Wedding Week Rules
Chapter 02 - Wedding Week Rules
Nobody spoke after Sophie mentioned Elena’s room.
The chandeliers hummed softly above us. Somewhere beyond the dining room, a string quartet played the first notes of a waltz meant for dessert, champagne, and speeches. The music drifted through the walls with terrible manners, bright and graceful while Luca Moretti stared at the woman he had planned to marry.
Vanessa recovered first.
That was what polished women did. They corrected their faces before the damage reached the room.
“Luca,” she said, leaning toward him as though tenderness could cover panic, “she’s misunderstood. Children repeat things in pieces. Sophie has been overwhelmed all week.”
Sophie stared at her plate.
Luca did not stand. He remained crouched beside his daughter, one hand still resting on the back of her chair. It made him look less like a crime lord and more like what he had almost forgotten he was before anything else.
A father.
“Claire,” he said.
My throat tightened. “Yes, sir?”
“Read the page.”
Vanessa’s head snapped toward him. “That is unnecessary.”
He looked at her for the first time since Sophie spoke.
“It was hidden under my daughter’s dinner plate.”
“It wasn’t hidden.”
“Then you won’t mind.”
Her mouth closed.
I picked up the paper from where Luca had placed it beside the plate. The handwriting was elegant, narrow, and controlled. Vanessa’s handwriting. I had seen it on household notes, floral instructions, thank-you cards she never wrote herself but always signed herself.
At the top, in small neat letters, it read:
Sophie’s Wedding Week Rules.
My hands wanted to refuse the words, but Luca’s gaze stayed on me.
I read.
“Rule one. No talking about Mommy during meals.”
A murmur moved down the table.
“Rule two. No entering the green bedroom without permission.”
Sophie’s room was pink. Elena’s room—the one Luca had preserved after her death—was green.
“Rule three. No correcting Vanessa in front of guests.”
Vanessa lifted her chin.
“Rule four. No crying at dinner. It embarrasses Daddy.”
Luca’s face changed then.
Not loudly. Not visibly enough for most people.
But the little muscle in his jaw moved once, and his hand on Sophie’s chair tightened.
I continued.
“Rule five. If you refuse food, the next meal will be skipped to teach gratitude.”
Someone whispered, “My God.”
“Rule six. After the wedding, you will call Vanessa Mother in formal company.”
Sophie made a sound so small I almost missed it.
Luca did not.
He reached for her hand.
The final line had been written in darker ink, as if added later.
I almost stopped.
“Read it,” Luca said.
“Rule seven,” I whispered. “Daddy has a new family now. Don’t make him choose.”
The room went silent in the way rooms go silent after someone has said the cruel thing everyone recognizes but no one expected to hear aloud.
Vanessa stood.
“This is absurd. I will not be judged by people who have never raised a grieving child.”
“You haven’t raised one either,” Luca said.
Her face reddened.
“You asked me to help her prepare for this transition.”
“I asked you to be kind.”
Vanessa laughed once. “Kindness is exactly why she still believes Elena is coming back.”
Sophie’s breath caught.
Luca rose.
Several men at the table shifted in their chairs. I had seen powerful people become nervous around Luca, but never quite like this. His anger did not move outward. It settled. It became weight.
“You will not speak my wife’s name like that.”
“Your late wife,” Vanessa said, and regretted it immediately.
Sophie pushed her chair back.
I stepped toward her without thinking. Luca did too. For one strange second, he and I reached at the same time, his hand stopping before mine touched Sophie’s shoulder.
The child looked at me first.
That, more than the rules, hurt him.
“May I go upstairs?” Sophie asked.
Luca’s voice softened. “Not alone.”
Vanessa folded her arms. “Now you’re letting the maid decide where your daughter goes?”
Luca looked at me.
“Claire, take Sophie to the sitting room. Stay with her. Bring her anything she wants to eat.”
I nodded.
Sophie stood carefully, as if waiting for someone to tell her she had done it wrong. When we passed Vanessa, the woman leaned close enough for only me to hear.
“You think this makes you important?” she murmured. “It makes you unemployed.”
I kept walking.
In the sitting room, Sophie sat on the window bench and stared out at Chicago glittering beyond the glass.
“Do you want soup?” I asked.
She shook her head.
“Toast?”
Another shake.
“Hot chocolate?”
A pause.
“With marshmallows?” I added.
Her eyes moved toward me, careful but interested.
“Vanessa says sugar makes me dramatic.”
“Then we’ll risk a very dramatic hot chocolate.”
For the first time that night, her mouth almost smiled.
I went to the small sideboard, where the dessert service had been prepared. When I returned with a cup, Sophie was holding something in both hands.
A folded paper.
Not the rules from dinner.
Another one.
“Where did you get that?” I asked.
She looked toward the closed doors.
“From the piano bench. I hid it.”
I sat beside her.
“Sophie, what is it?”
She handed it to me.
It was not written in Vanessa’s handwriting.
It was typed on legal stationery.
At the top were the words: Petition for Temporary Residential Placement.
And beneath them, in bold:
May you like
Minor child: Sophia Elena Moretti.
Recommended placement: Bellini Preparatory Residence, Geneva, Switzerland.
