I knew he meant I love you, and I leaned over to kiss his cheek. “I love you too, Daddy. We are who we are, and the people who love us have to take us as we are. But now you gotta get me to the front of the church, or Joey’s gonna think I changed my mind.”
He sniffed. “Let’s go, then. I need a jar of whisky, and there ain’t any in this church.”
I smiled, the lump in my throat dissolving, and we stepped into the center aisle. Mary Grace was just reaching the altar, and we paused a moment, allowing the guests to rise. I was briefly stunned at how many people were there, perhaps more than a hundred, but then I remembered how large Joey’s family was. His mother and sisters were so thrilled with our plans to marry, they’d insisted on inviting every last person on the family tree with breath in their body.
For a second, nerves knotted in my stomach, but then Joey walked to the altar, and they unraveled into a thousand butterflies taking flight. Daddy and I began walking toward him at a quick clip, so quick that some guests hid smiles behind gloved hands and handkerchiefs. But I didn’t care—Joey was waiting for me. It wasn’t just his gorgeous face or the beautiful dark blue suit, or the strong body beneath it. It was that I knew that body now, every inch of it. I knew his mind. I knew his heart. I knew his history and his hopes for the future. I knew that he loved me and wanted me and understood me. He wanted to see the world with me. Some people might see marriage as a thing that trapped a girl in her home, but I knew life with Joey would never be dull, even if we never left the house.
In fact, as my eyes traveled from his slicked back hair to his lips and down his torso, I thought never leaving the house sounded like a pretty good idea.
I forced myself to keep my mind as pure as possible—we were in church, after all—and looked Joey in the eye. His were wet, and as I got closer, he blinked and then brought a hand up, thumb rubbing at one eye, fingers at the other. I smiled at him, full to bursting.
Daddy gave me away, Joey took my arm, and the rest of the ceremony was a blur but for the moment Joey slipped the ring on my finger. He’d wanted to surprise me, and he did—my mouth fell open and I didn’t stop staring at my hand for a full ten seconds, so long the guests began to chuckle. It was unbelievably beautiful—a large rectangular diamond surrounded by delicate filigree work in a silver band. Later he would tell me the diamond was emerald cut and the metal was platinum. The ring reminded him of me, he said—lovely and strong all at once. I had no idea how he afforded such a ring, and I never asked. Some things I just learned not to question.
We shared a chaste kiss when the priest pronounced us married, and Joey squeezed my hands. “Mrs. Lupo,” he whispered in my ear as our guests cheered.
I loved every moment of our reception—especially one particular moment when I caught Joey watching me from across the restaurant. Rather than smile, he simply locked eyes with me and jerked his head toward the kitchen. I had a feeling I knew what he meant, and my belly tightened with desire. He excused himself from whomever he was talking to with barely a glance, and he came over and grabbed my hand. Moving quickly, he pulled me through the kitchen door and we flew by the surprised staff. I laughed out loud, glad I’d already removed the veil from my head. I’d have tripped for sure.
The moment the pantry door slammed shut, he kissed me for real, wrapping his arms around me and lifting me right off the ground. “Mmmmm.” He teased my tongue with his. “I can’t wait any longer.”
“Me either,” I said. “But we can’t leave yet.”
“Who said we had to leave?” He set me down and ran his hands up my sides.
I laughed. “Joey, this dress!”
“It’s beautiful.” He kissed his way down my neck, setting my skin on fire. “You’re beyond beautiful.”
I shivered, cradling his head at my chest. “I still can’t believe it. We’re married. We’re actually married.”
“I know.” His words were muffled as he kissed my breasts through my dress. “So even if they miss us, they can’t say anything. And I can’t wait to taste you one more minute.”
He dropped to his knees, lifting the long tiers of my dress up to my waist. Holding them aloft, he pressed his lips to my thighs above the white stockings clipped by garter to my corselette. Moaning again, he brought his mouth to my center, covered by the thinnest layer of loose silk that snapped between my legs. “Back up,” he said.
I did, bracing myself against the pantry door.
“Good. Now put your leg on my shoulder.” I rested the back of one thigh on top of his shoulder, gasping as he nibbled and sucked at me through the silk. “Now the other.” His breath was hot on my skin.
Since his hands were holding up the front of my dress, only his shoulders would hold my weight. But I was so needy for him, I plastered my hands on the door next to my hips and swung my other leg up.
Sometimes being small was a blessing.
Joey easily held me suspended on his shoulders, burying his face between my legs. Unsnapping the step-in with his teeth, his magnificent mouth worked the damp silk aside and he slipped his tongue inside me, eliciting a long sigh of pleasure from deep in my throat.
Eventually he let my dress fall over his head and reached under my backside to hold me to him. I had no idea how he managed not to suffocate, but I was so deliriously aroused I didn’t give it more than a passing thought. He absolutely devoured me, licking and sucking and fucking me with his tongue until I was panting and digging my heels into his back and pounding my hands on the door behind me. When I finally came, I yelled his name so loud I was positive the entire reception heard. He moaned into my pulsing wetness, making me throw my head back, and it banged the door, hard.
I’d have a lump.
I didn’t care.
As I began to breathe again, he kissed each of my inner thighs before helping me stand. “God, I love that.” He hugged my legs from his kneeling position. “I want to do that every day. Twice a day.”
I laughed. “We’ll never leave the house.”
“Fine with me, Mrs. Lupo.”
The name sent a ripple of joy through me. I looked down at him and wished I could see his face in the dark. Smoothing my hand over his hair, I marveled at how we’d ended up here. “I love you.”
He stood and pressed his lips to my forehead before pulling me into his chest. “I love you too.”
I breathed in the scent of him, knowing how lucky I was to be in that moment. So many things could have prevented it—from outside threats to our own stubbornness. “Isn’t it amazing,” I said, “how much has changed this summer?”
“Definitely. Just think about how much you disliked me before now.”
I squeezed him tighter. “I didn’t dislike you. You just drove me crazy with all your teasing.”
“That’s how I showed I cared.”
“Well, you have better ways now.”
He kissed my temple. “Yes, I do. But I’ll probably still tease you.”
“How would I know I married the real Joey Lupo if you didn’t?”
He released me slightly and tipped up my chin. “I’d do anything for you.” He kissed me. “Anything. You want me to leave bootlegging behind, I’ll do it. You want to move away from Detroit, I’ll do it. You want ten kids, I’ll do it.”
I laughed. “Uh, let’s start with one—eventually. And you don’t have to leave bootlegging behind, not completely. Just promise me you’ll be careful and smart, and if it gets dangerous, you’ll quit.”
“Promise.”
“And there is something you can do for me.”
“Name it.”
“I want to go to New York and stay in a big hotel like the Astor or the Plaza.”
He kissed me again. “Done.”
I hugged him close. “So how much longer do we have to stay at this reception? I’m dying to get these clothes off you.”
“Say the word and I’ll carry you out of here.”
“Now.”
“That is a word you like, I’ve noticed.
” After one last kiss, Joey pulled the pantry door open, and led me back through the kitchen. We ignored the knowing looks among the waiters, who elbowed each other and guffawed, keeping our heads up as we re-entered the restaurant. As always, Joey’s family said the longest goodbyes in all Creation, each person hugging and kissing us and wishing us well. I endured more than a few jokes about having children soon, and rolled my eyes at Bridget, who was laughing at me from across the room. I knew she understood.
We said goodbye to my family too, Daddy actually kissing my cheek and then Joey’s wordlessly. My sisters hugged and kissed us both, and Bridget clung to me for a long moment. “I know you’ll be happy together,” she whispered. “Vince would be so glad.” I squeezed her back and turned to Evelyn, who embraced me while Ted shook Joey’s hand.
“I can’t believe it, Tiny. You’re married. To Joey!” She released me but kept my hands in hers.
“I know. I can’t believe it either,” I admitted. I’m glad you and Ted aren’t as stubborn or blind as Joey and I were.”
“Me too.” She leaned in again to whisper in my ear. “Cross your fingers for me. I think we might be next.”
“Crossed,” I whispered back in hers.
She giggled. “Now go. Any fool can see how impatient you two are to be alone.” Glancing at the ceiling, she added, “And if the chandeliers start shaking, I’ll know why.”
I gave her one last hug and took Joey’s hand, and we walked out the main doors into the lobby. It was there Joey swept me into his arms and carried me up two flights of stairs. I laughed when he started skipping steps on the second flight. “Take it easy. I don’t want you worn out before we even get inside.”
He grinned. “Never.”
Without setting me down, he turned the knob and opened the door to his apartment.
Our apartment.
Inside, he went straight for the bedroom, setting me down at the side of the bed. I grabbed him by the tie and pulled his mouth to mine, tipping backward onto the mattress. He laughed as he fell on top of me, then propped himself up slightly on his hands, pressing his lower body into mine. My breath hitched at feeling him hard on my leg, and I wiggled impatiently beneath him. “Too many clothes between us,” I whined. “Get them off, now.”
He laughed, and my insides filled with longing again as I looked up at him. I’d never get enough. “Relax, Mrs. Lupo. We’re just getting started.”
It’s only the beginning, I thought as I brought my hands to his face. When he lowered his lips to mine, I remembered thinking the exact same thing the day he’d kissed me in the front hall, only that day the words had filled me with trepidation.
Today, I just felt alive, bursting with life and love and hope, and it was everything I wanted.
Epilogue
Joey and I spent a week in New York after we wed, and a more romantic honeymoon I could not have imagined. Soon after we returned I discovered I was in a family way—of course I was, we were terribly careless about precautions from the start—and we began planning for our family. I thought I might feel some regret at expecting so soon, but I never did. Joey still said he’d support my going to school if I wanted to, and I did, in fact, take a few classes before the baby arrived. It was a good thing I was interested in science, because I was only permitted to take classes where the long white lab coats would hide my condition.
But once the baby was born, a girl we named Vincenza Kathleen, I realized school would have to wait. I didn’t mind—taking care of Vinnie and keeping accounts for the boarding house kept me busy, although Joey, true to his word, did all the cooking for us. How he managed that plus the restaurant and his bootlegging operation was a mystery to me, but he was smart, hard-working and ambitious, although never so much that ambition overshadowed his devotion to his family.
Unlike Enzo DiFiore.
We didn’t cross paths with him for a while, but I heard he married Gina and took over her father’s distilleries after Vito Meloni’s mysterious death—shot one day while exiting a diner, the victim of a sniper across the street whom no one seemed to notice. The sniper even entered a woman’s nearby apartment and called a cab, explaining that his car had broken down, and waited in her front room for twenty minutes before the cab showed up.
Yet she was unable to identify him.
Evelyn told me Rosie was Enzo’s mistress of choice for a few months the next year, even staying at his apartment at the Statler. But he grew tired of her and eventually took up with someone else, leaving Rosie to move back home until she married a divorced executive at Ford, moved into his house in Grosse Pointe, and never set foot in J.L. Hudson’s dress department again.
As for Evelyn, she married Ted that winter and had twin girls almost as quickly as I had Vinnie. We often met for walks with our girls, pushing the buggies and laughing about how much our lives had changed in just one year. For the most part, it felt like my life began when Joey and I fell in love, and I never even thought about those insane weeks during July of 1923.
Until one day when Enzo showed up at the restaurant with a blond on his arm that was not his wife. Sometimes I helped Joey down there if he was short-staffed, and I happened to see them at a corner table. Immediately, my stomach filled with dread and I sought out Joey in the kitchen.
“It’s OK,” he assured me. “He came in about a week ago demanding payment. Apparently, territory has been renegotiated once more and this is his block now.”
“And?” My heart was pounding with fear. Not again.
“And I paid him. And I’ll keep paying him as long as he stays out of our lives and doesn’t interrupt my bootlegging. We settled on a number and agreed to put the past behind us.”
I relaxed a little. “And you trust him?”
“I wouldn’t go that far. But I don’t think he’ll bother us,” he continued, his eyes going dark. “Because I told him if he comes near you or our family, I’ll fucking kill him.”
“What did he say?”
“He said, ‘Congratulations,’ and he handed me a hundred dollar bill.”
It didn’t surprise me at all. Doling out favors on the street was part of Enzo’s vision of himself as an all-powerful, benevolent mafia don, just like the men he’d seen growing up in Brooklyn. “God, what an asshole,” I said.
“Yeah. I told him to keep it. We don’t need his money.”
“No, we don’t.” I wrapped my arms around Joey’s waist.
When I went back into the restaurant, I looked at Enzo, and he raised his glass to me in a silent toast.
I nodded. That’s right, asshole. Here’s to me. I have everything I want, and you’ll never be happy. Life isn’t about owning things or people or money, but you’ll never understand that.
The next time I saw Enzo’s name, it was in the newspaper—he’d been arrested for shooting his brother in an argument over who was stealing money from Club 23.
It didn’t even faze me.
As for the rest of my family, Bridget surprised us all by marrying Martin after he graduated from dental school, and they sold the store, bought a home on the east side near Daddy, and raised the boys there, as well as their own two girls that followed. Eventually, Joey and I bought a house in that neighborhood as well, and our eight children grew up playing with their cousins, just as it should be.
Yes, eight. Four of each, within ten years.
We never did get very good about precautions, and we couldn’t keep our hands off each other.
Molly and Mary Grace both went away to college—paid for by Daddy, who finally put some money away—but both of them returned to the Detroit area to raise families. In fact, we rented our apartment to Molly and her pharmacist husband Jeff, and they lived there happily for many years.
I did become a nurse, eventually. It took me a while, what with eight children and all, but by the time the second world war broke out, I was working for the Red Cross. Two of my daughters followed me into medicine—one became a nurse; another, a doctor.
Prohibiti
on ended, of course, and with it went a large portion of our income. But Joey had saved a good deal of cash, and at that point he and Jeff invested in a chain of drug stores that took off, and while we were never overly rich, we were certainly wealthier than either of us had been growing up.
And as the years went by, the summer of 1923 took on an unreal quality—as if it had been the plot of a movie or a book, the events so dramatic it didn’t seem as if they could’ve happened to us in real life. But then Joey would dig out that handkerchief, the one with the words still written on it in red lipstick, faded but still legible. And we’d know it was all real.
The beginning of us.
THE END
A note from
the author...
Thank you so much for reading Speak Low. I’m truly grateful for your purchase, as I know there are many amazing books and authors out there.
If you enjoyed the book, please consider leaving a review on a retail site, such as Amazon, or Goodreads. Reviews are a fantastic (and free!) way to support indie authors, and they are much appreciated.
Cheers,
Melanie
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I dedicated this book to you, my readers, because without your words of love and support for a scrappy, sexy historical series, this story would not have been written. Your reviews and emails thrill and humble me. THANK YOU.
A huge shout-out to the members of Team Harlow: Lisa, Cristina, Melannie, Brittany, Delilah, Dawn, Jennifer, Jodie, Georgie, Zandalee, and Mia—your enthusiasm for Tiny (and her men) inspired me daily as I wrote this book, and I want to take you all out for cocktails!
Thank you to Tom Barnes for another gorgeous cover, and to Cait Greer for formatting and technical assistance. I’m so grateful to you both.
To the sexy awesome ladies of the Wrahm Society—you’re amazing. I’m so lucky to be one of you. Wrahmpage, here we come!
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