Charlotte

By the time Luca and I caught up with Layla, she was already parading poor Ralph around like some sort of circus animal. She was in love with him and even I had to admit he was pretty cute. It was good that Luca had gone ahead and bought him. I probably would have said no if he had asked me, and I knew this was the perfect present for her. There weren't many kids for her to play with around here, and a puppy would certainly keep her entertained.

"Well, Santa must have thought you were extra good this year." My mother beamed down at her and she rubbed Ralph's head. The puppy was running back and forth, greeting every person in the entire room.

"Merry Christmas Elena!" Luca said, kissing my mother on her cheek.

"Merry Christmas to you guys." She smiled, reaching up to hug him and then hugging me. "Layla looks like this is the greatest day of her life."

"She was completely spoiled by her father." I groaned, pretending to be annoyed. In reality, I loved the fact that Luca doted on her the way he did. It was what I always dreamed about when we were on our own. Seeing them together was better than I ever could have imagined and, for all I was concerned, Luca could spoil her all he wanted.

"As it should be." My mom smiled. "I seem to remember another little girl who was completely spoiled by her father, as well." Her face softened, overcome with memories. "You know Josh used to love Christmas shopping for you. We would always make a deal, one or two big presents that we knew you'd really like, and he'd act like he was going to go along with it every time. But the closer we'd get to Christmas, the bigger the pile under the tree would get. I'd ask him about it and he'd pretend that he didn't know what I was talking about. And sure enough, every Christmas you'd open up all kinds of things I had never seen before."

I put my arm around her and leaned my head against her shoulder. "I wish he was here, mom."

"I do too, baby." She wiped a small tear off of her cheek. "Anyway, enough of the sappy talk. What did you end up getting Luca for Christmas?"

I froze, words failing me as I tried to figure out what to say. I couldn't exactly come out and tell her I got him a marriage license for Christmas. We had planned on telling everyone together, and if we told her in front of other people, there was a lesser chance she'd explode.

"Baby, do you want to come help me in the kitchen for a minute?" Luca asked, suddenly appearing at my side.

"Sure!" I said enthusiastically, thankful for the out he provided me.

I followed him into the kitchen, confused when I saw almost everything already done. "What did you need help with?" I whirled around to face him.

In one sweeping motion, he pinned me back against the counter, ravenously kissing my neck.

When he pulled away, he was breathing heavily. He pressed his hips against mine, and I could feel his erection against my thigh. "I needed help with this."

I hit his shoulder playfully. "You're terrible, you know that? Our whole family is out there. It's Christmas morning."

He growled against my neck. "I swear to God if I ever hear you use Christmas as an excuse for something again, I'm going to ..."

"Jesus Christ, you guys are like horny teenagers. Do you ever give it a rest?" Angelo smirked smugly, walking into the kitchen.

"Not even you are going to bring me down today, Angelo." Luca smirked, not even bothering to pull away from me.

"You seem awfully chipper." Angelo eyed us suspiciously. "What happened last night?"

"Are you hungry?" I changed the subject, wiggling it from under Luca. "Carmen made all kinds of things for breakfast."

"Yeah, and your not so subtle subject change isn't suspicious at all." He chuckled. "But I'm going to let it go because I'm starving."

We all made our way out to the dining room, and Carmen brought out heaping plates of food. I could certainly get used to having her and my mom around. We ate like royalty for every meal. Food was certainly my love language.

Luca kept his hand on my thigh for most of the meal, and once everyone was done eating, he gave it a light squeeze. He set his napkin on the table and stood up, clearing his throat. "Thank you all for coming here today. As my mother said last night, its wonderful to have everyone together, and I have to credit Charlotte for insisting on it this year. We'd gotten out of practice with celebrating, but I think this year's celebration has been just what we all needed." He grinned down at me. "This year has certainly been interesting and I think we can all agree we're ready for things to settle down."

Luca reached his hand out, wanting me to stand with him. "Charlotte and I have an announcement to make." Everyone in the room glued their eyes on us. "We've been trying to figure out the best way to move forward, and last night we came to a decision."

"We're getting married." I blushed. "Well, we already are married. We signed the license last night and Marco filed it this morning."

No one in the room moved, staring back at us as if one of us had grown a third head. I held my breath, waiting for someone to say something as my heart raced.

"Why the fuck didn't you tell me?" Angelo smacked Marco's shoulder.

Marco chuckled and shrugged. "It was kind of a spur-of-the-moment thing."

"You're married?" My mother asked flatly. I couldn't quite read her expression, which was worrisome. She didn't know how to keep things bottled up, and she had been that way my entire life. I always knew how she was feeling, but she was completely unreadable today.

"We didn't want to make a big deal about it." I tried to defend. "It's just something we've been talking about and Christmas seemed like the perfect time. We didn't want to wait anymore."

"Congratulations guys!" Jenni shrieked, running towards us and throwing her arms around us in a tight embrace. The rest of our friends took her lead and echoed her sentiments, but I could see my mom off to the side, still digesting the news

"I am so happy for you two." Carmen kissed Luca's cheek and then gave me a tight squeeze. "Although I am a little perturbed I wasn't included in the ceremony."

"I know." I smiled sympathetically. "We wanted to include you all, but we felt like it was something we needed to do, just the two of us." I was saying it for my mother's benefit, too, trying to figure out why she was acting so strangely about it all.

"And we plan on having a big party in a few weeks that we can all celebrate at." Luca snaked his arm around my waist, pulling me closer to him.

"Mom?" I said cautiously. "What do you think?"

"I think it's wonderful, sweetheart." She gave me a reserved smile, with clearly more to say. "Excuse me for just a minute."

She rushed out the room, without much notice. I hadn't expected her to be the one to react sourly to our news. She adored Luca and had been on his side from the very beginning. She vehemently defended him and tried desperately to get me to stay and work things out with him. Isn't this what she wanted?

The happiness I had been feeling all night and morning was slowly being replaced by a knot of dread in my stomach. I shot Luca a worried glance, and he nodded, bending down and kissing my cheek. "Go after her. I'll handle the masses in here."

I smiled, thankful that he had been able to read my cues so easily. Sometimes Luca even knew what was wrong with me before I did, and that was both a blessing and a curse.

I slipped out of the room as unnoticed as possible and searched for my mom. When I found her, she was standing with her back to me on the back patio, looking out over the snow covered estate.

Living at the estate was like some kind of fairytale. I had always been struck by the beauty of Luca's house, feeling as if I was on an extravagant vacation and not actually living here. I didn't want to break anything or mess anything up. Over the last few weeks, it started to feel more like a home and less like a museum.

"Mom?" I said, sliding the door open and joining her on the deck. The wind made the air even more bitter than it already was. After being spoiled in Savannah, it was going to take some time to get used to the brutal New York winters.

"Oh." She sniffled, trying to wipe a tear off of her cheek before I saw. "Sweetheart, I'm fine. Go inside and celebrate with everyone. I just need a minute."

I leaned over the railing next to her. "Are you upset that Luca and I are married?'

She was quiet for a second, and it terrified me. "Charlotte, I am thrilled for you and Luca. I know how much you both love each other and you deserve to be happy. This is just a lot for me to take in. The last few months have just been chock-full of surprises, and I think the emotion of everything is getting to me. It's hard for me to imagine you as a grownup and now here you are, a wife and a mother." She managed a small smile.

"I know. So much has changed." I agreed, thinking of where I was only a few months ago. Layla and I were living with Jenni in Savannah, I was teaching high school art, and the idea of Luca being in our life was a faraway dream.

"I don't mean to act like I am not happy for you, you know how much I love Luca and want you guys to be together. I just can't help but wonder if this is what you really want. Not that long ago that you disappeared from all of our lives because you didn't want this life so badly. Are you sure about this?" She reached out to my hand and squeezed it.

I took a deep breath. "If you had asked me that a few months ago, I probably would have said no. But things are different now. Luca and I... we've been through a lot. We both have made some mistakes, but I think we've figured out that we're a lot better together than we are apart. As much as I hate to admit it, Luca knows me better than I know myself. And I like to think I know him that way, too."

"You do have a very special relationship. It kind of reminds me of the way Josh and I were."

"Oh, please." I laughed. "You and Josh never even had a single fight."

"That we let you or your brother see." She grinned. "Josh got me on a whole different level, just like Luca does with you, and sometimes that's hard to take. But those are the people in your life who challenge you and help you grow."

I laid my head on her shoulder and smiled. I loved hearing her talk about Josh. Even though I knew she was devastated when he died and still reeling from the hurt, she always managed to talk about him with a smile on her face.

"I am happy with you marrying Luca if you are, sweetie. I just don't want you to do something like this because you feel you have to." She sighed. "This seems a little soon when you weren't even together a few weeks ago. I just know what happened to me when I married your father... not that they're similar in any way, but they both are tied to the Mafia. I hope you can handle that."

"Mom, I have thought about this every day for the last four years of my life. I never stopped loving him, even when things were bad when he found out about Layla. Luca knows how I feel about the mafia, but I love him and I have to accept all parts of him, his business included. We have a lot to work through, but we'll figure it out together."

"I'm proud of you, baby. You've always been very practical, but sometimes all that really matters is that you love someone and then you figure out the rest as you go." She smiled, looking back at me with tears in her eyes.

"I love you, Mom."

"I love you too, baby." She kissed my cheek.

"You girls doing okay out here?" Luca ducked out to join us, wrapping his arm around me and rubbing my shoulders to warm me up.

"We're good." My mom smiled. "Congratulations, Luca. I'm really happy for the two of you."

"Thank you, Elena. I'm sorry I didn't ask for your permission first. It all happened a little fast."

"You know you've always had my permission." My mom rolled her eyes. "Although, if you ever put your hands on my daughter in any way but a loving way ever again, I will rip your liver out with my bare hands and feed you to the wolves. Am i clear?"

Luca's eyes widened, and he let out a sharp laugh. "Crystal clear. You have nothing to worry about, Elena. I swear."

"Good." She smirked. "Then let's go plan a party."