My Father Traded Me for the Don's Sister, So I Married the Don novel · Chapter 16 of 32

Chapter 16: Mother's Pearls

Gemma slept in my room that night, because the roads had iced and Luca would not hear of her driving.

At dawn I came down the east stairs in my robe and found the door ajar and the lamp on.

She was sitting up in my bed with a quilt around her shoulders, holding a small velvet pouch.

"You're awake," I said.

"I never sleep after five," she said. She patted the mattress. "Sit. I have to give you something before I lose my nerve."

I sat on the bed, and she put the pouch in my hands.

Inside lay my mother's pearls.

They were clean and bright, and the clasp had been mended with a new gold hook.

"The old one was broken," Gemma said. "It broke in the duffel, I think."

She smoothed the quilt.

"I was too embarrassed to say anything, so I took them to the jeweler on Hylan on Friday. I paid with my own money."

"Your money."

"I had a little saved from Sundays." She smiled crookedly. "Papa Aurelio gave me forty dollars every Friday for helping with his church accounts. He called it a fortune."

"Forty dollars a week to do the books?"

"Every Friday."

I started to laugh.

I put my hand over my mouth, and the laugh leaked out around my fingers.

Then Gemma was laughing too, and we both fell back against the headboard.

"I did his books for seven years," I said, wheezing. "He told me family doesn't send invoices."

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