Epilogue
Lucy
Nine months ago, I climbed into Luca Moretti’s lap at someone else’s wedding and kissed him because I was panicking.
Today, I am standing in front of a mirror in a white silk wedding dress while his youngest sister crawls around near my feet with a steamer, muttering threats at one stubborn wrinkle like it personally betrayed the family.
So, honestly, growth is complicated.
“Isabella,” Adriana says from behind me, her voice calm in the way only Adriana can sound calm while holding three phones, a timeline, and what I suspect is a private security earpiece, “if you burn the dress, Bianca will bury you under the floral arch.”
Isabella looks up from the floor. “Bianca would never.”
Bianca, who is standing beside me with both hands pressed to her mouth and tears in her eyes, lowers one hand just enough to say, “I would absolutely consider it.”
“I’m helping,” Isabella says.
“You are kneeling under the bride with steam equipment,” Adriana replies. “That is not always the same thing.”
I should be nervous. I know I should. There are two hundred guests gathered outside.
Three violinists. One string quartet. A ridiculous number of white roses.
At least twelve men in dark suits pretending they are “family friends” and not security.
A reception tent large enough to host a small diplomatic summit.
And somewhere beyond all of it, waiting near the water, is Luca.
My almost-stranger.
My fake boyfriend.
My fake fiancé.
My real everything.
And somehow, instead of nerves, I mostly feel wonder. Wonder and a mild concern that the Morettis have possibly overdone the flowers. Again.
“This,” I say, looking at the reflection of the room behind me, “is a lot of roses.”
Bianca gasps softly. “There is no such thing.”
“There is definitely such a thing. I passed three arrangements on the way to the bathroom that looked like they had staff.”
“They did have staff,” Isabella says. “Someone had to keep them hydrated.”
I turn my head slowly. “The flowers have attendants?”
Adriana glances up from one of the phones. “Only the exterior installations.”
“That sentence should not exist.”
Bianca smiles at me in the mirror, her expression softening. “It’s your wedding day, Lucia. Let the flowers have assistants.”
I don’t even correct the name anymore.
Somewhere between the Bahamas, the engagement ring, Luca meeting my parents, Nonna ordering six hundred of my Dream in a Bottle kits as “family gifts,” and me learning that Morettis do not announce love so much as absorb you into an operational structure, I became Lucia to them.
Lucy to my family. Mrs. Moretti to absolutely no one yet, unless Isabella was filling out novelty champagne flutes again.
Nine months ago, the name felt like a warning. Now it feels like belonging.
The door opens softly, and my mother steps inside. For one breath, the room stills. She looks at me, and her hands fly to her mouth. “Oh, Lucy.”
That does it.
Not Bianca’s tears. Not the dress. Not the flowers with their own hydration team.
My mother’s voice, broken and full of love, reaches straight through all the sparkle and planning and Moretti-level excess to the part of me that remembers sitting alone after Derek, wondering if I had become the kind of woman people left behind.
I’m not that woman anymore. Maybe I never was.
“Mom,” I whisper.
She crosses the room and takes my hands, careful not to crush the bouquet Bianca has not yet allowed me to hold because apparently bouquets have a correct “moment.” My mother’s eyes move over my dress, my hair, my face, then settle on the ring on my finger.
The ring Luca bought in the Bahamas when we were both still pretending that anything about us could be temporary.
“It’s perfect,” she says.
I laugh softly. “The wedding or the dress?”
“You.”
My throat tightens. “Don’t start. I’m already emotionally unstable, and Isabella has steam.”
“I’m very responsible with steam,” Isabella says from the floor.
“No, you aren’t,” the other two sisters say together.
My mother laughs, and just like that, the room feels less like a bridal suite in an oceanfront estate and more like a family kitchen with better lighting and more diamonds.
The estate belongs to one of Luca’s cousins, though I have learned that Moretti cousin is a flexible category.
It might mean blood relative, business partner, godson, man who once drove Nonna through a storm, or someone who knows where the good limoncello is hidden.
The house sits along Florida’s southeastern coast, all pale stone, arched windows, and terraces spilling down toward the water.
White chairs line the lawn. The aisle stretches between them toward an arch wrapped in roses and greenery.
Beyond that, the ocean flashes blue under a sun so bright it feels like the sky is celebrating too.
When I first saw it this morning, I laughed. Then I cried. Then I asked Luca if we were legally required to notify air traffic control because the chandeliers in the reception tent were visible from space.
He kissed me and told me I was beautiful. So, as usual, not helpful.
A knock sounds at the door. Controlled and familiar sound. My entire body recognizes it before anyone speaks.
“No,” Bianca says immediately.
The door opens anyway, but only an inch.
“Is she ready?” Luca asks from the other side.
Bianca throws herself in front of me like a one-woman security detail. “Absolutely not. You cannot see her.”
“I have seen her.”
“Not today, you haven’t.”
“I saw her this morning.”
“In pajamas. That does not count.”
“It counted for me.”
“Luca Moretti,” my mother says, and I have never loved her more.
The hallway goes silent.
Then Luca says, “Mrs. Phillips.”
“Go away.”
Isabella claps both hands over her mouth. Adriana looks delighted in a very restrained way.
Bianca whispers, “I love your mother.”
From behind the door, Luca sighs. “I only need one minute.”
“No,” Bianca says.
“Ten seconds.”
“No.”
“Five.”
“No.”
I step around Bianca before she can physically restrain me and move toward the door, lifting my dress with both hands. “Everyone breathe. I’m not going to let him see the dress.”
“You cannot negotiate with the groom,” Adriana says.
“I negotiated with him in a jewelry store in the Bahamas. I have experience.”
I open the door just enough to slip my hand through. Luca takes it immediately.
His fingers close around mine, warm and steady, and the noise inside me settles. It always does that with him. Even now. Especially now.
“You’re not supposed to be here,” I say.
“I know.”
“That has never stopped you.”
“No.”
His thumb moves over my knuckles, right over the ring. “Are you all right?”
There it is. The real reason.
Not impatience. Not control. Not even romance, though there is always that with Luca, woven through everything now like gold thread.
He came because he wanted to know if I was okay.
Because he knows spectacle can make me laugh and then quietly overwhelm me.
Because he knows the woman who builds tiny worlds in bottles sometimes needs one small thing she can hold when the big world gets too bright.
I squeeze his hand.
“I’m all right.”
“You’re sure?”
“I’m standing in a room with your sisters, my mother, a dress worth more than my first car, and flowers that have employees. No sane person would be sure.”
His laugh is low and soft through the door. “Lucia.”
My heart lifts.
“Yes,” I say quietly. “I’m sure.”
A pause.
Then his voice lowers. “I love you.”
The room behind me goes suspiciously silent.
I close my eyes, smiling so hard it almost hurts. “I love you too.”
Bianca sniffles.
Isabella whispers, “I’m fine.”
“You are crying into the steamer mitt,” Adriana says.
“It needed moisture.”
Luca lifts my hand and kisses my knuckles through the narrow gap. “I’ll see you at the end of the aisle.”
“You’d better.”
“I waited nine months. I can manage ten more minutes.”
“That sounded patient.”
“I’m growing.”
“Complicated, isn’t it?”
“Worth it,” he says.
Then he releases my hand, and the door closes between us.
For a moment, I stand there, palm tingling, heart full.
Bianca exhales. “That was disgustingly romantic.”
“I know,” I say. “I’m very proud.”
The next ten minutes pass in a blur of final touches.
My veil is pinned. My bouquet is placed in my hands.
My mother kisses my cheek. Bianca cries openly now, which she denies while actively crying.
Isabella tells me that if I trip, she will create a diversion.
Adriana promises that no diversion will be necessary because she has already checked the aisle runner twice.
Then Nonna appears. No one heard the door open. No one ever does with her.
She stands in the doorway wearing deep navy silk, pearls at her throat, silver hair swept back, eyes sharp and shining. The room stills around her in the old way, the Moretti way, the way everyone has when Nonna enters and the air rearranges itself out of respect.
She looks at me for a long moment. Then she smiles.
“Lucia.”
I swallow. “Nonna.”
She comes forward slowly, taking both my hands. Her gaze moves over my face, not the dress, not the veil, not the bouquet. Me.
“A woman who can build a world in a bottle,” she says softly, “can build one with a Moretti man.”
My eyes sting.
“Is that still a compliment or a warning?”
Her smile deepens. “Yes.”
I laugh, and the sound shakes loose the last of my nerves. Outside, the music changes.
My mother takes her place. The sisters line up.
The door opens to sunlight, roses, and the low murmur of waiting guests.
For one second, I see everything at once: the aisle, the water, the flowers, the faces turned toward me, the family I was born into and the family that somehow claimed me after one reckless kiss.
Then I see Luca.
He stands beneath the arch in a black tuxedo, broad shoulders straight, dark hair perfect except for the breeze touching it. His father stands beside him. His eyes find mine instantly, and every bit of the world between us disappears.
He does not smile at first. He goes still.
The way he did when he saw me in Bianca’s emerald dress. The way he did in the jewelry store. The way he does when something reaches him too deeply for performance.
Then his face changes, softening. And Luca Moretti smiles like he has just watched his entire future walk toward him.
I step onto the aisle.
My wedding. Mafia style.
There are roses with attendants, security men pretending to be cousins, a grandmother who probably approved the seating chart with the precision of a military campaign, three sisters silently threatening every wrinkle in my dress, and a groom who once started as the worst decision I had ever made.
He is no longer a bad decision.
He is the hand waiting for mine.
The home I didn’t know I was walking toward.
The man who turned my fake five-minute boyfriend into forever.
When I reach him, Luca takes my hand, his fingers closing around mine in that steady, familiar way that still makes my heart catch.
“You came,” he says softly, just for me.
I smile through tears.
“I keep doing that.”
His thumb brushes over my knuckles.
“Good.”
The officiant begins speaking, but for a moment I barely hear him.
I am too busy looking at Luca. Too busy remembering the first time I saw him across a reception room, dangerous and expensive and available because he happened to be sitting down.
Too busy realizing that the girl who kissed him to prove she had moved on accidentally found the one man she never wanted to move on from.
Later, there will be dinner and dancing.
Nonna will probably terrify a caterer. Bianca will change into a second dress because she believes weddings should have acts.
Isabella will make a toast that causes Adriana visible stress.
My mother will cry again. Luca will pull me away from the reception for five private minutes that will become fifteen because he is still terrible with time when I am involved.
And somewhere near the guest book, arranged beneath a canopy of white roses, two hundred tiny glass bottles will wait as wedding favors.
Each one holds pale sand, a miniature emerald heart, a tiny folded paper rose, and a little gold charm shaped like an anchor.
A dream in a bottle. A world built small enough to hold.
A reminder that sometimes the life you thought was spiraling out of control is actually becoming larger than you ever imagined.
When the officiant asks if I take Luca Moretti as my husband, I look at the man who gave me exits until I chose to stay, the man who stopped turning everything precious into strategy, the man who still looks at me like I’m the truth he didn’t see coming.
“I do,” I say.
Luca’s eyes darken with emotion.
When it is his turn, his voice is steady.
“I do.”
And when he kisses me, there is no panic, no ex-boyfriend, no lie, no borrowed dress, no yacht pulling away from shore before I understand what I’ve agreed to.
There is only Luca. Only me. Only the wild, impossible, beautiful world we built together.
Mafia style.
Lucy thought marrying Luca Moretti was the wildest thing she’d ever done.
Then came the honeymoon.