“You’re supposed to be resting.”
“I am resting.”
“You’re watching Sophie chase our nephew.”
“That’s very restful.”
Luca sat down beside her. “You’re impossible.”
“You married me anyway.”
“Best decision I ever made.”
Emma leaned into him.
They sat there, watching their family, until the sun began to set and Teresa called everyone inside for dinner.
As they walked toward the house, Emma thought about the maid who had stood in this same garden three years ago, trying to decide if she was brave enough to stay.
She’d stayed.
And in staying, she’d found everything she hadn’t known she was allowed to want.
Love. Family. Home.
A life that was messy and complicated and full of people who had learned to protect each other the way only the Morettis could.
That night, after Marco was asleep and Sophie had gone to her own apartment in the city and Teresa had kissed them both goodnight, Emma and Luca lay tangled together in the dark.
“Do you ever think about how this started?” Emma asked.
“Every day.”
“Regret any of it?”
“Not a single second.”
Emma smiled. “Not even the karaoke bar?”
Luca laughed. “Especially not the karaoke bar.”
Emma turned to face him. “I love you.”
“I love you too.”
“Even when I’m impossible?”
“Especially when you’re impossible.”
Emma kissed him.
And as she drifted toward sleep, wrapped in Luca’s arms, surrounded by the family they’d built together, Emma finally understood what Teresa had meant all those years ago.
The Morettis didn’t fall in love easily.
But when they did, it was the kind of love that rewrites everything.
The kind of love that turns maids into wives.
Lies into truth.
Fear into courage.
And strangers into family.
The kind of love that lasts.
