The Ranieri Bride

THEY turned out to be the longest two nights of her life.

On her wedding day, Freya tried her best to raise some enthusiasm to match that of everyone else. Nicky was over-excited, Lissa’s eyes were shining because she’d managed to get a peek at the dress when it was delivered earlier that morning. Sonny was playing it cool, but even a stressed-out Freya couldn’t stop her grin when he appeared looking all suave and polished in a dark three-piece suit complete with an ice-blue silk tie instead of his usual jeans and T-shirt.

No sign of Fredo today. But then Fredo would be where he usually was, shadowing his lord and master—wherever Enrico was.

Cindy had arrived while Freya was trying to bathe away the aches and creases of her second sleepless night in a row. Then suddenly the morning had gone.

Too fast. Much too fast.

In half an hour she was due at the church.

Cindy sighed as she stood back to view Freya’s full effect in the mirror. ‘Gosh, you look amazing,’ she breathed.

Cindy’s blue eyes were wearing a dewy look. But then Cindy was a fully paid-up member of the romantic dreamers’ club.

Maybe this would be a good point for her to start pretending that she was, too, Freya mused as she looked at her reflection and saw the perfect romantic bride prepared for the perfect romantic wedding.

Tradition was really on a roll here. She even wore a fragile gold necklace complete with two diamond set-joined hearts that nestled lovingly in the hollow between her breasts. It had been delivered that morning with a note from Enrico.

‘Be there,’ was all he’d written. That was all, no reassuring words about Luca, just be there, like a command and a threat.

Her stomach muscles knotted.

‘You’re so lucky,’ Cindy said softly. ‘You get to marry the man of your dreams and he’s such a romantic hunk.’

‘You mean the asset-stripping shark with the very sharp teeth?’

Cindy laughed. ‘You adore him really, so don’t use that cynical tone around me. Don’t you feel just a tiny bit as if none of this is real?’

All the time, Freya thought heavily. ‘Any minute now my fairy godmother is going to turn up, complete with a pumpkin coach and six prancing white horses,’ she mocked drily.

What they actually got was Sonny, a chauffeur and a black Bentley Continental.

The paparazzi were out in force to capture their pictures. Sonny and the chauffeur held the pack back while Freya and Cindy got into the car.

The church was one of those tiny old chapels squashed in between modern constructions, which made London the unique, crazily charming place that it was.

Five steps led up to the entrance. Lissa stood waiting inside the small foyer with a restless Nicky dressed in proper trousers, a shirt and an ice-blue silk tie like Sonny’s. He looked so grown-up and cute with his dark curls combed into order that Freya’s eyes tried to fill with silly tears.

Then the music started and she lost touch with everything: the tears, the small clutch of people standing around her. Her heart began pounding, a bow of panic playing a rusty screech across her nerves.

This was it: the moment to make her mind up. She could run in the other direction without needing to set eyes on Enrico. She could just pick up her son and—

‘OK, sweetie?’ a quiet voice questioned.

She looked up at Sonny, who was looking solemnly down at her and at the same time blocking the door.

He knew. He knew what she was thinking and maybe even what she was feeling. Sonny and Fredo probably knew everything.

She moistened her lips, tasted clear gloss on the tip of her tongue. ‘I can’t—’

‘Si, you can,’ Sonny said firmly. Then he lowered his head to whisper, ‘Trust him, cara.’

It always came back to that word, didn’t it?

Then, as if someone had planned it, she felt a little hand slide into her hand. ‘C’mon, Mummy,’ Nicky said impatiently. ‘We’ve got to go and marry Daddy.’

Marry Daddy, she repeated to herself. Did the small boy even understand what that meant? Did he care? She was his mummy and Enrico was his daddy, just as Fredo and Sonny and Lissa were his very best friends.