Chapter Ten
“Theweddingwasbeautiful, wasn’t it?” Izzy said as she and Sofia made their way through the buffet the next morning. Luckily, most of the guests had already left and just the family was meeting to brunch. Sofia had met more people over twenty-four hours than she had in her whole life. Clients of Luca and Bella’s businesses and their friends all came in for the wedding. Old family friends who knew her father were there, as well as a bunch of shady characters that worked for her cousin Dante. The wedding was amazing, but it was a lot of people. By the time she and Ozzie had made it back to their room, she could barely hold her head up. That didn’t stop him from making love to her, but it wasn’t an all night event. In fact, it was so sweet it made her stomach do flips with the butterflies she still had.
“It really was amazing, but I’m beat. When do you guys fly out?”
“Right after this, the plane is waiting for us, actually. We have a big meeting in the morning and Micah wanted to get a head start going over everything tonight.”
“You guys sure work a lot, huh?”
“We do, but I love it, so does he. Otherwise we wouldn’t bother.”
“I guess. It just seems like a ton of stress.”
“Only the good kind,” Izzy said with a wink, “Listen, I know it’s not my place to stick my nose into your agreement with Micah and Luca but I wanted to say I’m thrilled you agreed to be partners with them. It means a lot to the both of them, and I’m pretty sure they probably did a shit job at showing it.”
They turned and headed back to the table. “They did, at first, but last night after learning more about them, I realized maybe we aren’t all that different after all. None of us seemed to have that great of a childhood.”
“No, they certainly didn’t. Micah keeps telling me he wants you to know, but he also doesn’t want to ruin what you think of him and Luca... or the family.”
“I guess that makes sense.”
They turned the corner, and Sofia stopped dead in her tracks. The table wasn’t five feet away from them and standing there was Ozzie with a gorgeous blonde hanging all over him. Right in front of her family.
“Who is that?” Izzy asked, pulling Sofia out of her state of shock.
“I... I don’t know.”
Sofia felt Izzy’s hand on her back as she gently urged her forward. “Come on, I’ll find out.”
They approached the table and Izzy put her food down, but Sofia couldn’t get to her seat. The woman standing next to Ozzie was blocking her way. Standing wasn’t even the right word. She was leaning on him and had her arm hooked in his as she laughed.
“Oh, Oscar, don’t be silly. You just have to introduce me to your little friends here.”
At the ‘little’ comment, both Luca and Dante shifted in their seats. When Ozzie’s eyes caught Sofia’s, he looked sad, but he removed himself from the blonde, took her plate and pulled out her chair, sitting so she could sit.
“Oscar?” the nasally woman said, pulling his attention back to her.
“Right, um... everyone, this is Monica, an old childhood friend. Monica, this is the Corsetti family. I’m here as a guest at Luca and Bella’s wedding this weekend.”
Luca gave a stiff nod in the woman’s direction while Bella stared her down with daggers in her eyes.
“Childhood friend? Oscar, don’t be silly. We are getting married. My family and the Ashfords have a long history together and soon we will combine our father’s companies, doubling the size of Ashford Properties. In fact, after seeing this one in person, we will need to move it up on the list of renovations, don’t you think, sweetie?”
Sofia was stunned silent. She felt her cousin’s arm reach behind her and swat away Ozzie’s hand that he had on her shoulder. Married? He was engaged to get married? And what did she mean to move this property up on the list of renovations?
“I think you should leave,” Dante said, standing at the same time as Nico and Ares, his two best friends.
“Leave? I thought breakfast was just starting. I’ll wave over the waitress and have her bring me another table setting.”
“He wasn’t talking to you,” Nico said as his hand raised to his belt, “But you should go too.”
“Wait, hold on. Everyone just calm down for a minute,” Izzy said, standing with her arms out, “Before we jump to conclusions, maybe Ozzie should explain what’s going on. Maybe this isn’t what it looks like.”
“Right,” Micah added, “Maybe there is a perfectly good reason why there is a woman standing in front of us claiming to be Sofia’s boyfriend’s fiancée.”
“Boyfriend? You are dating that woman? Oh, please Oscar, you could do so much better. She looks like a boy with that hair, and a Corsetti? You know what your mother said about them is true. I don’t care if you fuck around, but at least have some dignity.”
“Monica, that’s enough,” Ozzie said, grabbing a hold of the woman’s arm as he nearly dragged her from the restaurant.