My Husband Sent the Helicopter to Save a Dog, So I Signed novel · Chapter 21 of 24

Chapter 21: Two Hundred and Six

Marisa's POV

The doctor took one step toward me and Alec moved into it.

He didn't touch her.

He just stood between us in his captain's jacket with his lips still wet from mine.

"You have no order," I said to the doctor. "Mitchell tore it up in my bakery in front of twenty people."

The woman in the gray blazer looked at Odette.

Odette gave her a small tilt of the head, and the doctor's shoulders came down.

"I'm here as a guest of the host," the doctor said.

"Then enjoy the wine."

Constance took my arm.

"Oh, I like you," she said into my ear. "Walk."

We went down the airstair into the sun.

Napa in the morning was gold and green and smelled like warm dirt.

Two black cars took us up a road through the vines, and the hills opened on a long white pergola strung with lights and a lawn covered in round tables.

Two hundred and six chairs.

I had counted them on the invitation, and it was different on the grass.

A quartet played something soft by a banner of white roses.

*Rosa Ferrante, Eighty Years.*

A smaller card stood at the center of the head table.

*Hosted by Mr. and Mrs. Mitchell Bradbury.*

I put my hand over my mouth.

Nonna had wanted to see this place her whole life.

The first thing waiting for her was a lie in calligraphy.

"Don't," Constance said. "Not yet. Keep it in your chest."

I held the urn tighter.

The guests were already seated in linen and sunglasses, the board along the front rows with their folded programs.

Mitchell's car pulled up behind ours, and he got out in a charcoal suit with his father's pen in his breast pocket.

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