17. Massimo
MASSIMO
I stood at the altar with Vittoria beside me and tried to convince myself I was doing the right thing.
The priest's voice droned through the Latin I had heard at a hundred weddings before this one.
The church was full. Every pew was packed with family and allies and business partners who had come to witness the union my mother had orchestrated.
The candles flickered in their holders. The incense made the air thick and sweet.
I should have felt something—relief, maybe, or satisfaction that I had finally done what was expected of me. But all I felt was numb.
My mother sat in the front row with her hands folded in her lap and her back perfectly straight.
She was watching me the way she always did when she wanted to make certain I understood what was expected.
I understood. God, I understood. This was what she had wanted since the day I told her I was marrying Laney instead of the heiress she had chosen.
Ten years, and she had finally gotten her way.
My father was beside her. He looked smaller than I remembered him being a year ago, his shoulders hunched forward and his hands resting on the cane he had started using.
He did not look at me. He had not looked at me directly in weeks, not since I signed the petition to dissolve my marriage.
Maybe he was ashamed of me. Maybe he just did not care anymore.
Enzo stood behind me as my witness. I could feel him there, solid and silent. He had clapped me on the shoulder before the ceremony started and told me I was doing the right thing, that Laney had made her choice and now I was making mine. He sounded so certain. I wanted to believe him.
Signor Greco sat in the second row with his chin lifted and his eyes on his daughter like she had already won something he had been chasing for years.
And maybe she had. Maybe this was the victory they had all been working toward while I was still trying to figure out if the proof from Rome was real.
The proof. God, the proof.
It was still half there in my head, sitting like a stone I could not swallow.
The photograph of Laney and Nate at the café that Enzo's man had taken.
The three days she had spent with Nate in Rome.
The fact that she had never told any of us who he was.
I had stared at the photograph until my eyes burned, trying to find a crack in it, some explanation that would make it all make sense.
But the facts were there. Laney had lied to me.
She had been with Nate. She had chosen him over me, over our marriage, over everything we built.
Or she had not.
The doubt crept in at night when I could not sleep.
It whispered that my mother had a reason to lie, that Enzo had a reason to lie, that the proof could be manufactured if you knew the right people and had enough money to pay them.
I did not want to believe my own family would do that to me.
But I also did not want to believe Laney would betray me, and one of those things had to be true.
I wanted the proof to be wrong. I wanted it so badly my chest ached with it. But I had signed the petition anyway, because the doubt was not enough to stand on when my mother was staring me down and telling me I was being played for a fool.
"Do you take this woman to be your lawfully wedded wife?" the priest asked.
Vittoria's hand was in mine. Her skin was cool and dry.
She was calm. She had been calm through all of it—through the petition, through the waiting, through the days when I barely spoke to her because I was still trying to wrap my head around the fact that I was doing this.
She never pushed. She never demanded. She just waited, like she knew exactly how this would go.
I looked at her. She was beautiful in the way my mother had always valued—polished, elegant, the kind of woman who knew how to move through a room full of powerful men and make them all feel like she was on their side.
Her dress was silk and lace, traditional and expensive.
Her hair was pinned up with tiny pearls woven through it.
She looked like she belonged here, in this church, beside me.
Laney had worn wildflowers in her hair when we got married.
I shoved the thought down and opened my mouth.
"I do," I said.
My voice did not catch. Nobody in the church stirred. It was the answer they were all waiting for, and I gave it to them the way I had been giving my mother answers my whole life—quickly, obediently, without making her ask twice.
Vittoria smiled. It was small and controlled, nothing dramatic.
She looked like a woman who had just been given exactly what she was owed, and maybe she had.
Maybe she had earned this by being patient, by not demanding things from me I could not give, by fitting into the space my mother carved out for her.
The priest blessed us. I slid the ring onto Vittoria's finger, and it sat there like a brand.
Gold against pale skin. I thought about the ring I had given Laney ten years ago in a different church, and how she used to twist it when she was anxious or thinking hard about some piece of pottery she was trying to date.
I had never asked her why she did that. I had just noticed it and filed it away as one of the small things I knew about my wife.
Vittoria did not twist hers. She looked at it once, briefly, and then turned her face up toward mine for the kiss.
I leaned down. My mouth brushed hers. It was quick and ceremonial, the kind of kiss you gave because the ritual demanded it. She did not try to deepen it, and I stepped back the second it was done.
The church erupted into applause. It was polite and restrained, the kind of clapping you heard at weddings where half the guests were there for politics and the other half were there to see if the groom would actually go through with it.
My mother was smiling. She looked satisfied.
Victorious. Enzo clapped me on the shoulder and said something I did not hear because my head was somewhere else entirely, turning over the same question I had been asking myself since the day Laney walked out of the palazzo with Sofia: What if I was wrong?
But I could not be wrong. I could not afford to be wrong.
The proof was there. My mother had shown it to me.
Enzo had confirmed it. And I had signed the petition and stood here and married Vittoria Greco because that was what you did when your wife betrayed you.
You moved on. You protected the family. You did not let yourself fall apart over a woman who chose someone else.
Except Laney had not chosen someone else.
She had told me to let it end. She had walked away because I accused her of sleeping with Nate and she was too tired to fight me on it.
Or maybe she walked away because she was guilty and could not look me in the eye anymore.
I did not know. That was the problem. I did not know, and I had gone ahead and done this anyway.
We walked back down the aisle together. Vittoria's hand rested on my arm, light and steady. She was graceful. Poised. Every inch the bride my mother had told me I should have chosen in the first place, back when I was young and stupid and thought I could marry for love instead of alliance.
I nodded at faces I recognized as we passed.
Business partners. Family allies. Men who would corner me later with whiskey and congratulations I did not want.
They were all smiling. They all thought this was a good thing, a smart move, the kind of marriage that would cement the family's position for another generation.
Maybe it was. Maybe I had finally done something right.
Or maybe I had just made the worst mistake of my life.
The reception was a blur. I shook hands.
I accepted congratulations. I stood beside Vittoria while she charmed every guest who approached her, and I marveled at how easy she made it look.
She laughed at the right moments. She thanked people with exactly the right amount of warmth.
She never once asked me if I was all right, and I was grateful for that because I would not have known how to answer.
When the last guest finally left and the staff began clearing the tables, my mother caught my eye from across the room. She gave me a single sharp nod. You did well. That was what it meant. I had obeyed. I had married the girl she chose. I had put the family first.
I felt like I was going to be sick.
Vittoria touched my sleeve. "Should we go?"
I looked at her. She meant the palazzo. The private rooms I had cleared for tonight. The wedding night. Of course.
"Yeah."
We drove in silence. Vittoria sat beside me in the car with her hands folded neatly in her lap, and she did not try to fill the quiet with small talk or questions I could not answer. I was grateful for that, too. I did not know what I would say to her if she asked me what I was thinking.
The palazzo was dark when we arrived. I had left lights on in the wing that used to be mine, before I married Laney and moved into the rooms we shared for ten years.
It felt wrong to be back here. Like I was moving backward instead of forward.
But I could not take Vittoria to the rooms where Laney and I had slept, where Sofia was conceived, where we had fought and made up and built something I thought was permanent.
So I came here. To the rooms I had lived in before I knew what it felt like to love someone.
Vittoria walked into the sitting room and looked around.
She ran her fingers along the back of the sofa, taking it all in.
The furniture was dark wood and leather, masculine and expensive.
The kind of room designed to impress, not to comfort.
She did not comment on it. She just turned to face me, and the calm composure she had worn all day shifted into something sharper.
Expectation. Or maybe certainty.
She stepped toward me.
I stepped back.
She stopped. Her brow furrowed. Just slightly. "Massimo?"
"This—" I started, then stopped. I did not know how to say it. I did not want to be cruel. But I also could not do this. I could not touch her when everything in me was still pulling toward Rome, toward Laney, toward the life I had just destroyed.
"I'm your wife now," Vittoria said. Her voice was calm. Even. Like she was reminding me of a fact I had temporarily forgotten.
"I know."
She tilted her head. "Then what is this?"
"It's not going to happen." The words came out firmer than I meant them to. But I did not soften them. I could not.
Vittoria stared at me. For the first time all day, the mask slipped. She looked rattled. Uncertain. "Is this because of what happened in Rome?"
I did not answer. What could I say? That I did not know what happened in Rome? That half of me thought my wife had cheated and the other half thought my mother had lied? That I had married Vittoria because I was too much of a coward to stand up to my family and demand the truth?
"Massimo—"
"It's not happening, Vittoria." I looked at her, and I made sure she saw I meant it. I kept my voice level. Firm. Not cruel, but final.
Her jaw tightened. She stared at me for a long moment, and I saw something flicker behind her eyes. Frustration. Anger. Maybe both. But then she lifted her chin and the composure came back, smoothing over whatever she was really feeling.
"I did not work this hard with your family to let it all fall apart now," she said.
The words hit me like a fist to the chest.
With your family.
Not for your family. Not to marry you. With them. Like she had been working alongside my mother and Enzo and Signor Greco the whole time, building something I had been too blind to see.
I went still. My pulse kicked up. I stared at her, and I watched her face change as she realized what she had just said. It was not much. Just a flicker of panic before she caught herself.
"Massimo, I did not mean?—"
"It's late." My voice sounded distant. Flat. I was still turning the words over, fitting them into the shape of the last few months. The petition. The photograph Enzo's man took, that showed up exactly when my mother needed it. "You should rest. We'll talk tomorrow."
"I just meant that I?—"
"Tomorrow, Vittoria."
She opened her mouth like she wanted to argue. Then she closed it. She nodded once, stiffly, and turned toward the bedroom. I watched her walk away. I did not move until the door closed behind her.
Then I sat down on the sofa and buried my face in my hands.
I did not work this hard with your family.
Jesus. What the hell had I done?