Page 84 of Bene

The love.

It was so painfully clear.

She looked Vanna’s way with a sly smile.

What was that all about?

Vanna didn’t have time to find out.

Bene made his way back down to her, and Gian addressed the table with a clap of his hands that had servers coming in through three different entrances. While the table was already full of food, and some even had plates filled in front of them … the servers held pitchers of water, juice, and one held a tray of wine glasses.

“Time to eat,” Gian said.

Across the table, one of the men that Vanna recognized from the newspaper picture at the wedding smiled at her. Christopher, was it?

Another Guzzi twin.

“Dad might be good with waiting for introductions,” he said to Bene beside Vanna, “but I don’t care about politeness, so …”

Bene laughed, waving a hand between his brother, and Vanna as a server came up to them with plates ready to sit in front of them. “Vanna, this is Chris, and his wife, Valeria.”

“Val is cool, though,” the pretty woman to Chris’s left replied, although her attention was more focused on the young girl sitting next to her that was trying not to spill sauce down her sweet dress. “Here, let me put a napkin on you, Maria.”

“Nice to meet you,” Vanna said.

Chris nodded. “Fair warning, it’s going to get loud … it always does. And no worries, nobody is going to get offended if you forget our names tonight. There’s a lot of us.”

“Too many, sometimes,” a man—another she did recognize from the newspaper—to Chris’s right muttered.

“Marcus, my oldest brother,” Bene filled in, confirming what she already knew.

She laughed.

“I’ll remember that.”

“Eat, eat!”

The shout echoed down the table.

Bene gave her a wink.

Food it was.

“Vanna, is it?”

Vanna turned away from Marcus who had been showing her the long corridor in the mansion that was dedicated solely to portraits of the Guzzi family. Currently, she was admiring one of Cara surrounded by her boys when they were younger in a forest setting where she sat on a chair that seemed more like a throne, staring head on at the artist painting, proud as could be over the empire around her.

An army of principes.

And a queen leading them.

The woman in the picture was the same one walking toward her now. Marcus dropped Vanna’s hand that had been tucked into his elbow with a smile, but only long enough to greet his mother with a one-armed hug, and kiss to her cheek.

“I’ll give you two a minute,” he murmured.

“Grazie, mio raggazo.”

“Be nice, Ma.”