Chapter Nineteen Signora Moretti
The first time Elena represented the family alone — a charity board meeting Dante couldn't attend, his presence requested only through his wife — she spent the morning convinced she would embarrass them both.
"You'll be fine," Dante told her, adjusting the collar of her blazer with careful hands before she left, his confidence steadier than her own. "You know more about that hospital wing's funding than half the board members combined. I've watched you read the reports at breakfast for two weeks."
"That's different from actually speaking for the family."
"Is it?" He tipped her chin up. "You've been speaking for yourself since the night I met you, Elena. In your father's study, at Salvatore's gala, everywhere since. This is simply the first time you're doing it with a title attached."
She surprised herself, that afternoon, discovering a confidence she hadn't fully trusted was hers — countering a dismissive board member's objection with figures she'd memorized without quite meaning to, steering a stalled conversation about funding allocation back toward consensus with a calm, measured authority that drew, by the meeting's end, several openly startled looks from men who'd expected only a quiet young wife filling an obligatory seat.
"You handled that well," an older board member told her afterward, something like respect in his voice. "Better than well, actually. Dante's a lucky man."
"I think we're lucky in each other, actually," Elena said, and meant it entirely.
She told Dante about it that evening, unable to keep the pride from her voice, and watched something warm and unguarded spread across his face as he listened. "I told you," he said simply, pulling her close. "You've always had this in you, Elena. I just get to watch you finally believe it."
"It's strange," she admitted, "being Signora Moretti in public. For so long I only thought of it as something that happened to me. Today it felt like something I actually chose to become."
"That's the entire difference," Dante murmured against her hair, "between a role you're forced into and one you finally claim as your own. I'm glad you're claiming it, tesoro. The name deserves someone exactly like you carrying it."