Page 16 of An Italian Wedding Adventure

But when he propelled her through the door of the pub, the cold breeze whipped some sense into her and she tugged her hand back. ‘I left my jacket inside.’

He blinked at her as though he hadn’t noticed he was outdoors in a T-shirt in the rain at the beginning of April. With a muttered curse made entirely of consonants, he started moving again, tugging her around to a side entrance and ushering her in with a furtive glance at where the others were sitting. Drawing her into a corner, he took a deep breath through his nose, standing far too close.

‘I know eight years ago, everything went wrong,’ he began, but Sophie had already had enough.

Leaning back against the wall, she looked away and grumbled, ‘I asked you to marry me and you said no. It was a little more than everything going wrong.’

‘The proposal came out of nowhere – the day before I was leaving for one of the biggest expeditions of my career! I don’t know what you want to blame me for. Besides, I’d told you marriage wasn’t for me – at least I thought I had.’

Sophie pressed her lips together, flinching at the reminder of how stupid she’d been. He was unfortunately right. He’d told her near the beginning of their relationship – quite baldly – that he didn’t picture himself getting married, ever, and she’d still foolishly believed he might change his mind for her, for the connection she’d thought they’d shared.

‘Perhaps the timing wasn’t great, but you were leaving and I wasn’t even sure if you’d come back to Weymouth!’

‘Then maybe you should have asked me to come back to Weymouth instead of tomarryyou!’

The truth was she’d feared he’d say no to that too. Hindsight was sometimes a wonderful thing, but not when it showed her how little trust she’d truly had in the relationship. He’d never felt the same and in response, she’d only held on tighter.

With a shrug she hoped was convincingly casual, she said, ‘Because you wouldn’t have said yes to that either – or at least, if I had to ask you, then there was more wrong with the relationship than your aversion to marriage. That much at least I learned that day.’

Her pride had completed a long descent when his callous response dashed every hope she’d had for the relationship. ‘Look, Sophie. You’re a lovely girl and we’ve had a lot of fun, but that’s not what this is about. I’m not that kind of guy. Maybe we should take a break for a while. You’ve spent a lot of your time this year hanging around me.’

Like a crazed fan. Or a limpet. She’d never been so mortified.

‘Do you want me to apologise? I thought I did enough of that eight years ago.’

‘I don’t want you to apologise. I want you to understand!’ She crossed her arms, although not to protect herself from Andreas. He might harrumph and growl and speak in clipped, rasping sentences, but he was also ruthlessly in control of himself at all times. He had to be.

No, she was protecting herself from this conversation, from the truth that might spill out – truth about her own behaviour that she’d only begun to grasp with hindsight.

‘What do you want me to understand?’

That was it – he’d cut straight to the heart of the matter, to her heart, as he always had. ‘Me?’ she tried, snapping her eyes shut for a moment when that wasn’t quite the right answer. ‘Yourself?’

‘Shall we start with you?’ His brow was so low and his eyes so close. ‘I embarrass you – or your memories do. But I thought I told you then that you were right and I was wrong. If I was a better man, we’d be married right now.’

Oh, God. His words took the wind out of her.

‘I didn’t deserve you, Sophie.’

She forced air into her lungs, through her tingling nose. Ah, shit, on top of everything, now she wanted to cry. ‘This is where I need you to understand yourself, Andreas,’ she managed to say, although her voice wobbled.

‘What?’

‘You’re just shifting blame. You hurt me, you let me believe our relationship was deeper than it was, but you don’t want to admit it. It’s not aboutdeserving. You didn’t want me.’

‘…Let you believe? What are you talking about? I explained why I couldn’t marry you. I won’t leave anyone behind. I was trying to spare you.’

He looked hurt at that – haunted, even. She shook her head to clear it, brushing back the lock of hair that fell into her face and ignoring the way his eyes followed the movement.

‘Spare me? You broke up with me.’

‘I didn’t! I said we should take a break.’

She gave a disdainful eye-roll. ‘You said no to marriage and then suggested we go on a break. Only an idiot would believe you meant just a break. You were trying to split up with me without taking any responsibility for my feelings – because you don’t want to take responsibility for anyone else’s feelings. Your “can’t” marry me was an excuse too. You wanted to climb mountains and not worry about who you were coming home to. I remember you said that.’

‘No, I mean, yes, you’re right about taking responsibility for other people’s feelings. I tried to explain, but perhaps you didn’t understand, because you’ve never been… up there.’

‘I did understand that you would only ever have your climbing and mountaineering relationships,’ she said, pulling her arms tighter. ‘That was clear.’

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