Page 14 of An Italian Wedding Adventure

He pinned her with a look. ‘One of those kids, Ilove. The other ones, I tolerated for his sake.’

The word ‘love’, emphasised in his rough voice, sent a shiver up her spine. But that sentence was all the more reason not to get caught up in this attraction again. There were precious few people Andreas Hinterdorfer loved and Sophie would never be one of them.

‘That was more than tolerating,’ she accused instead. ‘You were great with those kids. They adored you. And you never went so easy on me.’

She regretted the words as soon as they came out of her mouth, hoping he wouldn’t interpret them as a complaint that he’d never lovedher. Two minutes in his company and she was already regressing to the insecure twenty-six-year-old she’d been.

His expression twisted into confusion and he opened his mouth to say something she didn’t want to hear, so she made a quelling gesture and turned pointedly away, heading for the reception area. The dampened sound of climbing shoes on the springy floor followed her and she tensed.

‘You needed me to be hard on you.’

‘Oh, that’s rich!’ she said, whirling on him, but her consternation dissipated as soon as she caught sight of his face. The shimmer of regret she felt was mirrored there. She wished she couldn’t see it, wanted to keep hold of the resentment that grew slipperier every time she saw him. ‘That’s an excuse,’ she managed to say. She glanced away to find Ginny and Tita gawking at her.

Toni came to Sophie’s rescue. ‘That’s Andreas,’ she said, introducing him to Sophie’s colleagues. ‘He’s a bit of a fixture here. And this is my son, Cillian.’ The small boy who’d raced to the top of the wall squeezed into her side. ‘He’s just turned eight and celebrated with the party of his dreams.’ She caught Andreas’s gaze and they shared an eye-roll. ‘Did you survive?’ she asked in a mock whisper.

He just raised his eyebrows.

‘I have to take Cillian home, but my parents are watching him tonight, so I’ll meet you at the Admiral in a little bit,’ Toni explained. ‘Rhys, Kira and Laurie are probably already there. I don’t think you’ve met Rhys and Laurie yet. Laurie is another of our guides and Rhys works with us occasionally as a photographer.’

Tita’s eyes lit up.

‘I’ll get changed and meet you there,’ Andreas said. It was difficult for Sophie to tell from his clipped tone whether he was talking to her or to the rest of the group. She felt a light grip around her upper arm – brief and hesitant, but when she turned to him, he was already several steps away, snatching a towel from the floor and heading for the changing rooms.

* * *

He must have looked even more grim than usual when he stepped over the threshold into the taproom at the Admiral. It was raining – again. Drops skidded down the leaded windows, making the fading evening light even weaker inside. He was hungry and restless, but mostly he was frustrated – with everything about that day.

Kira caught sight of him first, but her smile dulled as soon as she took in his expression. She stood, giving Laurie’s shoulder a clasp and muttering something to the rest of the group as she hurried over. Slinging her arms around Andreas, she squeezed with her familiar tightness and he returned the hug, his expression reluctantly softening as his arms wrapped around her.

‘What’s up?’ she asked, drawing back, but not letting go. He was vividly conscious of the proximity of her face, but not in the way he’d experienced it before – usually as a friend, occasionally closer. That day, his hair stood on end and he imagined – or felt – Sophie’s gaze on the two of them, coming to her conclusions. Or was it wishful thinking that she was watching? If she were, she was probably just disapproving. He was nearly ten years older than Kira.

His head had been a mess ever since he’d walked into that meeting room and seen Sophie’s face again after so many years. A clear head was one of the main requirements of his job and he was struggling to maintain one, haunted by her pinched expression, by the suggestion that everything that had gone wrong between them had been his fault. A lot of it had been, he would admit, but he’d thought she’d understood his dilemma. He hadn’t meant to hurt her.

‘A group of kids is enough to finish me for the day, but the pub with strangers afterwards?’ He shuddered for effect, casually disengaging Kira’s hands from his waist.

‘You can escape to your remote mountains soon,’ she reassured him, but then paused, shooting him with an assessing gaze. ‘Do you want me to help you out with Sophie?’

He shook his head vehemently, then paused. ‘What do you mean? What help do you think I need?’

‘You could sit next to me. I’ll keep you… occupied. She won’t dare talk to you.’

His mouth opened to protest, but he stopped himself, embarrassment tingling over his skin. What could he say to that? He settled on, ‘Sophie doesn’t want to talk to me.’

‘It doesn’t look that way.’

The back of his neck burned, but he didn’t dare look over at the rest of the group. He could still feel the shock of her statement in the gym:You never went so easy on me.While he’d showered, he’d agonised over why she’d said it, what she thought about their relationship. He hated agonising. There was a powerlessness to it that he couldn’t cope with.

‘She asked when you’re flying out again, how long you usually stay in Weymouth these days.’

‘If you’re suggesting she’s still interested in me, I can assure you it’s not true,’ he said with a dark laugh. ‘She’s probably hoping to avoid me as much as possible before we go to Italy.’ Hoping to avoid talking about the past, as though that would mean not thinking about it either.

‘She mentioned an ex-husband.’

‘What?’ He snapped his mouth shut when the word came out more loudly than he’d intended. His skin crawled at the thought of her married to someone else, but the idea of her divorced didn’t improve his discomfort. Of course she would have got married. It had been eight years and she wasn’t the one allergic to commitment. ‘Who?’

Kira held up her hands. ‘I don’t know!’ She studied him with a wary look. ‘Is ityouwho wants to get back together?’

He gritted his teeth. ‘Nobodywants to get back together.’ Scraping off his cap and running his hand over the back of his head, dreaming of a hundred-foot wall or, better yet, real granite beneath his fingers and nothing but air at his back, he breathed in and out through his nose and faced up to the truth. ‘We just have some unfinished business.’

---