THAT'S AMORE

by Janelle Denison, Tori Carrington, Leslie Kelly

  Efi touched her father's arm. "Why don't you let Diana go to the bank and cash the check, Papa? There's a branch just up the block."

  A half hour later they were leaving with her grandfather.

  "Damn thief," he was saying, apparently about his best friend. "He's the thief and it's me they arrest."

  "Papou, you crashed through the front of his shop." And he'd been dragging a dining-room table behind his car.

  Efi found it amazingly easy to envision her grandfather doing just that, going twenty miles an hour down the street in order not to do much damage to her wedding gift, even as broken glass fell from the hood of his old Lincoln.

  "I should have crashed through all the windows, the klefti," he said vehemently.

  Nick pulled up to the curb, then rounded his car to help Gus out, her grandfather's lifelong friend and the owner of the shop he'd vandalized.

  "You son of a bitch!" her grandfather shouted, advancing on the other man.

  "They let you out?" Gus countered. "They should keep you locked up for good. You're a danger to society!"

  And just like that the families fought to keep the two men apart as officers coming into the building slowed their steps, wondering whether or not intervention would be needed.

  "Would you two stop it!" Efi stepped between them. "You're acting like children."

  "Children?" Gus said to her. "Who are you to insult me? It must be in your blood, this blatant disrespect."

  "Don't you talk to my granddaughter in that tone, you old goat!"

  Efi stared at her grandfather. "Yes, you're right. I am your granddaughter. Your granddaughter who is set to get married tomorrow and whose day you just ruined with the stunt you pulled."

  Her grandfather had the grace to look abashed.

  Gus snorted. "None of this would have happened had he just paid what the furniture was worth."

  "Worth? You marked the price up three times retail because you knew that was the piece I wanted to buy for my granddaughter! The girl who is named after my wife, God bless her soul."

  "Others were interested in buying the set."

  "Others aren't your best friend!" her grandfather said. He lifted a hand showing two fingers. "Twenty years we're friends. Twenty years I drink wine with you, treat your kids like they're my kids, help put your son through college, and this is the thanks I get?"

  "You? What about my shop? Do you know how much money it's going to cost to repair the damage you've done? Forget the window—the pieces that were in the display are destroyed."

  "Stop it!" Efi shouted. "Just stop it!"

  Everyone stood and stared at her, Nick included. He lifted a hand to rub his chin, half hiding his grin.

  "Both of you go home. Now. And think long and hard about what you've done."

  "I've—"

  "Quiet! I'm not finished." Efi cleared her throat, trying to get her own emotions under control. "I want you both to think about what happened today. And tomorrow I want you both at my wedding ready to apologize."

  "Apol—"

  "Shush! Not a word." She looked at her parents, who seemed frozen to the spot, watching her.

  Her father cleared his throat. "I'll take Dad home."

  Nick's parents considered Gus. "And we'll take him home."

  Efi nodded her thanks.

  Her father began walking away with his father. Efi could just make out her grandfather saying, "First we have to stop to get my car and the furniture. I want to get it set up in the apartment before tomorrow…"

  Efi shook her head when she and Nick finally stood on the sidewalk alone.

  "What a nightmare," she whispered, watching as the last of her eccentric family finally disappeared down the street.

  Nick was toying with something at the neck of her shirt. "Cute. Can I see the rest of it?"

  She realized he was referring to her nightshirt, the one with Betty Boop on it proclaiming how good it was to be bad.

  Efi swatted Nick's hand away. "After tomorrow you'll get to see as much of it as you want to."

  Not that she intended to wear the old nightgown to bed with her new husband. Well, at least not for the first month or so. She'd bought all sorts of sexy new nighties to keep him entertained.

  Although given the way he was looking at her and her Betty Boop nightshirt, she wondered if she hadn't wasted her money.

  He bent down and kissed her leisurely, seeming to forget they were standing in front of a police station.

  "You do realize we're completely alone," he said, kissing her again. "No families hassling us to do something." Efi melted against him as he kissed her again. "No one looking over our shoulders…"

  She pressed her hand against his chest with the intention of pushing him away. Instead she leaned closer. "You realize we're at risk of being arrested for indecent public display of affection, don't you?"

  "Mmm. All things considered, I can think of worse things," Nick said, kissing her more deeply.

  The shrill beep of a car horn.

  Efi lazily blinked to find her father's car at the curb packed full of her relatives.

  He'd come back for her.

  "Shit," Nick said, smiling down at her.

  "You can say that again."

  "Efi! Get in the car this minute!" her mother yelled.

  "You'd think we were teenagers and they'd forbidden us from seeing each other," she said, kissing Nick this time.

  "Instead we're getting married tomorrow."

  Getting married… She and Nick…

  Efi smiled and kissed him one last time before going to join her family in the car.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  Day six continued…

  Strange that even as the arrangements for her wedding came together, Efi's very life seemed to be coming apart at the seams.

  Efi stood in front of her bedroom mirror plucking and pulling at her new dinner dress. Forget that she couldn't seem to sneak a few much-needed moments alone with her groom. But worse, every time she turned around, she ran into her cousin Aphrodite, who seemed overly curious about "the groom." While her nonstop questions might sound natural coming from anyone else, the constant "how did you two meet?", "where does he work?", "how many children does he want?" came off a little too … personal for Efi's liking.

  "Oh, stop it," she muttered to her reflection. "Your cousin is not trying to steal your groom."

  She only wished she believed her words.

  Only one more day to go, she whispered to herself. And she and Nick would be husband and wife.

  She started. Is that how she viewed marriage? As a type of ownership? Put a ring on Nick's finger and he was taken, her property, off-limits to Aphrodite and others? If that was the case, then what about the 50 percent divorce rate? The high incidence of infidelity?

  Her mind started to spin and she put her hands to her head as if to stop it.

  She'd always looked at Nick's and her exchanging of vows as having to do with love, happiness and creating a life together. A union forged out of mutual love for each other, not a way to brand him as hers.

  There was a brief knock on her bedroom door. She'd locked it earlier in case her cousin had a few questions she'd forgotten to ask her. She'd felt sorely tempted to push her out her second-story window when she'd asked how Nick kissed.

  She automatically started to unlock the door, then asked instead, "Who is it?"

  "Diana."

  She released a heavy sigh then opened the door to her sister.

  "Mom sent me up to get you. She thinks you should be there when the Constantinos family arrives."

  Something else she wasn't particularly looking forward to. "Thanks," she said, although she really didn't feel it.

  Oh, she and Nick's parents got along well. And she was looking forward to the quiet night over the weeklong series of parties. But somehow she always felt something was going unsaid. Something the older couple felt about their only child marrying her, the oldest of four girls. She usually came away from any meeting wit
h them feeling as if she were lacking, somehow. As if they'd taken a thorough inventory and she'd come up a few supplies short of what they wanted in a daughter-in-law.

  She began to edge around her sister.

  "Is everything okay?"

  "Hmm? Sure, everything's fine. Why wouldn't it be?"

  "I don't know. You look a little frazzled. And not bride-to-be frazzled, either. You look a little pale."

  She actually felt pale, if that were possible.

  But that wasn't the thing she needed to hear before going down to help welcome her groom and his family when they arrived.

  "Thanks, but I'm fine." She hoped.

  She hesitated at the top of the stairs, her fingers squeezing the top rail. "Have you seen Aphrodite?"

  Diana looked toward her bedroom door. "Mom said she went out earlier. Why?"

  Efi tried to ignore the burst of gratitude that the other woman wasn't there. "Nothing. She asked to borrow a pair of earrings and I thought I might give them to her."

  "I'll do it."

  "No, that's all right. I'll do it later."

  Efi's step was lighter as she took the stairs. She knew it was silly, her worrying about her formerly ugly duckling cousin and her whereabouts, but considering everything going on just then, she didn't think it a major sin to be happy about her absence.

  "That color washes you out."

  Her mother's words stopped her in the doorway to the dining room. "Gee, thanks, Mom. Between you and Diana I'm about a breath away from locking myself in my bedroom and letting you handle this dinner."

  Penelope fussed at her dress until she apparently figured out Efi wouldn't change the dark navy into another color with a few pulls and tucks. "You should have worn pink. Pink is a good color for a bride. Navy looks like you're going to a funeral."

  "If you don't stop I will be attending a funeral. Yours."

  Penelope tsked her and her father rustled his newspaper where he was already sitting at the table.

  "Are we going to eat anytime soon?" he asked, blissfully unaware of the color of her dress and their impending guests.

  Her mother took the paper from him and folded it up. "Straighten your tie."

  Efi watched her father stare at the item of clothing as if he'd forgotten he had it on and was afraid it might come to life and strangle him. Still, he did as her mother asked.

  The doorbell rang. Efi stared at her parents and her parents stared back at her.

  "All right, all right, I'll get it," Efi said with a sigh.

  Only, when she opened the door she half wished she had stayed locked in her bedroom. Because standing in the doorway, hanging off her fiancé's arm as if she belonged there, was none other than Aphrodite.

  Efi was aware she was banging the china louder than the situation called for an hour later in the kitchen, but she couldn't help herself. Even though she was standing there staring at the small pan, the Greek coffee boiled over anyway, covering the burner in thick, bubbling brown liquid. Great.

  "Finally I can steal a kiss." Nick snuck up behind her, his hands skimming over her hips, his mouth resting against her neck. Efi shouldered him away.

  "Ouch." He moved to stand next to her, rubbing his chin where she'd connected in a satisfying way. "What was that for?"

  While Aphrodite had disappeared upstairs the minute Nick and his parents had come inside, the damage had already been done. She might as well have been sitting at the dinner table with them, her long legs peeking through the strategic slit in her skirt, her hair sliding over her shoulder so she could push it back with sickening ease.

  "Don't you think it a little convenient that Aphrodite just happened to be visiting your cousin Aspa and was on her way here just as you and your parents were leaving the house?"

  Nick blinked at her as if he didn't have a clue what she was talking about.

  "And just when did Aphrodite and your cousin become such good friends, anyway?"

  Nick remained standing, staring at her as she mixed another batch of coffee and put the pan on the burner. When she looked at him, she found his handsome face holding a wide grin. "You're jealous."

  Efi felt the tremendous urge to elbow him in the stomach. So she did.

  But she got zero satisfaction out of his loud whoosh.

  "I am not jealous," she lied. "I'm just watchful." She waggled her finger. "I don't trust that girl."

  "Aphrodite says you've been close ever since you were young."

  Sure, when she was a gangly scarecrow who was afraid of her own shadow. "Close being a relative term."

  She felt Nick's arm around her waist again and resisted the urge to push him away again. "You really are jealous, aren't you?"

  "Well, how would you feel if a great-looking guy jiggled his wares in front of my face and I wiped saliva from my chin as a result?"

  Nick raised a brow and she made a face, silently admitting that the imagery wasn't the most effective she could have come up with.

  She waved her hands. "I mean, you can't tell me you didn't notice she's got a killer body."

  "I noticed. I am a man, after all."

  "And, as a man, you, of course, have to appreciate the body's form because, after all, it is natural, right?"

  His grin widened. "Hey, you can't ignore what's in front of you."

  "And if Aphrodite stripped down in front of you, you wouldn't be able to ignore that either, right?"

  Nick's grin disappeared. "Whoa. Now you're putting words into my mouth."

  "No, I'm trying to help you notice the big foot you put into your own mouth." She turned from the stove and poked her finger to his chest. "Going by your reasoning, a guy is only a guy and just as he can't help looking if something's put in front of his face, neither can he resist sampling."

  Nick held his hands up. "Okay, this is where I get off this ride."

  "Oh, no you don't," she said, grasping his arm. "You're not going anywhere until we have this out."

  "You're being irrational, Efi. There's nothing to have out until you're thinking more clearly."

  "My thought processes are just fine, thank you very much. It's yours I'm having trouble understanding."

  "What was I supposed to do earlier when she asked to ride back here with us? Tell her to walk?"

  Efi was about to respond when the sound of raised voices from the other room interrupted her. She and Nick looked toward the closed kitchen door.

  Had their parents heard them arguing?

  Efi began to lead the way to the other room then remembered to take the coffee off the burner before it boiled over again. She pushed the wooden barrier slightly open as Nick watched from over her shoulder. Nick's mother practically had spittle on the sides of her mouth, while her father looked an inch away from using the butter knife he grasped in his hand.

  "You go see what's going on," Efi told Nick. "I'll get the coffee."

  But the moment they rejoined their parents, the room had fallen silent, everyone staring at the crumbs left over from dinner on the tablecloth in front of them.

  "So…" Efi said quietly. "Tomorrow's the wedding…"

  She met Nick's gaze where he sat between his parents across the table from her. He looked at her as if trying to figure out where she was going with her comment, considering their conversation in the kitchen. And perhaps she was trying to lead him somewhere. Perhaps she was looking for him to make some sort of public proclamation that she was the most beautiful, most desirable woman in the world. All right, maybe not in the entire world, but at least when it came to him. Was that too much to ask? Especially when that's the way she felt about him? She couldn't imagine herself being attracted to any other man, no matter how many body parts he jiggled in front of her.

  "That's why it's important that we come to an agreement now," Nick's mother, Mimi, said.

  Efi squinted at her. "Agreement? What agreement?"

  She watched Nick shift uncomfortably. "Mother…"

  "Don't talk to your mother in that tone of voice," his fat
her, Stamatis, said.

  What way? She wasn't aware that Nick had said anything in any certain way.

  Or had he and she wasn't getting it?

  "If you had any reservations, you should have brought them up long before tonight," Efi's father said.

  "Reservations? What reservations?" Efi's stomach felt leaden with dread.

  "In the village where we're from, now is the time for the families to discuss such matters," Stamatis said, puffing out his chest like some sort of rooster lording over his hens.

  She watched her father's chest puff out in response. "Yes, well, that explains why no one's ever heard of your village." He snorted. "Village? It's no more than a dot on a map. If it even rates a spot on a map."

  Uh-oh … they were trading insults. Not a good sign. The two families had always gotten along well. In fact, both of them had seemed pleased by the engagement, even if his parents found some unnamable something lacking in her. They'd celebrated together. Talked of children. Of shared family vacations in the future.

  Now they looked a blink away from physical violence.

  "Reservations? What reservations?" she asked more loudly this time.

  They all looked at her.

  Efi fought the urge to gulp.

  Maybe this was it. Maybe the Constantinos had finally named that unnamable something.

  Her father gestured widely toward the couple to his left. "Extortion. What they're doing is nothing short of extortion."

  Nick's mother's face turned red. "It's a longstanding Greek tradition that the terms of an acceptable dowry are worked out before a couple marries."

  "The night before?" Efi's mother said.

  Dowry? Had Mimi Constantinos just mentioned the word dowry? But that was something reserved for historical romance novels, wasn't it? The rich duke set to marry an even richer duchess until the poor shopkeeper's daughter catches his eye.

  Why was she getting the impression she was cast in the role as the poor shopkeeper's daughter?

  "We're not in Greece. We're in America," her father pointed out.

  Efi suddenly felt faint.

  Silence. Then Efi's mother held her hands out palms up. "All right, okay. This is nothing we all can't handle like rational adults." She stared at her husband next to her. "We knew this was coming."