CHAPTER 11 Tanzi
My toes dig into the sand on the beach outside Rio”s borrowed Caribbean villa.
It”s golden, fine and moister than what I”m used to in Southern California and it”s nothing like the pebbly beaches of Spain”s eastern coastline.
A gentle breeze, heavy with humidity lifts my hair and I”m glad I left off the sun hat I wore the last time I had this dress on.
I”m getting married in the white Oscar de la Renta sundress I wore that first day I met Rio in Palermo. It feels right, like we”re coming full circle, even if it”s with the speed of carnival ride in high gear
I”m also wearing a white gold diamond teardrop necklace and earrings my parents gave me for graduation. It”s a little like they”re here. In spirit, if not in person. And as much as I adore them, that is more than okay with me right now.
Because wearing their gifts is a lot less stressful than having them here to witness me speak my vows on a beach to the man I am fully, irrevocably in love with, but whom they have never met.
It”s fast. I don”t even try to deny that truth to myself, but there”s another undeniable reality. My feelings are as deep as the ocean beyond the reef.
Rio”s barefoot too and he left his suit off for once. He”s wearing Calvin Klein chinos and a white Spanish style shirt of fine lawn, embroidered in traditional patterns around the hem and neckline in white silk thread.
When I asked him to wear the shirt my dad left behind on a visit, Rio gave me a strange look. Honestly, maybe it is strange. Maybe it”s pregnancy hormones, but I really wanted him to wear it.
”It”s a connection to my Spanish heritage,” I told him. ”It will make my parents happy to see it in the pictures later.”
And just like with everything that matters to me, he made it happen. ”I will wear it. Our future will hold a multitude of inescapable opportunities for us to bow to my own heritage.”
I don”t know why it”s so important to feel like my parents are part of my wedding when I”m really glad they aren”t here. If they were, the wedding wouldn”t be happening.
Dad would insist on investigating Rio to the nth degree and forcing him to somehow prove he isn”t marrying me for my father”s money.
Miguel Menendez would never believe that Rio doesn”t know anything about my family background. But I”m careful to keep details about my family vague. Just like Rio is.
My last name is pretty common and one of the reasons I went to university in New York was to maintain my anonymity. So, unless he had my background investigated, he doesn”t know that Miguel Menendez my father is also Miguel Menendez, multi billionaire.
Rio told me once that he wanted to get to know me like a normal person. I believed him and his words struck a resounding chord inside me.
This relationship is about us, not our families.
My chaotic thoughts grind to a halt when the priest begins the vows.
As is traditional, the priest begins with Rio. ”Prin—”
”Father,” Rio cuts him off with a serious glower.
Which is understandable. The priest nearly got Rio”s name wrong.
The begins again, his voice more nervous now. ”Vittorio Micheli Scorsolini, will you take this woman...”
The vows are traditional, but I feel like the first woman in the world to hear the promises uttered in such a determined and rich masculine voice. Rio”s words are thick with a Sicilian accent I never hear outside of lovemaking.
Although I speak my vows in English because that is the Priest”s first language, I say them over again in Spanish in my heart.
”I, Constanza Elena Menendez, take you, Vittorio Micheli Scorsolini for my lawful husband.” I look directly into Rio”s eyes, meaning every syllable of the promises I speak with every fiber of my being. ”To have and to hold from this day forward.”
I pause and wait for the priest to lead me through the final vows. ”For better. For worse. For richer. For poorer. In sickness and health, until death do us part.”
The old-fashioned verbiage speaks to something deep inside me.
When Rio slides a diamond encrusted platinum band on my finger, it”s accompanied by a second ring with a diamond that rivals mom”s for size, set in a gorgeous cluster of rubies and more diamonds.
I stare up at him, wondering how he managed to produce such a dazzling wedding set for our unplanned elopement when we haven”t been apart since I arrived at his hotel suite.
”I had it flown in,” he mouths, reading my mind.
Which doesn”t explain where such an exquisite set came from in the first place.
The priest gives us a disapproving look but continues with his blessing at a nod from Rio.
Dipping my head, I hide my smile and the happy tears filling my eyes. My ring for him has a ruby too, but it is set in antique gold. It”s an heirloom my grandfather gave me for my future husband when I turned sixteen.
I”ve kept it with me ever since.
Both rings have the stones of passionate love and I think that”s a good sign for our future.
That passion is in delicious evidence when we returned to the primary suite in the villa. Rio can”t keep his hands off me and I don”t mind at all.
We are naked in every way as he poises to slide inside of me. No condom, no security of birth control. Just him and me. And the baby we made together inside me.
His expression is so intense, it sends a shiver through me. ”We are a family now.”
”Yes.”
His deep and powerful thrust sets off fireworks inside me, the sensations different in an undefinable way.
”Oh, yes,” I moan.
I don”t know if it”s that we”re married, committed to a lifetime together, or that I”m pregnant, but laced with the overwhelming passion is a primal and profound connection we”ve never achieved before.
Although he makes love to me with consuming sexual urgency, there is a new tenderness and care to his movements.
We climax within a second of each other. I have no clue which of us comes first. It doesn”t matter. Our bodies just consecrated our union with as much power and worship as the priest”s final blessing.
”And the two shall become one.” Still inside me, Rio”s words prove our thoughts are in the same accord.
”Forever,” I promise.
”Amate.”
Beloved. I am his and he is mine.