Page 3 of Untamed

Under the olive trees strung with fairy lights, everything looks like it’s auditioning for a luxury wedding magazine. Tables glitter with lace and flowers, the Sicilian breeze gives perfect hair tousle, and I’m sweating like a sandwich wrapped in cellophane.

Bianca and Enzo swirl across the dance floor in marital bliss while I contemplate drinking my champagne straight from the bottle. My dress has fused to my body from heat, my shoes are plotting homicide, and there is not enough rosé in the world to make me graceful.

Then the singer makes the announcement that ruins lives.

“Can we please have our lovely maid of honour and best man join the couple for the customary dance?”

Customarywhatnow? I don’t remember signing up for this. I thought being a bridesmaid meant smiling, wearing pastel, and not falling over in public. Now I’m expected to slow dance with Mr Broody Mafia Spawn like this is Bridgerton?

Matteo stands and tosses back the last of his drink like he’s walking into battle. His tuxedo jacket is gone, his bowtie abandoned. His sleeves are rolled up just enough to show off biceps sculpted by what I assume is genetics and sin. There’s atattoo sleeve winding down his arm that looks suspiciously like it could kill me.

I rise on legs that forgot how knees work. My shoe heel promptly snags on my dress, because of course it does, and I lunge forward with the elegance of a sleep-deprived giraffe.

This is it. Oh, sweet Jesus, I’m going viral.

Except, Matteo steps in. One hand curls around my waist, steadying me against his chest with the type of ease usually reserved for action heroes and men in shampoo commercials.

“Fai attenzione, Fossette,” he says quietly near my ear.

His breath is warm. His scent is woodsy and expensive. My brain? Deleted. I’ve officially turned into melted gelato.

“I—I’m sorry?”

He glances down at my feet, then up at me. “You will be if you ruin my shoes.”

I blink. “Honestly, these feet have offended finer things than your loafers.”

He doesn’t reply. He just smirks in a way that makes my uterus tap dance.

The music starts. A slow song.Of course.

Matteo pulls me in, and we begin to sway. I am a trembling pile of nerves and lip gloss. He is terrifyingly calm and stunning, like Michelangelo carved him as a joke to make the rest of us look bad.

His hand rests lightly at my waist. His fingers are warm. I spend the entire first minute repeating “Don’t step on his feet. Don’t fart. Don’t say something stupid.”

Which is hard when every time he blinks, my internal monologue becomes something out of a cheesy romance novel.

We twirl once. Sort of. I trip over nothing and manage to recover with a weird shoulder shimmy that I swear was meant to be “flirty.” It was not.

He looks at me, amused. “You always dance like this?”

“I usually avoid dancing unless I'm in my bedroom alone pretending I’m Beyoncé.”

He chuckles low, and I internally combust. Even his laugh is attractive.

I glance down at his lips. They’re full and soft-looking, like they were handcrafted by a team of French pastry chefs. I panic. My stomach tightens. My brain decides now is a great time to deliver a revelation.

I’m a nineteen-year-old virgin who’s never been kissed. And now I’m in a sweaty dress, in front of a hundred wedding guests, slow dancing with a man whose eyelashes deserve their own agent.

I fix my gaze somewhere between his collarbone and left eyebrow and pray I don’t burst into flames.

If this is how heartache starts, I’m doomed.

“Don’t look so wary, Jord. It’s one drink!” Bianca chirps, radiant and annoyingly persuasive.

Enzo gathers us all into a semi-formal circle of forced camaraderie—his bride, my parents, me, and the ever-brooding Matteo. There’s something ritualistic about it, like we’re part of a ceremony to summon the god of awkward family bonding through liquor.

The air’s warm and humid, thick with perfume, sweat, and the sharp tang of freshly poured drinks. Twinkling fairy lights flicker overhead like they’re watching me make bad decisions in real time.

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