Chapter 2
About Damn Time
Franki
Between checking on all our charges, Phyllis and kittens included, Henry and I haven’t had more than five minutes alone. At least Noah’s brother, Elliot, made our jobs easier. According to his mother, he hasn’t left his room for the last two hours.
When we finally step onto the terrazzo where we’re meant to perform a dry run of the ceremony, Henry catches me with an arm around my waist, just in time to prevent me from face-planting in front of half the wedding party.
“Are you okay?” he asks, alarmed.
I nod. “Just startled.”
“By what?” He assesses the area with deliberate intent, clocking everything in sight.
I nod to the place where the wooden lectern used to stand. “By that.”
The replacement is marble—hand-carved with fluted columns along the sides, and a top wide enough to support a small orchestra. If a Roman senator were about to denounce a rival, this is where he’d stand to do it.
“I was assured it would arrive in time, and it did,” Henry says.
I gnaw on the inside of my cheek. “Did you pick it out?”
“Not exactly. We had very short notice, and this is a small village with limited options. I made a phone call and had it transported here.”
“From where?”
“A basilica in Naples.”
My mouth works. How did they transport it? In pieces? Are they allowed to do this? Is it even legal? “It looks exactly like it came from a basilica.”
His lips quirk. “Because it did. They lent it to us temporarily. It’ll go back Sunday morning.”
“How did you get a basilica to lend you an altar?”
His eyelids drop to half mast, and he shrugs. “They owed me a favor.”
“Why would a church in Naples owe you a—you know what? I don’t want to know,” I say.
“Nothing nefarious, love. I promise.”
“I adore that I married a man who uses the word nefarious unironically.”
Beside me, Henry rakes the altar with a single assessing glance. “We needed something with no way for a cat to make its home inside it.”
I know the grooms have arrived when a small, broken sound ekes out of Noah.
“Spencer. Dante.” Henry dips his head toward the altar. “Crisis averted.”
Henry is a creature of habit. The fact that I call his PA by his first name in no way changes years of Henry calling him by his last name.
Dante squeezes Noah’s shoulder, looks at the altar, then visibly decides this is not a hill worth dying on. “Thank you, Henry.”
Henry inclines his head. “You’re welcome.”
The officiant clears his throat, and I move into the position Noah indicates.
“Elliot, you’ll stand next to Franki,” Noah calls.
I turn to find the young man jogging across the terrazzo to join us.
“Henry and Gabriel,” Noah continues, “you’re on the opposite side with Dante. We’re not walking down an aisle. The wedding party will be in place, then Dante and I will each enter from opposite sides when the quartet plays and meet in the middle.”
Elliot, around six inches shorter than my six-foot-four husband, lopes into his position beside me and plants his palms on his knees as he catches his breath.
I recognize the family resemblance to his brother immediately, though he’s a bit more gangly. His trousers are a little short, as though he’s gone through a recent growth spurt. I smile in friendly welcome.
He grins back and straightens to his full height, ginger curls flopping into his eyes and dimples appearing in both cheeks. He doesn’t have a hint of stubble or whiskers on his face. He looks sweet. Oblivious. A misunderstood soul.
“You almost whiffed it back there,” he says.
A laugh startles out of me. “You saw that, huh?”
“From my balcony. That’s what the Americans say, isn’t it?” he asks. “Or is it biffed it?”
“Either one works, I suppose.”
“What’s wrong with you?” He indicates my cane.
I don’t hide my RA, but his demanding, almost accusatory, tone catches me off guard.
I force a smile. “I tripped because I wasn’t watching where I was going.”
I also have one leg slightly shorter than the other and skipped my shoes with an orthotic lift to wear cute sandals with this dress. But I’m not admitting that out loud. It sounds vain.
I continue. “The cane is to offer a little help when my RA acts up.” Sometimes I need it. Sometimes I’m fine without one. It depends completely on how I’m feeling on any particular day.
“You’re one of those ‘autoimmune people.’ You know if you ate right and exercised that would clear right up.”
Ugh. Like I don’t already follow an autoimmune protocol.
“Welcome. Let’s begin.” The local officiant smiles, the late afternoon sun gleaming on his wealth of salt-and-pepper hair.
Elliot leans closer. “I’m Elliot, by the way.”
The introduction is nice. The timing, coming as it does when we’re meant to pay attention to the officiant, is not.
I offer him a brief glance from the corner of my eye and a smile. “Franki McRae,” I whisper, hoping he’ll take the hint and stop talking.
He doesn’t.
“Franki McRae,” he repeats. “What’s that short for? Francine? Frances? Francisca?” He stretches out and rolls his r on his last guess.
I shake my head slightly and lift my finger to my lips to indicate the need to be quiet, though I do it with a smile to soften the sting.
“Francesca!”
I startle as he shouts loudly enough that the entire rehearsal comes to a screeching halt. The wedding party jerks toward us to see why he yelled my name.
He shakes his head at me with a scolding look, as though I’m the reason he was forced to raise his voice. Heat floods my neck and face.
Across the marble behemoth, Henry, utterly expressionless, stares at the young man. Behind that flat look, I know he’s cataloging everything and liking none of it.
I give the officiant a tight smile. “Sorry. Please, continue.”
I’m off to a less than impressive start with my Elliot-wrangling duty. But who knew he’d be a problem during the literal rehearsal?
Standing nearby with an iPad in her hand, the wedding planner, Lucinda, appears to have decided I instigated the interruption. She tosses her blonde hair over one shoulder and scowls at me.
My mouth drops, but I manage, barely, to suppress the urge to point at Elliot and sputter, “But, but . . .”
When she finally spares a glance for Noah’s brother, he dimples back at her.
Gosh darn it, he is adorable. I have to give him that.
He’s a harmless kid. I can handle a bit of boisterous energy and bad manners. What I need to do is redirect.
When we reach a lull before we start a second run-through, I turn my head toward him. “Is this your first time on the coast?”
“This one. Yes. Not my first time on a coast. How about you, Francesca?” He does this weird thing with my name, using a fake accent that doesn’t actually match any real one I’ve ever heard.
“Just Franki is fine. This is my third time in the area, but my first at Villa dei Limoni. Normally, we stay on the water.”
His gaze fixes on the Mediterranean. “You stay on the water?”
“On Henry’s parents’ yacht. Do you like boats?”
“Love them.”
“You should join us next week for an afternoon. It would be fun.”
He turns toward me slowly and rakes his gaze over me. “We would definitely have fun.” He winks at me.
Umm. Okay. What is wink-worthy about boats? “Are you a university student?”
“When classes are in session. At the moment, I’m a groomsman in my brother’s wedding.” He winks again.
Maybe he has something in his eye.
“Where do you go to school?”
“Oxford.”
“I’ve visited Oxford many times,” I say, warmly. “What are you studying?”
He smirks. “The material is a little dense, but in the interest of keeping it simple for someone like you, Mediterranean history.”
My smile grows. Finally. Something we can talk about. “Italy is the perfect place to visit. There’s so much history to explore here.”
He snorts. “The Renaissance was about a lot more than tourist traps.”
I grit my teeth. “I know.”
“Do you?” His tone drips disbelief.
I nod toward the steep scatter of pastel buildings clinging to the cliffs behind us. “These Amalfi Coast communities may seem small now, but this area was extremely influential in establishing maritime law. Amalfi, itself, shaped commercial practice across the Mediterranean for centuries.”
He laughs. “You’ve confused Amalfi with Catalonia and the Consulate of the Sea. But nice effort, darling,” he says in the tone of someone talking to a toddler.
“My husband is the only man who gets to call me ‘darling.’” And he’s never used it to patronize me.
Elliot rolls his eyes.
I grit my teeth and remind myself that I’m a patient person. My friends regularly tease me about my “legendary” self-restraint. Henry is usually the only person who can even tell when I’m pissed off, but Oh my God. I hate Elliot.
My husband glares across the marble barrier between us at the young man lecturing me. He may not be able to hear our conversation, but he can see what’s happening just fine.
I give Henry my best “Stay where you are” look before straightening my spine and returning my attention to Noah’s brother.
He wants to talk history? We can talk history.
“Not the Consulat de la Mer. The Tabula Amalphitana,” I say.
He lifts his nose and smirks. “Nonsense in a foreign language is still nonsense.”
I’ve just spent years of my life studying a subject I care about deeply for this boy to disrespect me and argue over something so basic.
Elliot is far from the first man to dismiss me academically based solely on his ego. That’s the only excuse I have for what I do next. “So, you don’t speak Italian?”
“I’ve been occupied with more important things.”
I’m aware my voice is described as soft and sweet. I’ve tried many times to make it harder and lower with varying degrees of success.
I’m not meeting Elliot on that ground. I lean into my natural register and make my eyes as round as they’ll go. “Do you understand French, at least?”
He huffs.
“You must know this one?” I begin an explanation about maritime law, this time in German, then cut off at the annoyed expression on his face.