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“We’ve got you,” Giada says as we step into my family home.
Lunch has been stressful, trying to find the right time to announce my marriage. Everyone is having so much fun that I don’t want to bring the mood down.
“You’ve been awfully quiet, Natalia,” my mother says, catching me off-guard as we eat dessert.
“Have a lot on my mind,” I answer before looking over at Giada and Allegra who push me to continue with the opening.
“Like what?” my mother pushes, placing her spoon down and looking at me, waiting for me to tell her my problems.
“Um, well …” I start as I nervously run my spoon through the custard of my dessert. “I guess I have something on my mind that I need to tell everyone.”
My father drops his spoon, and the entire room falls silent, except for my heart which is ready to leap out of my chest. This is it, Natalia. I bite my bottom lip as my hand shakes and tears well in my eyes.
“Sweetheart, are you okay?” my father asks as he notices the change in me.
“No,” I say, shaking my head as the tears flow freely.
Paige wraps an arm around me as she’s sitting beside me. “It’s going to be okay,” she tries to reassure me.
“It’s truly not going to be,” I say, looking at her. She’s surprised by my answer.
“Natalia, you’re scaring us, please, whatever it is we can help,” my mother says, and I can hear the panic in her voice.
Do it. Like a Band-Aid, rip it off.
I suck in a deep breath and let it out. “I accidentally got married in Vegas to Alessandro Conti, and now he is blackmailing me. Saying he won’t annul the marriage unless we drop out of the Emerald Hotels deal, to which I told him no. So tomorrow the papers are releasing the footage of our wedding in a huge exposé.”
You could hear a pin drop in the room. I don’t dare look up as I concentrate on my dessert. Then moments later, as if everyone comprehends what I said, the shouting starts.
“What the fuck!”
“How could you?”
“This isn’t real?”
“A fucking Conti?”
“You’ve been hiding this?”
“I can’t believe you’d be this stupid.”
There are a lot of hand gestures and table slapping.
I let them shout as I continue to eat my dessert. There is nothing I can say to them in this moment that will make what I’ve done any better, nor will they listen to me.
“Enough,” Lilly says, raising her voice and standing up as she grabs her expanding belly. The room falls silent. “There will be no fighting in front of my child,” she chastises everyone. Little Leo sits there staring at his family, wondering what is going on with unshed tears and a wobbly lip.
“I think Nona and Nonno might want to take Leo for a walk while the adults talk,” my mother suggests.
“That sounds like a good idea, my love,” my father says, throwing his napkin onto the table, then scoops up Leo from his father’s arms. He walks past me and gives my shoulder a squeeze before walking out.
That little gesture breaks me. “I’m so sorry,” I sob as I break down at the table. Then Luca and Gio start berating me again.
“What were you thinking?”
“Did he force you?”
“Enough,” Lilly shouts again, pointing at her husband and brother-in-law. “You can clearly see she’s upset, and you yelling at her isn’t going to change the situation,” she says, rubbing her belly.
