Pierced By Venom

- Chapter One - Yellow daisies, Keds, and bullets

Holy Hades in the Underworld. Today was my all-eyes-on-me, who-is-she- wearing trip down the aisle. A day that was all about the dress, all about the joining of two hearts, but most of all...today was all about the bride. Me. Gia Adler. The lucky woman who snagged San Diego's most eligible bachelor. Making me the target of jealousy so deadly, one green-eyed look could send me to hell.

Eight weeks ago that bachelor slid a three-carat diamond solitaire on my perfectly manicured hand. Since then, I'd spent every waking moment planning and preparing and pampering. Working to make sure that the scars of my past didn't scare me away from my future.

My overly Greek mother moved behind me, fluffing the folds of the embroidered silk that trailed down the back of my ivory gown. "You are a vision of beauty, Kopelia mou." She touched my shoulder and scrunched me down a good four inches so she could clasp the diamond teardrop pendant, a gift from my future husband, around my neck.

"I haven't been a girl in years, Momma." I twisted the diamond around the thin chain so it lay centered on my chest.

"Nonsense." She finished futzing, turned me around, and pulled me in for a hug. Her Aqua Net-coated hair scratched against my cheek. "You will always be my little girl. Even after you have many babies."

Images of my sister-in-law's swollen face and near bursting belly sent a frozen arrow down my spine. I searched for my song, just a few notes to calm me, but my gift hid behind the panic the word "baby" caused. "You'll have to be happy with Noel's body-ruining bundle. There's no babies in my future."

She placed her hand over my crunched-to-perfection abs. "I predict this tummy will be blessed and fat within a year." She licked the tip of her index finger and touched the tip of her nose, her good old lady Greek way of sending prayers to God.

Prayers? More like a curse. Being pregnant would ruin hours spent toning and tanning and turning my body into a National Greek Treasure. "Not as long as I keep popping my birth control pills."

My ancient grandmother, yiayia, dressed in her black funeral-to-wedding attire, clucked her tongue from her chair in the corner of the room. "God didn't give you your lovely soprano just to win scholarships. A voice like yours is meant to soothe crying babies to sleep with lullabies."

A hard knock on the door interrupted yiayia and her old-world views.

"Come in," I yelled, relieved to put an end to today's installment of "it's a woman's sole purpose to have babies" lecture.

Grayson, my older brother by one year, peeked his head through the opening. "Five minutes until you're someone else's problem."

Momma rushed over and pulled him into the room before he could return to hiding in the hall. "One last moment with our only girl." She forced us into a family hug.

Grayson kissed Momma's forehead, stepped back, and tugged at the sleeves of his Armani tux. "Watch it, Ma, you'll get me all wrinkly. And we all know those creases will screw with Gia's perfect day."

My "Irish Twin" knew me well. "Grayson, will you hand me my veil?"

He picked up the bundle of French silk, my something old from the past three generations on my mother's side, carried it over, and held it out.

"Would you do the honors?" My voice was as soft as the silk in his arms.

He smiled, a between-brother-and-sister smile that warmed my heart, and placed the fabric over my head. He paused, fingers almost touching my not-a- strand-out-of-place tresses, and I had an image of how he used to mess up my hair when I was four.