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He frowned, because he’d woken up to find her gone. Disappointment had seared him; he’d expected to wake up and roll over, wrap an arm around her, and draw her back to his body. He’d craved her; yearned for her, and not being able to have her had put him in the kind of mood one didn’t easily shake.
He stared at his phone, showing his brother’s face, and reached for it just seconds, surely, before the ringing would stop, swiping to answer.
“Ciao,” he greeted, his voice unintentionally curt.
“Rocco. You’re busy?”
He closed his eyes and saw Maddie’s face. He opened them again, swiftly. “Always. What’s up?”
“I won’t keep you long.”
Rocco felt a hint of guilt. None of this was Raf’s fault. Not the Hamptons deal taking way longer than it should have, not the situation with Maddie, none of it. “Nah, it’s all good. How’s things?” He made an effort to soften his tone, to relax—or at least sound it. And in doing so, he realized that Raf’s voice was the opposite.
“I have news.”
Rocco sat a little straighter in his chair, his eyes hitched to the view without really seeing it. “Yeah?”
“Marcia and I?—,”
Have broken up, Rocco mentally supplied, internally celebrating this news. “Yeah?”
“We’re getting married.”
Rocco’s eyes swept shut once more, his whole face scrunching up in a physical rejection of that. NO. He wanted to pull rank, to tell his brother there was no way he’d let the marriage go ahead. He’d been a de facto father to both his younger brothers for long enough to feel that was his right. Marcia? Marrying Raf? Rocco couldn’t allow it.
“She’s pregnant,” Raf continued. “It was…unplanned.”
Rocco’s gut churned. Pregnant. A baby. Everything shifted, and he felt his brother’s conundrum. Or perhaps it wasn’t a conundrum for Raf. Not in the way it would have been for Rocco. Raf had been seeing Marcia a long time. Far longer than anyone thought it would last. He obviously saw something in her that no one else did.
“I see.” It was the best he could do. It wasn’t the hearty congratulations a happy engagement warranted, but Rocco was not able to lie easily. Particularly not to his brother. “Are you happy?”
“What kind of question is that?”
An appropriate one, Rocco thought, wincing. Because it was hardly the response of a deliriously content groom-to-be.
“We’re going to do it quickly. Next week, I guess.”
Rocco nodded, brushing a hand over his chin. With Marcia’s pregnancy, he could understand why time might be a factor.
“Where?”
“Gianni and Maria’s.”
“No pizza though, right?” Rocco quipped. Their uncle Gianni made famously terrible pizza, always opting to experiment with the toppings and combining the strangest of things.
“Definitely not. I have no idea what the wedding will look like,” Raf said. “It’s all happened so quickly. I suppose Marcia will have ideas.”
“Brides tend to, don’t they?” Especially brides like Marcia, who’d been angling for a proposal for almost as long as she’d known Raf. And now, she was pregnant. Well, that was one way to seal the deal, Rocco thought, catching the ungenerous thought and strangling it before it could take hold. A baby was always something to be celebrated; that would be his focus.
“She mentioned something about a wedding planner in Rome,” Raf continued. “I guess they’ll do all the heavy lifting.”
Rocco sat a little straighter and then, because ideas were like lightning, and the electricity of a thousand volts was flooding his body, he stood, unable to contain himself. Weddings meant flowers. Lots of flowers. “I know someone,” Rocco said, slowly, when the idea was exploding inside of him. Too fast to question if it was wise. Too fast to think it through properly. “An exceptional florist. Let me gift you her for the wedding.”
“A florist?”
“Well, the flowers,” he amended. As he said it, he imagined Maddie having to work with Marcia and almost wanted to retract the offer. But wasn’t it the kind of opportunity dreams were made of? To travel to Italy and do the flowers for a wedding like this? High society, it would be in the magazines; she’d have an unlimited budget to create something spectacular.
And? A little voice prompted.
