Chapter Twelve
Antonluca had spent his life defying all odds, building empires and making the world his, and still, allowing himself to be open and vulnerable and completely in love with Hannah and the family they made was by far the hardest.
It was also the easiest.
He summoned all of his siblings to the castle for the Epiphany, six days into the New Year.
They all came grumbling and complaining, no doubt thinking that this would be some sort of business lecture.
But instead, Antonluca threw them a proper Christmas. He did all the cooking. He refused to discuss business. And most of all, he showed them that they, too, could risk opening their hearts.
“Assuming,” he told Rocco, his mouth curving, “that you have one, little brother. As that is not entirely clear.”
His brother responded with a very crude rejoinder that made everyone laugh, Antonluca especially.
And of all the things that he’d given his siblings in the course of their lives, he thought that Christmas was the best. It wasn’t money. It wasn’t security. It was love.
Finally, after all these years, it was just as simple as that. Love.
And as if he’d shown them the way, each and every one of them shifted after that.
It wasn’t like night and day, but within five years—all of them with their new Christmas tradition in the castle in Tuscany—all of them had families of their own.
Even Rocco.
Hannah took Antonluca home with her to Nebraska, later that first year. She showed him all around and introduced him and Dominic to her family, who immediately embarrassed her by being precisely as oddly antagonistic as she’d told him they were.
He was unimpressed—and he thought his reaction to them was validating for her. It wasn’t just her. They just…weren’t kind or particularly nice to Hannah. There was no reason or rationale. It was just them.
All except her sister, that was, who was delighted to meet her nephew and brother-in-law and who, Antonluca had thought then, might actually be worth maintaining a connection with.
And Hannah, with that big heart of hers, couldn’t resist. But this time, Antonluca intended to be there to defend his wife if necessary.
It was the very least he could do—and he was happy that her sister didn’t make that necessary.
Their parents’ oddness didn’t bleed into the new relationship the sisters had developed.
“This,” Hannah told him after the first time her sister and her family came to Italy, “is better than I ever dreamed it could be.”
He held her close, out there in the summer sun with the glory of Tuscany all around and the children playing like the lifelong friends these cousins would become.
“Diavolessa, I keep telling you. We are only getting started.” He kissed her temple and breathed her in. “Just wait.”
And in the meantime, they let their own hearts expand.
Their first daughter was born at the end of their first summer, as if they’d been trying to make her that Christmas. Maybe they had been. Antonluca knew he certainly hadn’t been doing anything to prevent it.
They named her Paloma, and did their very best to make sure that she lived up to her namesake. Then they had two more boys, each one perfectly themselves.
They also built hotel experiences that felt like homes, filled with restaurants that served food like love, and the best part of that was they did it together. There was no separation between family and work.
It was simply them. It was the Circo Aniello, the Aniello circus. It was their brand, but more, it was who they were.
Art and joy, love and life, work and so much play, and it was all theirs.
And every night for the rest of their lives—or as close to every night as was possible—Antonluca picked up his wife and carried her over the threshold of their bedroom so he could lay her down on their bed.
Then take his time reminding them both of their wedding night, by making it better.
Over and over and over again, better and better still, until forever melted like sugar all over them.
Then they began again, because they were still getting started.
And the best was yet to come.