My Family Stole My Wedding Day, So I Stole His Bride-to-Be novel · Chapter 2 of 24
Chapter 2: Her Terms
In his car Gemma lays out her bargain and four rules, and Nico agrees. He ends his engagement to Camilla, who says his father expected him to come back.
I let Gemma into the passenger seat and locked the doors, in case my father sent someone after us.
She turned the heater up and held her hands in front of the vent.
"You have a minute," I said. "Then I'm driving to my apartment, and you're walking back to your fiancé."
"He is not my fiancé in any way that counts." She said it flatly. "He's my father's signature on a merger."
"You said yes to him."
"My father said yes. I stood next to the cake and smiled."
She turned to face me.
"If I walk away, the merger dies, my father blames me, and Renzo gets another girl by summer. If you walk away, you get an apartment and a very quiet year."
"And if I stay?"
"On March 14 the church fills up and the Villa fills up, and I walk down the aisle to the Tessaro who deserves the date."
I laughed. It came out harsh.
"You want me to marry you. A woman I've met twice."
"Three times," she said. "But go on."
"I was engaged yesterday."
"You've been engaged for five years. Yesterday you were still waiting."
That landed, and she saw it land.
"I'm not going to ask you to love me," she said. "I'm asking for a wedding. A real one, with a priest and a license, so nobody can say it wasn't."
"Why would you want that?"
"Because the other choice is Renzo." Her grey eyes didn't move off my face. "And you're the only person at that table who stood up."
I looked through the windshield at the lit windows of the house.
Someone had pulled back a curtain.
"Four rules," Gemma said, and counted them off on her gloved fingers. "One, the marriage is real. No fake paper, no secret exit clause."
"Fine."
"Two, nothing happens between us before the wedding. Not a kiss in private, not a hand, not a night. If we're doing this, nobody gets to say we started in a bed."
"Fine," I said again, slower.
"Three, nobody finds out it began as a bargain. Your family, mine, the priest. To everyone we fell for each other."
"Over what, a plate of ziti?"
"Over a long time and a lot of Sundays." She didn't smile. "Four. On March 15, either of us can walk, and the other doesn't chase."
I thought about it for as long as my breath fogged the glass.
Then I held out my hand.
"One question first," I said. "Why this date? Renzo said you picked it."
"I told him it was lucky." She shook my hand once, hard. "I like to be early for things."
Her palm was cold and her grip was steady.
I drove her back to the gate, and she got out without saying goodbye, and she walked back into the house in her grey dress with her head up.
*
Camilla's building is two streets from the Villa, a clean brick walk-up with a green door.
I had a key. I didn't use it.
I sat on the front step in the cold until she came up the walk at ten, with her coat buttoned wrong and her eyes swollen.
My father's driver pulled away from the curb behind her.
"You waited," she said.
"I wanted to say it to your face."
She sat down beside me on the step.
"Say what? That you're angry? I'm angry. I'm angry, too, Nico. I've been wearing this ring for five years, and I put up with every one of your family's parties."
"I'm not angry." It was true, and I was surprised by it. "I'm done."
"Over a date."
"Over five of them."
She took a long breath, and then she began to cry in the quiet way she does, her shoulders barely moving.
"Your father said you would do this," she said. "He said you'd storm out, and I should let you cool off, and you'd be back by Wednesday."
I stood up.
"He said that to you when?"
"At lunch. Last week." She wiped her face. "Because he knows you, Nico. You always come back to me."
"Camilla, I'm not coming back."
I took the key off my ring and set it on the step between us.
Her ring stayed on her hand. I didn't ask for it.
"Don't," she said, very small. "Please don't do this the week of the claim. Wait a day."
"I've waited five years."
I walked down the steps, and I heard her say my name once, and I didn't turn around.
In the car my phone buzzed.
It was my father.
*Wednesday dinner, my house. Come alone. We'll fix this like adults.*
I read it twice.
Last week at lunch, he had told her I'd storm out.
Before anyone had filed a thing.
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