All Chapters of SUBSTITUTE BRIDE FOR THE MAFIA DON: Chapter 431 - Chapter 440

Andrea's POVI laughed — a real laugh, watery and surprised, bubbling right up out of me — and I didn't let go of his hand, and he didn't let go of mine.Dinner that night was wonderful.We all gathered in the huge dining room, around the long table that stretched beneath a warm chandelier, the tall windows open to the cool Italian night and the sound of crickets drifting in from the vineyards. Candles flickered down the middle of the table. Platters of pasta and roasted vegetables and fresh bread crowded every space, and the whole room smelled of garlic and basil and warm sauce and good wine.Everyone was there. Luca and Dahlia, with Dove asleep in a little bassinet nearby that Luca kept glancing at every few minutes like he couldn't quite believe she was real. My mum, glowing, in her element, passing dishes and telling stories. Dante, beside me. And Mrs. Cruz — who by now had become so much less of a housekeeper and so much more of a member of the family that no one would have dream

Dante's POVSpending the whole day with Andrea in the sunlit streets of Italy, I honestly thought my heart might burst clean out of my chest from how full it had become.Every single part of it stayed with me. The way she'd bitten into that peach and made that helpless little sound of pure delight, the juice running down her chin. The way she'd wandered wide-eyed through the market, her head turning in every direction at once, drinking it all in like a child at a fair. The way she'd cradled those soft pink flowers in the crook of her arm and looked up at me in the golden afternoon light with her whole face open and shining. All of it. It filled me up so completely that there wasn't any room left in me for the things that usually lived there — the vigilance, the wariness, the constant weight. Just her. Just this.And running quietly underneath all of that happiness was something else. Something deeper and stranger. Something like awe, and something like shame, and something like the mo

Andrea's POVMy mum burst fully into tears. My dad let out a great booming laugh and pulled her in against his side, wiping at his own eyes. Luca threw his head back and shouted something joyful. Dahlia was crying and laughing at the same time, and baby Dove, startled by all the noise, started to fuss and wail, which only made everyone laugh harder through their tears. Mrs. Cruz had given up entirely and was openly weeping into her apron.But I barely heard any of it — because Dante was already surging up off his knee, and with hands that were still shaking he slid the ring onto my finger, and then he took my face in both of those big warm hands and he kissed me.He kissed me like it was the very first time and the very last time and every single time in between all at once. Like he'd been waiting his whole entire life just to be allowed to do it. Warm and deep and certain and sure. Both of us were crying, and both of us were smiling far too hard to kiss properly, laughing against eac

Epilogue1It had been one year.One whole year since Andrea and Dante had stood beneath a flower-covered archway in the golden hills of Italy and promised themselves to each other, with their whole family gathered around them and the sun sinking slow and rose-colored over the vineyards. One year since the ending Andrea had never let herself believe in had finally, quietly, become her life.And what a year it had been.Andrea's book had come out at last. The romance novel she'd poured her whole heart into through all those long, lonely, heartbroken months — all those nights she'd sat cross-legged on a bed in a too-big mansion writing happy endings for other people because she couldn't quite believe in one of her own — it had finally been published. And it had become a bestseller. Rian had been the one to help her find the right people, to champion it from the very beginning, to talk her down off the ceiling every time she was certain no one would ever want to read it. And then people h

Andrea's POVThe party wound down slowly, the way good parties always do.The guests trickled out one by one as the evening came on. Luca and Dahlia carried a sleepy, sugar-drunk Dove up to bed — the birthday girl had finally crashed hard after her third slice of cake, going from shrieking joy to dead asleep on Luca's shoulder in the span of about ninety seconds, one frosting-covered fist still clutching a balloon ribbon. My parents headed back to their hotel with tired, happy smiles and about six containers of leftovers my mum absolutely refused to leave behind. They were on their second honeymoon. Rian hugged me at the door, whispered "call me the second anything exciting happens," with a look that told me he suspected something, and swept off into the night. And Mrs. Cruz shooed every last person out of the kitchen, waved away all offers of help, and firmly informed us that the cleanup was hers and hers alone, and would we please go and rest before she had to get cross about it.An