Chapter 7 - The Table by the Window
Six months later, Sofia stood inside Bellini's before opening hours wearing her wedding dress.
Not a cathedral.
Not Luca's mansion.
Not one of his luxury hotels.
Bellini's.
When Luca had suggested a hundred-person wedding at one of his properties, Sofia had stared at him.
"No."
"Two hundred?"
"That's worse."
"Lake Como?"
"Luca."
"New York?"
"No."
"Then where?"
She smiled.
"The place where you were nobody."
And that settled it.
Mr. Romano closed Bellini's for the day.
Mia decorated the dining room.
Noah handled music.
Marco complained that flowers made him sneeze while arranging them anyway.
At 4:00 p.m., Sofia entered the restaurant.
Luca stood near the window.
Black suit.
White shirt.
No tie.
The tattoos across his hands and wrists remained visible instead of being covered.
Sofia noticed immediately.
"You didn't hide them."
Luca looked down.
"Should I?"
"No."
She smiled.
"I like the real version."
The ceremony was small.
Thirty-eight people.
Family.
Friends.
Employees.
No reporters.
No business partners who expected favors.
No politicians.
Nobody Luca needed to impress.
After they exchanged vows, Mr. Romano immediately announced dinner.
Sofia laughed.
"Romantic."
"He threatened to charge overtime," Luca said.
They sat at their original table.
The window table.
Rain began tapping against the glass.
Sofia noticed.
"Exactly like that night."
Luca looked outside.
"Almost."
"What's different?"
"I'm not alone."
She reached for his hand.
Then remembered something.
"You have a secret."
Luca froze.
"What?"
"Marco told me."
Across the room, Marco stopped drinking.
"Traitor," Luca muttered.
Sofia narrowed her eyes.
"What did you do?"
"Nothing."
"Luca."
"It's a wedding present."
"If you bought me a building—"
"I didn't."
"A restaurant?"
"No."
"A car?"
"No."
"Then what?"
Luca handed her an envelope.
Sofia opened it.
Inside was a document.
She read the first line.
Then looked up.
"What is this?"
"A foundation."
She continued reading.
The Bennett-Moretti Opportunity Fund.
It provided scholarships for working students supporting family members while attending college.
Sofia became silent.
Luca immediately looked concerned.
"You hate it."
"No."
"You've been silent for eight seconds."
"I'm reading."
"That's usually bad."
She looked up.
"You used my name."
"Both names."
"Why?"
"Because Noah shouldn't have needed you to work double shifts just to stay in school."
Sofia looked back at the document.
"And neither should thousands of other families."
Luca nodded.
"Exactly."
"How much?"
He hesitated.
"Luca."
"Enough."
"That's not a number."
"You'll yell."
"Probably."
"Then let's enjoy the wedding first."
She laughed.
"Fine."
Luca leaned closer.
"There's another condition."
"Your condition?"
"You run it."
Sofia stared at him.
"What?"
"The foundation."
"I don't know anything about running a foundation."
"You understand the people it's supposed to help."
"That's not the same."
"No."
Luca smiled.
"But you'll learn."
Sofia looked around Bellini's.
Three years earlier, she'd started working there because she needed money.
She had never imagined wealth.
Or power.
Or Luca Moretti.
She had simply been trying to help her brother.
Now she understood something Luca had spent years forgetting.
Power mattered most when it gave someone else a chance.
"Okay," she said.
Luca blinked.
"Okay?"
"I'll do it."
His face brightened.
"But."
He sighed.
"Naturally."
"I still work at Bellini's twice a month."
Luca stared.
"Why?"
"Because I like it."
"You'll be running a multimillion-dollar foundation."
"And?"
"You want to wait tables?"
"Sometimes."
Luca shook his head.
"I married a crazy woman."
Sofia smiled.
"You proposed."
"True."
A waiter approached carrying two plates.
He set Luca's dinner down.
Sofia looked at it.
Ravioli.
She burst out laughing.
Luca stared at Mr. Romano.
"Seriously?"
Mr. Romano shouted from the kitchen.
"Eat it this time!"
The room laughed.
Luca picked up his fork.
Sofia watched him take a bite.
"Well?"
"Excellent."
"You're lying."
"Completely."
She laughed again.
Later, when the guests had gone and the restaurant was quiet, Luca and Sofia remained at the window.
Rain continued falling outside.
Luca held her hand.
"Can I ask you something?"
Sofia smiled.
"You just did."
He rolled his eyes.
"Are you happy?"
She looked at him.
The question carried more weight than he intended.
Months earlier, Luca had walked into this restaurant believing nobody genuinely cared about the answer to that question.
Now he was asking it.
"Yes," she said.
He nodded.
"Good."
Sofia squeezed his hand.
"My turn."
"Go ahead."
"Are you okay?"
Luca looked at her.
For a moment, neither spoke.
Then Luca Moretti—the man feared in boardrooms, respected across the city, and once convinced that trust was merely another weakness—smiled at the woman who had first seen him sitting alone beside a rainy window.
"Yeah."
He looked around the empty restaurant.
Then back at his wife.
"I finally am."
Sofia rested her head against his shoulder.
Outside, the city still knew the Moretti name.
Some respected it.
Some feared it.
Some whispered it.
But inside Bellini's, none of that mattered.
Here, Luca wasn't an empire.
He wasn't a reputation.
He wasn't the man everyone wanted something from.
He was simply Luca.
And years later, whenever someone asked Sofia how she had managed to win the heart of a man nobody dared approach, she always gave the same answer.
"I didn't try to win anything."
She would smile.
"I just saw a lonely man sitting by a window and asked if he was okay."
And whenever Luca heard her tell the story, he always corrected one detail.
"You forgot the soup."
Sofia would roll her eyes.
"The soup wasn't important."
"It changed my life."
"No. I changed your life."
Luca would smile, pull her closer, and answer the same way every time.
May you like
"Exactly."
THE END
