fortune, Melissa,” Fabio declared with quiet menace. “I gave it to the church when I entered the priesthood.”
“I wouldn’t want it anyway!” Carly cried. “Money means nothing without love. How can you stand there and accuse me of such lies? Carlo’s old enough to be my father. He’s always been in love with your mother. They’ve been like parents to me. Don’t listen to her, Fabio.”
“Don’t listen to her, Fabio,” Melissa mimicked brutally. “Get ready to die, Carly!”
Melissa pulled a gun from the thigh holster beneath her dress. But before she could shoot it, Fabio wrenched it from her hand.
“I might have known you’d try to ruin your mother’s wedding day,” he said with cold fury. “My uncle told me how their first wedding ended in disaster because of you, but you’re not going to get away with it a second time. Get out of here, Melissa!”
Two ushers seating people rushed into the vestibule. “What’s going on? The guests are waiting.”
“Escort this woman from the church and call the police to pick her up for threatening Carly with a deadly weapon.”
While one of the ushers dragged Melissa, who went kicking and screaming, the other one relieved Fabio of the gun.
After he disappeared, Fabio turned to crush Carly in his arms. “Are you all right?”
“Yes.” She struggled for breath. “Fabio—you didn’t believe her, did you?”
“What do you think? According to Carlo, she’s been unstable for years. Maybe she’ll finally get the psychiatric help she needs.”
“She was actually going to kill me.”
“Don’t think about that now.”
“How can I not?” she cried. “Oh, no—the wedding march has started up!”
CHAPTER THREE
“LET it!” Fabio fired back. “You were about to say something important before she tried to kill you.”
“There’s no time to go into that now.”
“Carly—Melissa just said that you told Miranda you loved me. Is it true? Tell me.” He shook her gently.
She swallowed hard. “Yes!” she cried at long last. “Even though you’re too old for me and I’m too young for you, it’s true. The difference in our ages no longer matters to me. I don’t care that Melissa loved you first. I can’t live without you, Fabio. W-what would you say if we got married today? We could make it a double wedding with Carlo and Miranda. She knows how I feel about you.”
A stillness ensued. “You’re asking me to marry you?”
“Yes.” Her voice trembled.
“You’re not joking.”
“No.”
“I didn’t know women in America did things like this.”
“They do when it’s a leap year. Today is February twenty-ninth, the day when a woman can ask a man to marry her.”
“That’s right … it really is the twenty-ninth. You do love me!” he cried.
“Yes, darling. In fact I took out a wedding license and signed it. All you have to do is sign it in front of the pastor after the ceremony, and our marriage will be legal.”
“Let me see it.”
She plucked it from the basket. He unrolled it and examined it, then lifted his head as if dazed.
“This is the real thing … All those times you told me you hated me and begged me to leave you alone, you were lying?”
“Yes!”
He folded the certificate and put it in his pocket. “I want to hear you say those words to me. Look at me, Carly, and tell me you love me.”
Don’t call him Alex, Reese. Whatever you do, don’t call him by his real name!
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