Chapter 1
Instead, I was wearing clearance-rack heels, worrying about the piece of wedding cake I had promised Lily.
Strangely, that made the moment feel more honest.
Giovanni glanced down.
“Better?”
“What?”
“You stopped looking like you wanted to disappear.”
I swallowed.
“Was that your goal?”
“One of them.”
“And the other?”
Before he could answer, a silver-haired woman appeared at the edge of the dance floor.
She did not interrupt.
She merely waited.
Giovanni noticed her and sighed.
“My aunt.”
“The matchmaker?”
“The strategist.”
“She looks terrifying.”
“She’ll be delighted to hear that.”
The song ended.
Applause spread politely around the room, intended mostly for another couple celebrating near the center, but Giovanni did not release my hand immediately.
His aunt stepped forward.
“Giovanni.”
“Aunt Elena.”
Her gaze moved to me.
Up close, she was less intimidating than elegant. She had intelligent brown eyes, a small pearl brooch at her collar, and the unmistakable expression of a woman who had just discovered a chapter missing from a book she believed she had memorized.
“And you are?”
I opened my mouth.
Giovanni answered first.
“My wife.”
My head snapped toward him.
His expression did not change.
Elena Fierro blinked exactly once.
“Your what?”
“Wife.”
I dug my fingernails into Giovanni’s hand.
He did not react.
“That,” Elena said slowly, “is certainly new information.”
“It was a private decision.”
“Apparently private from the entire family.”
“Especially from the entire family.”
I smiled because I had forgotten how to do anything else.
Elena studied me.
To my surprise, there was no hostility in her face.
Only curiosity.
Then she extended her hand.
“Elena Fierro.”
“Jessica Hale.”
“Fierro,” Giovanni corrected calmly.
I stepped on his shoe.
He deserved worse.
Elena’s mouth twitched.
“I see.”
“You see nothing,” Giovanni said.
“I see enough to know you’re going to call me tomorrow.”
She looked at me again.
“And Jessica?”
“Yes?”
“If this man has dragged you into one of his dramatic solutions to a problem that could have been solved with an ordinary conversation, you have my sympathy.”
Then she walked away.
I stared after her.
“Your aunt knows.”
“Knows what?”
“That we’re lying.”
“She suspects.”
“She practically congratulated me on surviving you.”
Giovanni looked thoughtful. “That does sound like her.”
I pulled my hand from his.
“What happened to pretending for one dance?”
“I adapted.”
“You upgraded me from dance partner to secret wife without consulting me.”
“That was poorly handled.”
“Poorly handled?”
“Yes.”
“That is the calmest description of lying I have ever heard.”
“You’re right.”
That stopped me.
Men like Tyler had taught me to expect excuses before apologies.
Giovanni simply stood there.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “I put you in an uncomfortable position because it was convenient for me.”
The noise of the reception continued around us.
“You say sorry very efficiently too.”
“I’ve had practice being wrong.”
Something in his face changed when he said it.
Only for a second.
Then Sophia appeared.
My sister was still carrying part of her wedding bouquet, several curls had fallen loose around her face, and she looked both blissful and alarmed.
“Jessica.”
“There you are.”
She looked at Giovanni.
Then at me.
Then back at Giovanni.
“Oh no.”
I folded my arms. “That is not the reaction I wanted from the bride.”
“What did you do?” she asked him.
Giovanni loosened his tie.
“Improvised.”
Sophia closed her eyes.
“You told her?”
“Told me what?” I asked.
Neither answered.
My stomach tightened.
“Sophia.”
My sister reached for my hand.
“Come with me.”
We slipped out of the ballroom into a quiet corridor overlooking the river. The city lights trembled across the water beneath us.
Giovanni followed several steps behind.
I turned.
“Why does my sister know you?”
Sophia looked guilty.
“I was going to tell you tonight.”
“Tell me what?”
“That Giovanni would be here.”
“He’s at your wedding. I figured that out.”
“I mean here for you.”
I looked between them.
Giovanni’s expression had become unreadable.
“For me?”
Sophia nodded.
“Jess, remember that nursing leadership program you applied for last winter?”
My heart sank.
“Yes.”
The Calder Fellowship.
Two years of part-time graduate tuition, professional mentoring, and funding to develop a hospital project.
I had applied eleven months ago after a charge nurse encouraged me.
Then I heard nothing.
Eventually, I assumed I had failed.
“What about it?”
Sophia smiled carefully.
“You didn’t hear because the foundation delayed announcing the finalists after they expanded the program.”
“What foundation?”
Giovanni answered.
“The Fierro Family Foundation.”
I stared at him.
Pieces shifted in my mind.
His knowledge of my age.
My job.
Lily.
“You read my application.”
“Yes.”
My face burned.
The personal statement had been the most vulnerable thing I had written in years.
I had described nursing school.
Pregnancy.
Tyler leaving.
Working nights while Lily slept at my mother’s apartment.
The afternoon I realized a frightened parent in the pediatric ward needed someone to explain discharge instructions more than she needed another brochure.
That experience had become my proposal: a family transition program pairing pediatric nurses with families during the first weeks after complicated hospital stays.
“You read about Lily.”
“Yes.”
“That’s how you knew.”
“Yes.”
Relief came first.
Then embarrassment.
“You could have said that.”
“At Table Twelve?”
“Yes!”
“You looked like you were one unpleasant comment away from leaving.”
“That doesn’t explain pretending to marry me.”
“No,” Sophia said.
She looked sharply at Giovanni.
“That part is entirely his fault.”
“Thank you,” I said.
“You’re welcome.”
Giovanni accepted the verdict.
Sophia squeezed my hand.
“I asked him not to discuss the fellowship until after dinner because I wanted tonight to be about family, not work. But I also wanted you two to meet.”
“Why?”
“Because you made the final round.”
I stopped breathing.
“What?”
Sophia’s eyes filled.
May you like
“You made the final round, Jess.”
I looked at Giovanni.
