Page 23 of Mine Again
I force a smile and nudge them both.
“Come on. Let’s get up and get this day over with.”
Chapter Eight
Isabella
The restaurant hums with an understated elegance, all soft lighting and low voices. Crystal glasses catch the glow from the chandeliers, and a pianist in the corner plays something delicate that fades into the background like a sigh.
This place is Father-approved. All high-end restraint, with none of the chaos that usually fills our dinners at home when he’s not present.
Like so many other birthday dinners, tonight it’s just us girls. Father has business elsewhere. Thank God, or it wouldn’t have been much of a celebration.
Mamma lets her gaze sweep over the five of us. Her smile is gentle and graceful, as is expected of the wife of Antonio Accardi.
We’ve finished the main course and dessert. Everyone has tactfully avoided the looming topic of Mari’s engagement party, as if silence alone might make it disappear.
Well, here’s to dreaming.
Sometimes it seems like that’s all we’re ever allowed to do.
“I still can’t believe you made this,” I say to Mari, running my hand down the front of my beautiful dress.
Not surprisingly, it fits perfectly. Mari has such a gift. She’d make abrilliant fashion designer. People would flock to her.
If only she were allowed to follow her passion. Instead, she’s about to be chained to one ofla famiglia’smost ruthless enforcers.
Mari smiles, the corner of her mouth tugging upward, but it doesn’t reach her eyes.
“You’re welcome. It was a good distraction.”
“I want one too,” Sienna cuts in. “Same fit, different color. Maybe in emerald green… for my seventeenth birthday next year.”
Mamma clears her throat. “Your father wouldn’t like that.”
Sienna doesn’t even blink. “He doesn’t need to find out.”
That earns a round of smothered laughter. Even Mamma presses her napkin to her mouth to hide her smile.
“Well,” she says after a beat, folding her hands neatly in her lap, “your father won’t be around after Mari’s engagement party this Saturday.”
We all pause, eyes lighting up around the table.
Mia grins. “Really? Should we order champagne?”
“Is he traveling?” I ask, lifting a brow.
“He’s joining Don De Marco on a trip to Canada next week.”
“Canada?” Mia asks. “He should send us a postcard… and never come back.”
“Mialina,” Mamma scolds, though it sounds more like affection than a reprimand. She has a soft spot for her middle daughter, who gets away with more than any of us.
Mamma might not play favorites, but some things slip past her. Like how she’s always harder on Ariana. You’d think the youngest would get the most slack, but that was never the case.
I remember when Ari was born. I was eight. Mamma looked heartbroken, not because she didn’t love her, but because she already knew what would come.
Father had made it painfully clear that another daughter was a disappointment. For a while, he was impossible to be around. And Mamma took the worst of it.
