The wedding is nothing like what little girls imagine weddings to be.
There are no crowds of friends and family spilling out of pews. No flower arrangements ordered months in advance. No argument about the seating chart. The guest list has been checked twice, then checked again by people whose job it is to find the thing everyone else missed.
Forty guests. All vetted. All trusted, or at least trusted enough.
Isabella stands at the back of the small, quiet venue in a white dress she picked in under an hour, and thinks about what trusted enough actually means in this world. She suspects it means something different than it does in hers.
She walks down the aisle alone.
She chose that deliberately. Her father wanted to walk with her. She said no. Not because she was angry at him. Because she needed to do this on her own terms, in at least that one small way.
Luca waits at the end of the aisle. Still, as always. Hands clasped in front of him. Dark suit, no tie. He watches her walk toward him and his expression does not change, except for something in his eyes that she notices and cannot quite name.
She stops in front of him.
He takes her hands. His grip is firm. Warm.
"You can still walk away," he says. His voice is low enough that only she can hear it.
She looks up at him. "Can I really?"
"Yes."
One word. No hesitation. No performance.
She breathes out slowly.
"I know," she says. "I am still here."
The ceremony is short. The words are traditional, which feels strange, given that nothing else about this is. She says the things she is supposed to say. He says them back. When the officiant reaches the part about love, she keeps her face very still.
When he kisses her, it is brief. Controlled. His hand comes up to her jaw, light and careful, like he is aware of exactly how much pressure he is applying.
Restrained. Deliberate.
But in the restraint there is something else. Something she picks up the way you pick up a sound in a quiet room. Not desire, exactly. More like care. Like he is being careful with her on purpose, and that purpose matters to him.
She does not know what to do with that.
The reception is small and quiet. People eat and speak in low voices. Nobody dances. Isabella sits beside Luca at the main table and watches the room. Old habit, a thing her father's years in the courtroom gave her. Watch the room. See who is watching you back.
Two of the guests spend more time looking at the exits than at each other.
One man near the side door has barely touched his food.
She leans slightly toward Luca. "The man by the door. Left side."
Luca glances once. Just once. "Staff."
"He is not acting like a staff."
A short pause. "No. He is not."
"Is that a problem?"
"Not tonight."
She accepts that. For now.
Later the house is quiet. She stands by the window in the west wing in a silk robe she found hanging in the wardrobe, looking out at the dark garden below. The lights along the path are on. Otherwise everything is still.
A knock at the door.
She turns. "Come in."
Luca opens the door slowly. He has taken off his jacket. Sleeves rolled to the elbow. He looks less like the man from the dining room, the composed and untouchable figure who laid out terms like a contract. He looks more like a person. She is not sure if that makes things easier or harder.
"I wanted to check if you were alright," he says.
"I am fine."
He nods. Starts to step back.
"Wait," she says.
He stops.
"You do not trust me," she says.
He is quiet for a moment. Then, simply: "No."
It does not make her angry. She was expecting it.
"Do you want to?" she asks.
He looks at her for a long moment. Long enough that she wonders if he is going to answer at all.
"Yes," he says.
That one word lands differently than she expected.
He crosses into the room but stops well before he reaches her. An arm's length away. Maybe more.
"I will not touch you without you wanting me to," he says. "That will not change."
She looks at him. At the space he has left between them. At the fact that he came to the door at all.
She nods once.
Neither of them moves.
The space between them is about two feet wide and it hums like a live wire.
But neither of them crosses it.
Not tonight.