My Family Stole My Wedding Day, So I Stole His Bride-to-Be novel · Chapter 3 of 24

Chapter 3: Lunch at the Ferrantes

Gemma introduces Nico to her father in front of Renzo, and a kiss on the terrace settles it, until her father sets a Friday deadline.

The Ferrantes eat lunch at two, at a table long enough to seat a wedding party, and nobody speaks until the soup is served.

I sat on Gemma's left on Tuesday with a borrowed tie on and a stomach full of nothing.

Renzo sat across from us, on her father's right, already pouring himself wine.

He had arrived ten minutes before we did. He had brought flowers.

"Little brother," he said, when he saw me in the doorway. "Did Dad send you to apologize?"

"No," I said.

"Then he sent you to carry the cake samples."

Gemma's father put down his spoon.

He was a heavy, silent man in his sixties who did most of his business at the head of his own dining table, and he looked at me for a long time.

"Nicolas Tessaro," he said. "My daughter says you have something to tell me."

Gemma set her napkin beside her bowl.

"Papa," she said. "I'm not marrying Renzo."

The room did not move.

A maid in the doorway stopped with a bread basket against her chest.

Renzo laughed first. It was a good laugh, warm and tolerant, the kind he uses on waiters.

"Sweetheart, you're nervous," he said. "Everybody's nervous in January. The caterer calls and you panic."

"I'm marrying Nico."

"Nico." He turned to me with real delight. "My brother, who had a fight with his girlfriend on Sunday."

"His fiancée," Gemma said. "Former."

"Five years, and he's available by Tuesday." Renzo shook his head. "Papa Ferrante, you see how it goes. It's a breakup crush. He'll be crying into his coffee by March."

I stayed in my chair and kept my voice level.

"I filed for March 14, Renzo. You filed first, and you won, and the book says so. But the bride is not in the book, she's in this chair."

"The bride is named in the book."

"Names get crossed out."

Gemma's father lifted a hand.

Everyone went quiet.

"My daughter," he said slowly, "went through your family's books herself for a year, Nicolas, line by line, for this merger. She says they are clean enough to sign."

He turned his head toward her.

"And now she says she will not sign herself."

"I will sign, Papa. With the right name."

He studied her face. Then he studied mine.

"Prove it," he said. "I will not hand my daughter to a boy who was told to sit down by his own father. I want to see it. Go outside."

"Papa, he's not on trial."

"He is a groom. A groom is always on trial." He picked up his spoon. "Go to the terrace. Show me you are not a man who changes his mind by Friday."

Gemma pushed her chair back.

I followed her through the glass doors onto a stone terrace above the Ferrante lawn.

She walked to the railing and turned around.

Through the glass her father watched us. So did Renzo.

"He wants a show," Gemma said quietly.

"Rule two says nothing before the wedding."

"Rule two says nothing in private." Her eyes were on mine. "This has an audience."

I stepped in.

I put one hand on the railing beside her hip.

I put the other at the back of her neck, under her black hair.

I felt her breath catch before I did anything at all.

"Tell me when to stop," I said.

"Don't you dare," Gemma said.

I kissed her.

She tasted of the coffee she had drunk in the car.

She kissed me back at once, hard, one hand fisted in my borrowed shirt.

She pulled me against her until the cold stone rail pressed into her back.

I slid my mouth along her jaw and back, slow.

She made a sound I had not expected, low in her throat.

Her fingers opened against my chest.

For a moment I forgot there was anyone watching.

Then she pushed gently at my shirt, and I lifted my head, and we were both breathing hard.

"Rule two," I said, rough. "That counted as public."

"That counted," she said, "as very convincing." Her mouth was swollen and she looked shaken, and she hid it quickly. "Let's go in."

When we came back through the glass doors, Renzo had stopped smiling.

Gemma's father rose from his chair and wiped his mouth.

"The wedding is on the fourteenth," he said. "I will sign the merger there, in front of the priest, and not before."

He looked at me.

"But I will not walk her down an aisle toward a man whose own family thinks he is a joke. Bring me the blessing of Pia Tessaro, written in that book of hers, by Friday."

"And if I don't?"

"Then the bride," he said, "goes to the groom whose name is already in it."

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