted it across the Piazza Guglielmo Marconi, this time in reply to the bandleader of the jazz quarter who’d asked him if he wanted them to start playing. Every person in the party cheered as my brother then leaned down and delivered yet another long, drawn out kiss to his bride. Matthewr was ecstatic. His wife was aglow. Her daughter, Olivia, was practically a sunbeam.
And I felt like the rainiest rain cloud there ever was.
It was a lovely autumn night. The forty or so of us indulged in wine and handmade mozzarella beneath a canopy of strung lights, courtesy of the trattoria hired to cater this lovely affair. A little band kicked off a selection of jazz standards that only added to the overall ambience, especially when some of the locals and other tourists started to make use of the hastily erect dance floor atop the cobbled square. No one seemed to mind—if anything, the impromptu dancers lent even more romance to what was already a near elopement.
The sunset gleamed off the Mediterranean waves.
Plates of pastas steamed in front of every carefully set place.
Guests were laughing and enjoying the bountiful wine and cocktails.
And I was sick as a freaking dog.
“God, justlookat them,” my sister Kate muttered.
Matthew swept Nina up from her chair, leaving their food to start waltzing in the the middle of the square. My brother was old school, but he never cared for propriety. Not when he came to his Nina. It shouldn’t have been a surprise that he was abandoning tradition to dance with his new wife just as soon as he damn well pleased.
I couldn’t help but stare as the nausea in my belly was temporarily replaced by envy. They were elegant together, yes. Nina was possibly a better dancer than Matthew, an impressive feat given the fact that all of us had been subject to Nonna’s dance “lessons” when we were growing up. The two of them moved so naturally to a jazz version of “Someday My Prince Will Come” that they could have been doubles for Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers.
But mostly it was their closeness that took my breath away. Nina had changed from her couture wedding gown into a simpler off-white dress that fluttered around her calves, and Matthew had long since eschewed his tie and jacket, making do in his shirtsleeves while he wrapped one arm around Nina’s waist and used the other to tuck her hand against his chest so that they were truly dancing cheek to cheek.
His lips moved, whispering some silent, sweet nothing into her ear. Nina only nuzzled him further, then allowed him to engage her with a kiss in which they were obviously the only two in the entire town, guests and villagers be damned.
It made me want to retch. Or sob. Maybe both.
“Hey, you two, the first dance is supposed to beafterdinner,” Marie, one of my younger sisters, called from the other side of the table.
