“What?” I frowned and tried my best to find the second head that had to have grown for her to have a thought like that about me. “I like those things about her. Admire them even. I’m not intimidated by her.”
Mom gave me a smug grin as she sipped her drink, resting back in the chair like she’d won something. “Then what’s the problem? If you like her and you’re not intimidated by her, take your grandmother’s ring and do what men are supposed to do.”
“Why does he get her ring?” Aldo asked.
“Because I’m the oldest,” I retorted at the same time that my mother said, “You had two grandmothers, darling. When you finally become a man, you can have the other one.”
“What? I am a man,” he said indignantly.
Mom chuckled, shaking her head at her younger son. “A boy only becomes a man when he finds the woman that forces him to grow up and be one. Until then, you all like to run around like children, playing with girls’ hearts and breaking those hearts like they’re your old toys. A man doesn’t behave that way.”
“I think you just got schooled.” I smirked. “Looks like I made it to manhood before you after all.”
“Says the guy who can’t even admit he’s in a relationship,” he shot back. “You’re definitely still squarely in the ‘playing with her heart’ category, brother.”
“Nonsense,” my mother said. “Marco is not playing with her heart. He’s winning it.”
“Yeah?” He cocked a dark eyebrow at me. “Is that true, Marco?”
I didn’t have an answer to that question on the fly, but my mother didn’t give me a chance to reply anyway. “Of course, it’s true. He might’ve been too stupid to realize it until now, but going forward, he will see things as they really are.”
Aldo and I exchanged a glance, suddenly back on the same page. “Their relationship is very new, Mama. I don’t think anyone is at the heart winning or giving stage yet.”
“Nonsense,” she repeated. “He wouldn’t be here telling me about her if his heart wasn’t already committed to her.”
“That would be true, except that Aldo told you about her,” I reminded her. “Not me.”
She narrowed her eyes. “It makes no difference who brought me into the loop. You’re the one who’s been telling me all about her. What I still don’t understand is why I had to find out about your girlfriend from anyone other than you.”
I sighed, wishing my brother would have kept his mouth shut. “I didn’t want to tell you this early on. I knew it would give you hope, and I didn’t want to give you hope that she’s the one when I’m not sure yet.”
“You are sure. You just haven’t admitted it to yourself yet.” Her features softened again. “What part of Italy is she from? If I’m going to have to plan a wedding out of town, I’ll need to give the family notice. You know how busy they are.”
“That’s, uh, the one thing about her you might not like so much,” I said. “She lives here now, obviously, but she’s originally from America.”
My mother didn’t skip a beat. “When you say she’s originally from America, you mean her family left Italy and she’s come back to her homeland. Don’t you?”
Mentally bracing myself for the fallout, I gripped my Grappa tight and took the plunge. “No, Mama. I mean she’s American, not Italian.”
Long minutes passed where my mother just blinked at me. Then she slammed her glass down on the side table and jumped up.
Aldo and I could only watch as she lost her shit completely.
“You’re in love with an American? How could you, Marco? You know how I feel about those people. They’re crass and uncultured, and they’re stupid. I thought you said she was intelligent?”
“She is, Mama.”
She marched right up to my chair and shook her finger in my face. “You will ruin your reputation if it gets out that you’ve involved yourself with one of them. What will people think about us? She probably doesn’t even attend church. Jesus, why have you forsaken me?”
She howled that last part to the roof, and I gently wrapped my hand around hers. “No one has forsaken you, Mama. I’m not in love with her. It’s not going to ruin my reputation or the family’s if I’m in a relationship with her, and—”
“I want to meet her.” Her gaze dropped suddenly to mine. “I want to meet the girl who is going to be responsible for ripping our family apart.”
Aldo had only been listening so far, but now his spine straightened. “Mama, I don’t think that’s fair. Why would she rip us apart?”
“Because Americans don’t understand or value family the way we do,” she yelled. “I want to meet her.”
“I don’t think that’s a good idea. Maybe we should wait a while, see if—”
She grabbed my ear and bent her knees to look me right in the eyes. “This weekend, Marco! I want to meet her this weekend. No excuses.”
Her cheeks were mottled with red and gray, and her chest was heaving up and down. Since I didn’t really want her to have a heart attack despite having told Aldo earlier it would be his fault if she did, I agreed.
“Okay, Mama.” I reached up a hand to cup her papery cheek, stroking my thumb across the skin and holding her angry eyes with my own. “You’ll meet her this weekend. Just calm down for me, okay? Everything is going to be fine.”
I was pretty sure it was a lie, but what the fuck else was I supposed to say?
Chapter 24
Addy
A knock on my office door made me look away from my laptop. I rubbed my burning eyes, careful not to get makeup smeared all over my face.
“Come in,” I called out once I was satisfied the veins in my eyes
