Page 22 of Modern Romance Collection February 2025, 1-4

The last one Alceu had attended could certainly not claim that title. He was surprised the Hotel Andromeda yet stood.

His mother lounged in one of the few pews—having, he was certain, chosen the one that bathed her in the red light from the stained glass window above. She was dressed in what could only be described as mourning attire, complete with a mantilla over her head that somehow failed to disguise the brightness of her lipstick. Across the aisle from her and keeping to the more decorous shadows, Concetta sat ramrod straight in her perfectly pressed uniform, looking distinctly dubious.

Oh, happy day, Dioni had said.

And yet his bride appeared in the chapel doorway like a ray of light.

She was holding a pretty bouquet of flowers that she must have picked on her way to the church, because he knew that there had been none ready for her. He had decided that speed trumped tradition. Just the same, he had done nothing in the way of a wedding gown, either, and yet she had managed that, too. Her dress was the color of champagne and flowed over her, accentuating the reason that they were here today.

Except he found himself looking less at the accoutrements and more at the sheer beauty of her.Alceu would have said that she was excited, but he did not see how that could be possible under these circumstances. Yet the evidence seemed plain enough. Because she was glowing.Beaming.

She nearly bounded down the aisle, that smile of hers taking up far too much room on her face and the chapel itself, carving its way deep beneath his ribs.

He could admit that there was a part of him that had expected her to fall at the rules laid down yesterday. That same part of him was something like irritated that she hadn’t.

They recited their vows, one after the next, and when the priest indicated that Alceu could kiss his bride, his wife, it was his turn to face the things he’d told her. Head-on.

While Dioni only gazed up at him, her smile growing wider by the moment.

“So quickly do we find our vows are elastic,” she murmured, for only him to hear, as he leaned in and pressed a furious kiss to her lips.

It was nothing like that kiss in New York and yet it still seemed to rampage through him, laying waste to all it touched.

Afterward, the deed accomplished and their doom complete, he walked with her back up to the house as his ancestors had done from time immemorial. Too many of his forebears to count had escorted their new wives up the side of the mountain, then led them behind the stone walls that never let Vaccaros go.

There was a huge part of him that wanted only to raze the whole of it to the ground.

Alceu walked silently, deeply aware of the solemnity of the occasion and the ghosts all around him, keeping step with him as he—the one who had been so certain he would put an end to these terrible traditions—turned out to be no better than the lot of them.

And yet beside him, Dioni kept marveling at the view. She stopped every time she could look back down the mountain, out toward the sea. She picked more flowers. She marveled at the light on the water far below. She listened to the birds singing and hummed along. There was a skip in her step, and it took very little time indeed for her hair to fall down from where it had been pinned up in the chapel. The hem of her champagne dress dragged in the rich brown earth. There was a smudge of something he assumed was pollen on her cheek.

Dioni didn’t seem to notice or care.

Alceu noticed. And the fact that he could not pretend that he did not care infuriated him. He kept on walking, grimly determined to make it back to the castle before he forgot himself.

Before he indulged himself in her, all sunshine and light, that musical laugh and the way she seemed to throw her arms wide and take in all aspects of this cursed place until he was forced to see it through her eyes. Until he was forced to wonder why he, too, couldn’t revel in the way the trees arched above them like a canopy. Or the way the sun filtered down through the branches, creating patterns on the earth. Or even the way the castle rose up above them, as beautiful as it was staunchly defensive, built to keep the family’s well-deserved enemies at bay.

When they finally made it to the cool embrace of the stone walls, he was grateful.

But it was far harder to walk away from her than it should have been.

He noticed that too, and cared far more than was wise.

Later that night, while he was doing his best to work in his office, he found himself drawn to the faint sound of music winding its way in and around the stone walls.

Like memories of joyful times these stones had never known.

It was like his brand-new wife was haunting him.

And yet he couldn’t seem to keep himself from following the ghost of her, walking down one long, empty hallway into the next, following the melody that grew louder as he moved.

Eventually, he found himself in the old ballroom that he had refurbished with the same level of attention to detail that he’d given the rest of the castle, though he had no intention of ever throwing something like a ball. As he approached, he found himself in the grip of a kind of apprehension, as if he wasn’t at all sure what he would see when he looked inside.

Would it be Dioni after all? Or was he truly, fully engaging with the dark promise of this place at last? Could he expect to see actual ghosts inside?

He didn’t know if he was pleased or disappointed or both when a glance within showed him only Dioni.

All alone, her hair all around her like a tangled cloud and her eyes closed.

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