Page 104 of Mafia Daddy's Christmas Bride

I turn the page slowly. Here's Roman and Emilia at what appears to be their wedding. Another shows them on a beach somewhere.

Emilia's pregnant in the next series of photos, her hand protectively covering her rounded belly while Roman stands behind her, looking both proud and terrified.

Then Angelica appears, tiny, red-faced, wrapped in a pink blanket. Roman holds her with such careful tenderness, looking down at her with wonder in his eyes.

God, to have a man look at me like that. At our child like that.

Isn’t that one of the things my mother wanted for me? The ability to find true love, true happiness on my terms?

I flip through more pages. Angelica's first steps, birthday parties, Christmas mornings.

In every photo, Roman looks like a different man from the one I know.

Open. Vulnerable.

His smile reaches his eyes in a way I've only glimpsed in moments with Angelica.

I pause at a photo of the three of them ice skating, Angelica couldn't have been more than four.

Emilia looks thin and frail.

Roman is smiling, but fear and pain fill his eyes.

This must be right before she died.

All of a sudden, I feel like an interloper for having joined them today. Skating was their thing. This was his real life. His chosen life. It should have been Emilia, not me there today.

I trace the outline of Emilia's face with my fingertip. She was beautiful, not in the polished way I'd imagined but with a natural warmth that radiates even from these faded photographs.

A strange tightness forms in my chest. Is it jealousy? Not quite.

Something more complicated. I envy not just the woman, but the life captured in these images. The genuine happiness, the sense of belonging.

"She was extraordinary."

I startle, nearly dropping the album. Roman stands in the doorway, holding two mugs of hot chocolate. I close the album quickly, feeling like I've been caught trespassing.

"I'm sorry. I shouldn't have?—"

"It's fine." He crosses the room and hands me a mug. "Angelica is having her cocoa with Mrs. Rossi who’s readingThe Polar Expressto her."

“Oh. That’s a good one.”

He sits next to me and opens the album. "She would have been thirty-seven next month," he says quietly. "Sometimes, I wonder what she'd think of… all this."

The way he says "all this" makes it clear he means our arrangement. Me.

"She would have hated it," I say before I think whether it’s wise. "The arrangement. Being forced to marry someone you don't love."

His lips twitch upward. "Yes. She would have."

An uncomfortable silence stretches between us. I find myself wanting to know more about this woman who clearly still holds his heart.

"You looked happy," I say finally. "In the photos."

"We were." He takes a long sip of his cocoa. "It wasn't complicated."

Unlike us, he doesn't say, but I hear it anyway.