The Hockey Captain’s Unwanted Wife (Blair and Grayson) novel Chapter 270

Chapter 270

~MARCO~

They were all in the kitchen, which meant my mother had called it an emergency and no one had been given time to hide.

Luca had a coffee in his hand. Giulia had come in from Milan with her coat still on. Dante was in a team hoodie and pretending he had not driven too fast to get here. Elisa had a book she was not reading. Rico had already taken the best chair.

Sofia was on the counter, watching the door as if she had been waiting for me to walk into it.

Luca looked up first. “Is this about the wedding? Because mom used the voice, and the voice is usually reserved for something really bad.”

“Oh, it’s bad.” I set my keys down. “Apparently I forgot to check Loretta’s name. What a small world we live in.”

He frowned. “What do you mean by that? Small world, how?”

“Wait a few seconds. You’ll hear it.” I told him, not wanting to spoil the surprise.

Mother came in with father behind her. She did not sit. She put both hands on the back of a chair and looked at him, then at the room.

“Marco got married today,” she said.

“To a Bellandi,” she added before anyone had a chance to recover from the marriage announcement. “Loretta Bellandi. Vittorio’s daughter.”

Luca spat the coffee out his mouth the second he heard Loretta’s last name.

It went across the table, across Alessia’s dress, and onto a plate of biscuits no one was going to eat now.

He coughed, swore, and stared at me as if he could not believe it.

“A what?” he asked me for confirmation.

“A Bellandi,” I said.

The room went crazy.

Dad’s voice was louder than all of it. “You married a Bellandi? You married Alessandro Bellandi’s granddaughter. Are you out of your mind?”

“I didn’t know her surname until-”

“You didn’t know?” He laughed like I had said something funny. “You read contracts for a living and you could not read a girl’s name before you gave her yours?”

“Your great-aunt Elena is still alive. Your grandfather is still alive. That family took a vineyard that was deeded in good faith and has spent every year since calling us thieves for keeping what their boy signed away. And you married one of them.”

I’ve heard this story a countless times before.

“You truly married her?” he asked.

“Yes.”

“And you drove here,” he growled, “instead of driving to a lawyer.”

“A lawyer?”

“Yes, to divorce the girl.” He said angrily.

Divorce? Sure, I would divorce Loretta in a year, but not a single day earlier.

Rico stared at me and I couldn’t tell if he was disgusted or proud. “You married the enemy. That’s either the coolest thing you’ve ever done or you’ve completely lost it”

“Lost it,” Dante said. “Definitely lost it. We

ea Bellandi, don’t drink with a Bellandi,

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don’t buy their wine even if it’s good. Marco went and married one. I’m never listening to a lecture from him again”

You don’t listen now,” Giulia said

“TI listen less”

Alessia was wiping coffee off her wrist and trying not to smile, which she was failing at. “A Bellandi. How nice. We can have tea together”

“This is not funny,” Dad said.

“It’s a little funny,” Luca said but pressed his lips tightly together when dad glared at him.

I looked at him. He had a napkin in one hand and a ruined shirt and the expression of a man who had come prepared to confess something and had not expected to be surprised instead.

“You think this is funny?” I asked him.

“I think I’ve been sweating for two days over an announcement,” he said, “and you walked in and won. Congratulations.”

“Does the announcement have anything to do with you marrying Charlotte?” Sofia teased.

“Not now,” Luca and I said together.

Elisa closed the book. She was the quiet one, which meant when she spoke, the room actually heard her.” Does our great-aunt Elena know?”

Mom’s mouth tightened. “Not yet.”

“She will,” Elisa said. “Sofia will tell her if no one else does.”

“I wasn’t going to,” Sofia said, offended and already planning it. “I was going to wait until dinner. It’s better at dinner. Nonno Lorenzo will go red. Zia Elena will go quiet. Quiet is worse. Especially from her.”

“You will tell no one,” Dad said. “None of you. This does not leave the house until I have spoken to my father and to my aunt. Do you understand? A betrayal from my own son is not something I want broadcasted everywhere!”

Dante lifted both hands. “I’m printing a shirt and wearing it. My brother, the sensible one, married the granddaughter of the man Zia Elena still will not name.”

“You are not,” Mom said.

“I’m thinking about it.”

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