Chapter 14 - The Second Chance
Luca proposed one year after the night at Bellini House.
He did not take me to Paris.
He did not rent a ballroom.
He did not hire musicians.
That would have been the old Luca.
The new Luca proposed in my kitchen while Theo and Lily slept upstairs.
I was wearing sweatpants.
He was washing a saucepan.
Badly.
“You missed a spot,” I said.
“I am building suspense.”
“For dishwashing?”
He turned off the water.
“Nia.”
Something in his voice made me look up.
He dried his hands.
Then he took a small box from the drawer beside the stove.
I stared.
“No.”
His face fell.
“I haven’t asked.”
“I mean no grand speech.”
He blinked.
“Good. I prepared twelve pages.”
“Luca.”
He laughed.
Then became serious.
“I don’t want to marry you again.”
I stared.
“Excellent opening.”
“I want to marry you for the first time as the people we are now.”
My throat tightened.
He opened the box.
The ring was not the enormous diamond he could afford.
It was elegant.
Simple.
Beautiful.
“Our first marriage was full of promises we didn’t know how to keep,” he said. “I promised to protect you and then disappeared when life became painful. I promised honesty and let silence make decisions for us. I cannot promise I will never fail you. I can promise I will not hide from failure again.”
Tears filled my eyes.
“I promise our children never have to earn my presence. I promise your boundaries will never become evidence against your love. And I promise that if you say no tonight, I will still come Tuesday at four to take Theo to soccer.”
I laughed through tears.
“You rehearsed that.”
“The therapist helped.”
“I knew it.”
He lowered himself onto one knee.
“Nia Carter, will you marry me?”
I looked at the man who had broken my heart.
The man whose heart I had also broken when fear kept me silent longer than it should have.
The father who learned braids.
The billionaire who learned grocery-store cookies.
The ex-husband who stepped away from an empire rather than call his children a complication.
I thought about the woman I had been six years earlier.
She would have said yes because she loved him.
I said yes because I trusted what we had built.
“Yes.”
Luca closed his eyes.
“You’re sure?”
“Do not ruin this.”
He laughed and stood.
Then the hallway light came on.
Theo appeared.
“You said yes?”
I stared.
“You were listening?”
Lily popped out behind him.
“We knew.”
“How?”
“Dad put the ring in the kitchen drawer three days ago,” Lily said.
Luca looked betrayed.
“You saw it?”
“You hide things badly.”
Theo ran toward us.
“WE’RE GETTING MARRIED.”
“We are,” Luca said.
“Chocolate cake.”
“Yes,” he said immediately.
I pointed.
“You are undermining me.”
“First act as fiancé.”
“Bad start.”
The wedding planning became a family referendum.
Theo wanted a rooftop.
Lily wanted flowers “but not boring white ones.”
Luca wanted whatever I wanted.
I wanted forty people.
We settled on fifty-two.
Evelyn was invited.
Yes.
She laughed when she received the invitation.
“I am officially attending my ex-husband’s remarriage to his ex-wife.”
“Your life is strange.”
“You’re the one marrying him twice.”
“Technically once-and-a-half.”
Celeste was invited only to the ceremony.
No reception.
She accepted without protest.
Progress.
My mother cried when I told her.
Jana said, “I reserve the right to tackle him if he becomes emotionally unavailable.”
Luca responded, “Fair.”
Two weeks before the wedding, Luca took me back to Bellini House.
Same restaurant.
Different table.
“Why here?”
“Because this is where my real life restarted.”
“You were married to someone else.”
“I said restarted, not became convenient.”
I rolled my eyes.
Then he pointed across the room.
“The table.”
I remembered.
Theo coloring.
Lily asking about cake.
Me laughing before I saw him.
“What did you think when you saw them?” I asked.
“Theo first.”
“Why?”
“He frowned at me.”
I smiled.
“And?”
“I thought I was hallucinating.”
“Then Lily?”
“I knew.”
“Before I said anything?”
“Yes.”
“How?”
He looked at me.
“Because I had spent years pretending I didn’t remember your face when you talked about children.”
My throat tightened.
“I knew what our children would look like because I had imagined them too many times.”
I looked away.
“Nia.”
“Yes?”
“I am sorry it took losing everything to become a man capable of keeping it.”
I took his hand.
“You didn’t lose everything.”
“No.”
He smiled.
“I found two people arguing about dessert.”
Then Theo texted from Jana’s house.
CAN WE HAVE CAKE AT WEDDING AND ALSO ICE CREAM
Luca showed me.
“Your son.”
“Our son.”
He smiled.
May you like
That correction still made him emotional.
“Always.”
