Page 95 of I Would Beg For You

I wonder if we’ll have time for a quickie at the hotel before leaving for the reception. He wasn’t a fan of quick sexy encounters; I’m slowly converting him.

“Trust me, after this past lunch with Francesca, I need a breather.”

I laugh when I think of his face going white as a sheet when Francesca mentioned she could be pregnant. Halfway through the meal, she sat up straight, then dashed to the ladies’ room, and came back a moment later telling us it was a false alert.

“Would it have been so wrong for her to have been pregnant?” I ask him.

“In itself, not really. But with David?”

“What’s wrong with him?”

“He’s a penniless, talentless dreamer who thinks himself an artist and has no life skills whatsoever.” He shrugs. “Francesca’s got her head on her shoulders. Usually. Him? I wouldn’t even be able to offer him a job. He good at nothing.”

“Well, it was a false alert.”

“Hmm.” Valentino returns his attention on the road.

I settle back into my seat and think of lunch with Francesca, more specifically the moment Val got up to leave and she and I took our sweet time to reach him at the door. Francesca has this way of hooking her arm with mine and then strolling leisurely through a room like we’re a pair of debutantes at a ball filled with rich, eligible gentlemen like in an Austen novel.

“Regular like the moon,” she’d said. “I always get my period one or two days after a new moon. Never three days after.”

I’d gasped. “Your whole life?”

“Of course. Not you?”

I’d made a non-committal sound in reply, my mind casting back to my last period. Well, last time I saw a hint of blood in my panties. I’ve never had more than a day’s flow here and there when I was a teen. Then it dwindled down to snatches of blood on a very irregular schedule. The few times I went to a gynecologist in college, he couldn’t explain the light flow or even lack of PMS. According to tests, my hormones are normal. Borderline underworking, but still in the normal range.

I did see some red in the crotch a few weeks back. What some women call spotting, I call periods.

By the time we book into our hotel, it’s time to get ready to head to the wedding. Valentino booked this place especially for me. Of Georgian architecture, it boasts that guests get to livein true Austen fashion in its interior and gardens. Without the restrictive corsets, though. I love how he found this out and got us one of their best suites on the second floor.

A car comes to pick us up. Guests are to be waited on hand and foot for this event. Valentino also explained the issue of security and being vetted. Most of the prominent Mafia families of the East Coast, and some even from as far as Chicago and Detroit, will be attending. It will be one of the most well-protected gatherings of the year, akin to the President of the United States holding a summit at Camp David.

We’re taken to church first, greeting the mother of the groom at the entrance. Valentino and I are led to our seats in the pews. The church is a sea of dark colors for the men all in formal suits and a garden of pastel and lively hues for the women in dresses of all styles. No one in white, of course, but it surprised me that guests shouldn’t wear gold, except for their wedding rings, as that brings bad luck to the couple getting married.

The wedding is a succession of blessings, psalms, prayers, and more blessings amid the exchange of vows and rings. The newlyweds walk out under a shower of rice to bring them prosperity, and then we’re all heading to the grand manor on the same property for the reception. Golf carts are ferrying people; Valentino and I opt to walk under the shade of lovely trees.

We’re among the last guests to arrive. After congratulating the bride and groom, we stop in front of a wizened old man sitting in a chair just inside the foyer. People are crowding him; he waves them off to greet us, standing up.

“Don Giorgio,” Val says reverently, bowing slightly before him. “Allow me to present to you my wife, Naomi.”

Don Giorgio Vitale takes my hand and drops a gentle kiss on my knuckles. “Signora Andretti. Welcome.”

I can’t help it, I curtsey a little. Such is the commanding aura of the gentleman. “The honor is all mine, Don Vitale.”

“It’s Giorgio, figliola.” He pats my hand, sandwiches it between his as he turns to Valentino. “Your wife is a bella ragazza, indeed, Don Valentino.” He laughs as he returns his intense eyes to me. “Ah, if I were fifty years younger.”

I laugh, knowing it’s light banter. “He wouldn’t stand a chance.”

His laughter erupts, loud and boisterous. He releases me, now clasping my cheek with one hand, the other palm flat on my head. He mumbles something in soft Italian, and it sounds like a blessing. I saw him earlier in church doing the same thing to the bride when she stopped by his pew on the way out.

“Grazie,” I murmur when he releases me.

He smiles benignly at us. “Please forgive me, Signora Andretti. I will have to steal your husband tonight.”

Valentino is to be introduced in his new position to the other families. It’s one of the reasons we’re here.

“Nothing to forgive, Don Giorgio,” I tell him.

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