4. Chapter 4
Luca
My family has gone quiet. That alone should concern Lucy. The Morettis are rarely quiet unless money is being counted, threats are being assessed, or my grandmother has decided someone at the table is lying to her. At the moment, all three possibilities seem open.
Lucy stands beside me with her fingers still locked in mine, though I can feel the subtle tension in her grip.
She looks toward my family’s table as if she’s trying to decide whether they’re wedding guests, royalty, or the kind of people one sees in documentaries narrated by a man with a grave voice. Smart girl. She should be cautious.
Unfortunately, she climbed into my lap first, kissed me second, and still hasn’t asked questions which suggests caution is not her leading virtue. I find this increasingly appealing.
“Your family,” she repeats softly.
“Yes.”
“I suppose they saw … all of it.”
“I’m sure.”
Her eyes land on mine. “That is not comforting.”
“It wasn’t meant to be.”
A small sound escapes her, not quite a laugh and not quite a panic response. I like it more than I should. I like too much about her already, which is inconvenient, considering I met her less than half an hour ago and she started our acquaintance by using my mouth as a weapon against another man.
To be fair, it was an excellent strategy. Poor execution in terms of long-term consequences, but excellent instinct.
My three younger sisters are intrigued. Bianca, sits forward. Her eyes are bright with curiosity.
Adriana’s face gives away very little, which means she is already dissecting Lucy’s dress, posture, motives, and bloodline. Isabella, predictably, is not even pretending to be subtle. She is smiling like she has just found a grenade in a gift bag.
And then there is Nonna. My grandmother sits at the center of the table, silver hair swept back, diamonds at her ears, posture perfect. She does not stare at Lucy the way the others do. She observes her. That is worse.
Lucy leans closer to me. “Are they always like that?”
“Like what?”
“Like I’m a strange dessert no one ordered, but everyone wants to taste.”
I look down at her.
She looks horrified by her own words.
“Please forget I said that.”
“I will not.”
“You absolutely should.”
“It was vivid.”
“It was stress.”
“It was accurate.”
Her mouth presses together, but the corners twitch. Good. She’s still nervous, but she’s not frozen. Most people stiffen under my family’s attention. Lucy seems to vibrate with the urge to either flee or say the worst possible thing. I am beginning to suspect she will say the worst possible thing.
“Come,” I say.
Her fingers tighten around mine. “To them?”
“Yes.”
“Now?”
“They’re staring.”
“That feels like a reason to leave.”
“It’s a reason to give them something better to stare at.”
She turns her face toward me. Her eyes are very blue under the chandeliers, wide with disbelief and annoyance and something bright enough to make me forget, for half a second, that half the room is watching us.
“You are enjoying this,” she says.
“I am.”
“At least lie a little.”
“I prefer not to start our relationship with dishonesty.”
Her eyebrows lift when I say those two words. I said it deliberately, and she hears it exactly that way. A flush moves across her cheeks. The reaction should not please me as much as it does.
“Luca,” she says under her breath, “we do not have a relationship.”
“Not yet.”
Before she can answer, Bianca rises from the table. I nearly sigh.
“Too late,” I tell Lucy.
“For what?”
“For a graceful escape.”
Bianca is already coming toward us, the emerald silk of her dress moving around her legs like water. My sister has never approached anything casually in her life. She arrives. She descends. She makes entrances in rooms she has already been sitting in for an hour.
Her gaze moves over Lucy from head to toe, then to our joined hands, then back to Lucy’s face.
“You must be Luca’s new girlfriend,” Bianca says.
Lucy straightens beside me. “Hi.”
“Hi?” Bianca repeats, delighted. “She says hi. Luca, she says hi.”
“She also has a name.”
“Of course she does. I’m getting there.” Bianca extends both hands toward Lucy as if she is about to welcome a queen or seize evidence. “I’m Bianca.”
Lucy lets go of me to take Bianca’s hands, which I dislike immediately.
Interesting.
“Lucy,” she says.
“Lucy,” Bianca repeats, testing it. “Pretty. Sweet. Entirely too innocent for whatever this is.”
Lucy blinks. “I’m not sure what this is.”
I give my sister a flat look. She smiles at me with deep affection and no fear whatsoever.
Behind her, Isabella pops up from her chair. I see Adriana reach for her arm and miss by an inch. A tragedy.
“Is she the lap girl?” Isabella calls.
Lucy goes very still. I close my eyes for one short second.
Bianca turns her head. “Isabella.”
“What? We were all thinking it.”
“No,” Adriana says, rising now with the controlled patience of a woman who has spent her entire life trying to prevent Isabella from speaking in public. “We were not all thinking it.”
“Yes, we were,” my father says from the table.
My mother elbows him. Lucy makes a choking sound beside me.
I look down at her. “Breathe.”
“I am breathing.”
“You’re making a noise.”
“That is my soul trying to leave my body.”
Bianca laughs. And that is when I know Lucy has made the first dangerous mistake. She amused my sister.
Bianca hooks her arm through Lucy’s before I can stop her. “Come. You have to meet everyone properly.”
“Oh,” Lucy says. “Great. Wonderful. I was hoping to be processed as a group.”
My mouth curves before I can prevent it.
Bianca beams. “I like her.”
“You like everyone for the first twenty minutes,” I say.
“Not true. I disliked your last attorney immediately.”
“So did I.”
“Yes, but I was honest about it.”
Lucy looks between us, her brows drawn together. “Should I be concerned there are attorneys involved?”
“In this family?” Isabella asks, appearing on Lucy’s other side as if she teleported. “Always.”
Lucy’s eyes widen. I send Isabella a warning look. She ignores it with the ease of lifelong practice.
“I’m Isabella,” she says, leaning in. “Youngest sister, best personality, least trusted with secrets.”
“That is not something you should tell people,” Adriana says, joining us.
Isabella shrugs. “It saves time.”
Adriana stops in front of Lucy. She is elegant tonight in black, her dark hair pulled back, her expression polite but sharp enough to cut glass. Of all my sisters, she is the one most like me. Controlled. Careful. Far less amused by surprises. Her gaze moves to Lucy’s face.
“Adriana,” she says.
Lucy smiles, but I feel the tension return to her shoulders. “Lucy.”
“How do you know my brother?”
Adriana is direct and clean with no wasted questions. Lucy’s mouth parts. I consider stepping in. I do not. Part of me wants to see what she does under pressure. Another part, less strategic and more foolish, wants to hear how she will describe me.
Lucy lifts her chin.
“We met tonight.”
Silence. Then Isabella whispers, loudly, “Oh, she’s honest. That’s new.”
Bianca coughs into her hand. Adriana’s expression does not change, but her eyes sharpen.
My mother rises then, saving Lucy from the next question or perhaps walking her directly into a worse one. She crosses the small distance with the grace that made men twice my father’s size move out of her path for thirty years.
“Enough,” she says softly.
Everyone listens … mostly.
My mother turns to Lucy and takes both her hands. “I’m Sofia.”
Lucy’s face softens instantly. “It’s nice to meet you.”
“And you,” my mother says. “Ignore my daughters. They were raised better than this, but only in theory.”
“I heard that,” Isabella says.
“You were meant to.”
Lucy actually gives a genuine smile at my mother’s words. Something about the sight of it hits me in the chest with surprising force.
At the table, Nonna has still not moved. She waits. She has always understood timing better than anyone I know.
My mother guides Lucy forward, and this time Lucy glances back at me. Not for permission, but more for reassurance. The difference is subtle, but I feel it.
I step with her instantly and Lucy’s shoulders ease.
My father stands as we approach. “Alessandro Moretti,” he says, offering his hand.
Lucy takes it. “Lucy Phillips.”
“Phillips,” he repeats. “Good handshake.”
She looks startled. “Thank you.”
Adriana glances at me and I ignore her. Bianca mouths, I love her. I ignore that too. Finally, there is no more delaying it.
My grandmother extends one hand. Lucy goes quiet. Smart again.
“Lucia,” Nonna says.
Lucy blinks. “It’s Lucy, actually.”
“In this family, it will become Lucia if I decide I like you.”
Lucy looks at me. I give her nothing.
She looks back at my grandmother. “That feels both generous and threatening.”
For one suspended second, no one breathes. Then Nonna laughs. Not loudly. Not sweetly. It is a low, delighted sound, the kind that has preceded ruined men, approved marriages, and at least one real estate acquisition I still consider morally ambiguous.
My family reacts as if a judge has delivered a favorable verdict. Bianca grips Lucy’s arm tighter. Isabella actually claps once before Adriana glares her into stillness.
Nonna pats the empty chair beside her. “Sit.”
Lucy sits — immediately. I almost smile. She may not know my grandmother, but she understands survival.
I take the chair on Lucy’s other side before anyone can claim it. Bianca’s eyes narrow with satisfaction. My mother notices. My father notices. Adriana notices. Nonna, of course, noticed before I moved.
Nonna zones in on Lucy. “You were in the wedding?”
Lucy turns back quickly. “Yes. My cousin Celia is the bride.”
“A good family?”
Lucy hesitates. Not because she doesn’t know the answer. Because she understands there are several ways to interpret the question.
“Yes,” she says carefully. “A loud one. Very loving. Sometimes emotionally overcaffeinated.”
My mother laughs into her wine.
Nonna’s eyes warm by a fraction. “Good. Quiet families hide too much.”
“That may be the most terrifying thing anyone has ever said to me at a reception,” Lucy says, then immediately closes her eyes. “I’m sorry. That came out loud.”
Isabella leans across the table. “Please let everything come out loud. We’re all dying.”
“Isabella,” Adriana warns.
“What? We are.”
Lucy presses her lips together, clearly fighting a smile. I sit back and watch her. This is not how I expected the night to go.
An hour ago, I was considering leaving early.
The reception was pleasant enough, but I had three calls waiting, two issues with the Miami development group, and one conversation with my father I had been avoiding for weeks.
My grandmother has been pressing him to hand me more control.
My father agrees in theory. In practice, he worries I am too independent, too cold, too uninterested in the kind of legacy that requires roots instead of reach.
I have built profitable arms of our business without asking permission. I have negotiated deals men twice my age were afraid to touch. I have made the Moretti name sharper, stronger, harder to ignore.
And still, at every family meeting lately, the same concern returns.
Luca thinks like a king, my grandmother said last month. But does he know how to build a kingdom? At the time, I dismissed it.
Now I sit beside a woman who kissed me without warning, lied badly, told my grandmother she was threatening, and somehow made my family lean closer instead of pull away.
Across the table, Nonna watches the way Lucy’s hand rests near mine.
Too close to be accidental, but not close enough to be certain. My grandmother notices that too.
“So,” Nonna says, lifting her glass. “You and my grandson met tonight.”
Lucy’s throat works.
“Yes.”
Nonna sets her glass down. “What do you do, Lucia?”
Lucy opens her mouth, then stops. “I make dream kits.”
Isabella leans in. “That sounds illegal.”
“It’s not,” Lucy says quickly. “They’re little decorative kits. Like tiny worlds people build inside bottles.”
Bianca’s eyes light. “That is adorable.”
“I sell mostly online,” Lucy continues, gaining speed now, which tells me she’s nervous. “People choose a theme, and I send the bottle, the pieces, the little objects, the instructions. Beach dreams, garden dreams, travel dreams, new beginning dreams. That kind of thing.”
My mother’s expression softens. “New beginnings?”
Lucy nods. “Those sell best.”
Nonna goes still. So do I. Lucy does not seem to notice. She is nervously rubbin the edge of the tablecloth now.
“I think people like having something small they can control,” she says. “Something pretty they can put together when the big things feel… less cooperative.”
The humor fades for a second, but long enough for the table to feel it. Long enough for me to feel it. This is the hurt I saw in her eyes earlier. It’s not weakness but a definite bruise she has learned to decorate in a unique way. My hand moves before I think better of it. I cover hers.
Lucy’s gaze snaps to mine. Nonna clears her throat softly. I do not move my hand. Neither does Lucy.
“So,” Nonna says, her voice quieter now, “you build tiny worlds in bottles.”
Lucy turns back to her. “Technically, they build them. I just provide the pieces.”
“Mmh.”
Nonna’s gaze slides to me. I know that look. I have seen it over contracts, menus, seating charts, and men who thought they were more intelligent than they were.
“A woman who can build a world in a bottle can handle a Moretti man.”
The table goes silent.
Lucy blinks. “I’m sorry, is that a compliment or a warning?”
Bianca lifts her glass. “In this family? Yes.”
This time, everyone laughs. Even me.
Lucy looks around the table, startled by the sound, then laughs too. Soft at first, then real.
And that is the exact moment I realize I have a problem. Because my family does not simply like her. They are beginning to claim her.
Worse, I am letting them.