Wedding Week Rules
Chapter 02 - Wedding Week Rules
Luca unfolded the paper with the care of a man opening evidence at a trial.
The sheet trembled only because Matteo’s hands had made the creases uneven.
At the top, written in neat black ink, were three words.
MATTEO’S WEDDING WEEK RULES.
Not house rules.
Not family rules.
His rules.
Number one: No mention of my mother during meals.
Number two: No sulking in photographs.
Number three: No correcting Vanessa in front of guests.
Number four: Sit separately unless invited.
Number five: Practice saying “Mother” before the wedding.
Number six: If Luca asks, say you wanted privacy.
Luca read the list once.
Then again.
The first time, the room watched a powerful man process an insult.
The second time, they watched a father discover a wound he should have seen earlier.
Matteo stood with his shoulders straight, trying so hard to appear older than thirteen that Claire wanted to look away. She could not. Sometimes witness was the only shield available.
Luca’s voice came quietly.
“Who wrote this?”
Matteo did not answer.
Vanessa laughed lightly, a delicate sound meant for the guests.
“Oh, Luca. Children dramatize everything.”
“Who wrote it?”
Vanessa’s smile tightened.
“I made a few suggestions. He has been difficult lately.”
Luca turned the paper toward her.
“You told my son he could not say his mother’s name at dinner?”
“No.”
“Number one says that.”
“I said tonight was about us.”
“His mother existed before us.”
That stopped her.
For one brief second, something like resentment crossed Vanessa’s face—old, bright, poisonous.
Then she smoothed it away.
“Isabella has been dead for five years.”
Matteo flinched as if slapped.
Luca saw it.
So did Claire.
His hand lowered to his son’s shoulder, not heavy, just present. Matteo stiffened under the touch, then leaned into it before he could stop himself.
That small movement seemed to hurt Luca more than anything Vanessa had said.
“Sit,” Luca told him.
Matteo hesitated.
“In your chair.”
Vanessa inhaled sharply.
Matteo looked at the gold chair as if it might vanish if he trusted it. Then he moved around the table and sat beside his father.
Claire stepped back.
Her job was over.
It should have been over.
But Luca looked at her before she could retreat.
“You found the card?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Where exactly?”
“In the kitchen trash.”
Vanessa snapped, “She’s lying.”
Claire’s stomach tightened.
Luca did not take his eyes off Claire. “Did anyone see you take it out?”
“Yes.”
Vanessa’s confidence faltered.
“Who?”
Claire glanced toward the service doors.
One of the junior waiters, a boy not much older than nineteen, looked ready to faint. Claire hated pulling him into it, but truth needed company or it became a target.
“Daniel, from service.”
Daniel swallowed visibly from across the room. “I saw it, sir.”
Vanessa turned on him. “You saw a maid digging through trash during dinner preparations?”
Daniel’s voice came out thin. “I saw her pull the card out after you told Marco to clear the chair.”
The name hung there.
Marco, Vanessa’s cousin, head of event staff for the evening, a man Claire had already seen ordering permanent Moretti employees around as if he owned the place.
Luca’s eyes moved toward the doorway.
“Find Marco.”
One of his men left.
Vanessa’s laugh returned, but thinner now.
“This is absurd. Are we going to turn our engagement dinner into a staff interrogation because your teenage son had a tantrum?”
Matteo looked down at his untouched plate.
Claire saw his fingers curl under the table.
Luca lowered himself into his chair.
“No.”
Vanessa relaxed too soon.
“We’re going to eat,” he said. “My son is going to sit at my table. And after our guests leave, you and I are going to discuss why you believed you had authority to punish my child.”
The guests pretended to resume breathing.
A waiter poured wine with a hand that shook.
Claire tried to slip toward the service wall, but Matteo’s fork clattered onto the plate.
Everyone looked.
The boy’s face had gone pale.
Luca leaned toward him. “What is it?”
Matteo shook his head.
Vanessa spoke in a low tone. “Enough, Matteo.”
That was the wrong thing to say.
Luca did not raise his voice. “Do not answer for him.”
Matteo swallowed.
“I’m not allowed to eat until I apologize.”
The fork in Luca’s hand stopped halfway to the table.
Claire closed her eyes for a second.
Vanessa whispered, “Matteo.”
He looked at his father.
“She said if I made a scene, dinner would be taken away again.”
Again.
One word could tear open a house.
Luca’s face emptied of expression.
“Again?”
Matteo’s breath hitched.
Claire could not stand still anymore.
“Mr. Moretti.”
Luca looked at her.
She knew she was about to lose every placement the agency might ever give her.
She also knew a boy had been going hungry at the most expensive dinner table in Chicago.
“There are plates in the pantry,” she said. “Wrapped and labeled. I thought they were leftovers.”
Vanessa stood so fast her chair scraped the marble.
“Do not listen to her.”
Luca’s eyes turned to Claire.
“Labeled how?”
Claire answered before fear could silence her.
“With your son’s name.”
Matteo’s face crumpled.
May you like
Not because Claire had betrayed him.
Because he knew, in that moment, his father was about to learn everything.
