Total pages in book: 42
Estimated words: 39233 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 196(@200wpm)___ 157(@250wpm)___ 131(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 39233 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 196(@200wpm)___ 157(@250wpm)___ 131(@300wpm)
But as for the most eccentric thing that was currently taking place within the heavily guarded walls of La Tana...
"Just get everything off your chest, fratello..."
A faint grimace touched Massimo's features at Cesare's blunt invitation for him to bare his soul. Tomorrow would be his very first time to play best man to someone's wedding, just like tonight was his first time to host a bachelor party on his brother's behalf. But be that as it may, even Massimo knew it was not normal at all for the best man - instead of the bridegroom - to get cold fucking feet the night before the wedding.
What the hell was wrong with him?
"There is no one else you can talk to but us," Giancarlo reminded him in his usual mild tone of pragmatism. "It is not as if you can simply book a session with a shrink and tell them things. We are famiglia, after all."
While their eldest brother made a fairly good point, Massimo was still reluctant to speak of his complicated relationship with Ynez. But since one of the most important rules in their famiglia was to never keep secrets from each other, no matter how inconsquential or, in this case, uncomfortable—-
"Ynez has been pressuring me to marry her for some time now."
Cesare frowned. "Do you not wish to marry her?"
"Will you still have chosen to marry Penelope right away," Massimo challenged, "if not for the arrangement between our famiglie?"
His soon-to-be-married brother looked at him oddly. "Certo." Of course.
That the groom-to-be answered him so swiftly and without hesitation had Massimo in disbelief. "Davvero?" Seriously? He turned to Giancarlo, asking, "And you and Sarica?"
"I would've married her long ago if she were willing," their eldest brother affirmed with a shrug.
"Well, fuck."
Ezio was content to keep quiet, being the only one who had neither a girlfriend nor an arranged bride to disturb his perfectly organized life. He knew his turn to marry for famiglia would eventually come, but it would not be for any time soon, hopefully. Women were just too much trouble, and it was simply easier all around to only bed those who were openly after his money.
"What do you have against marriage, Mas?" Giancarlo asked finally.
"Nothing."
"Then it is Ynez you have a problem with?" Cesare's tone was skeptical. "I still remember how you were five years ago, when she was still your mystery girl."
"I remember those days, too," Ezio felt obliged to add. "You described her as if she were the girl of your dreams—-"
"I never said she isn't that anymore."
Cesare exchanged looks with his other brothers. The stiffness of Massimo's tone made their brother sound as if he was feeling guilty and unable to accept the truth, rather than feeling offended on his girlfriend's behalf.
Giancarlo looked at his younger brother more closely. "If it is neither marriage nor Ynez that is keeping you from proposing to her, then what exactly is the problem? You cannot be worried about Nonna, surely? She has made it clear that she will not force us to marry another woman if we have already found someone before she's picked a bride."
"Nonna has nothing to do with my feelings about marriage. It's something else." Massimo's jaw clenched as he tried to find the words that would not paint his lover in a bad light. "It is as if Ynez has...changed, and the girl I met the first time was a complete illusion."
"How you two met was not typical," Giancarlo reminded him. "Might it be possible that you've unfairly placed Ynez on a pedestal because of it?"
Even though Massimo could see the sense in his brother's words, his guts told him that was not the problem entirely between him and Ynez.
While the two of them had dated on and off for years, it had never felt completely right between them, the way it had...the first time they had met. But because Ynez was also everything he wanted in a woman (and in Massimo's case, this simply meant Ynez was everything his gold-digging mother was not), he had convinced himself that it would be entirely unrealistic to ask for more.
"Do you think it is possible that something might have happened—-some life-changing incident," Ezio suggested, "and that could have caused her to change?"
Fuck.
Only one thing came to mind as soon as he heard his older brother's words. Ynez's childhood, like his, was no walk in the park. Not only had her father died early, also like his, but Ynez had a traumatic incident when she was still in high school...and Massimo could see why such an incident might cause Ynez to act like a completely different person at times.
CESARE AND PENELOPE'S wedding the next day was both a joyous and bittersweet occasion for Massimo to witness. As he and Cesare were of the same age but born to different mothers, the two of them had been pitted constantly against each other, and they had not been the best of friends growing up.