Page 18 of An Italian Wedding Adventure

‘You married Rory Brent?’ He couldn’t quite stop the rather hysterical laugh that emerged from his throat. He waited – hoped – for her to deny it.

‘I could have married Mickey Mouse and it wouldn’t affect you. You turned me down, remember.’

It damn well did affect him. He just wasn’t sure why. ‘But… he was such an idiot on those trips.’

‘He wasjealous, which I understand. He was interested in me and I was a lovesick fool over you at the beginning.’ Turning away, she fiddled with the clasp of the chain that hung around her neck.

God, she’d been a sweet fool at the beginning. He couldn’t think about it without his heart hurting. She’d laughed at his terrible jokes and looked at him as though he could hang the moon and he wished he’d never had to hurt her.

But as much as that, he wished she’d never married Rory Brent.

‘Ishould have married you, if only to stop you ever imagining he was the right guy for you!’ he growled.

‘You’re unbelievable, Andreas!’ she bit out. ‘Feelings are off limits, but locking horns in a stupid contest with another guy is fine? You’re just as bad as Rory turned out to be! Maybe you’re right, being friends is going to be a stretch, but not because you’re so bloody irresistible. You have no clue about how to be a human being!’

She turned and walked away with a toss of her head that sent ripples through him. He stood rocking on his heels for a moment after she disappeared around the corner, knowing he’d deserved every word.

When he reluctantly followed in her footsteps, he found Kira eyeing him with a pointed gaze. All he could do was shrug. He’d screwed up – again. He always seemed to screw up with Sophie.

He had to make sure the trip in May was a success, for her sake, but also for Willard’s, for the merger that was his last chance to save the business his friend had spent fifteen years building. If they had to do a few weddings to stay afloat, that was a fair price to pay for the downturn in expedition bookings.

Maybe he’d get a chance to make it up to Sophie.

* * *

Sophie was thankful that the new team of Great Heart Adventure Weddings didn’t quite get on. No one wanted to stay after they’d eaten their toads in holes or their fish and chips and Sophie bundled herself into the back seat of Ginny’s car with her head still in a fog.

Her coworker didn’t even wait until she’d left the car park. ‘All right, Soph. Those were some of the weirdest vibes I’ve ever felt. Spit the whole story – and don’t skimp on the details!’ she instructed as she closed the driver’s side door.

Through the windscreen, Sophie’s gaze snagged on the shadowy figures of Andreas and Kira near the rusty old Land Rover and her voice failed her. Despite the fruity white wine she’d just finished, there was a sour taste in her mouth. Kira was welcome to him, but the conversation before dinner had scratched open a wound.

She should look away before whatever she saw stabbed the knife further into her pride, but part of her needed the blow. As long as her skin still prickled and her lungs ached in his presence, as long as that wanting still sprang up, out of her control, she’d be in danger of believing a relationship between them might work. Perhaps she should be glad he’d ruined the fragile truce by laughing at her for marrying someone who had claimed to love her – even if that marriage had turned out to be a disaster.

Sophie was a wedding planner, after all. She peddled dreams and hope and if anyone had the ability to quash those dreams for good, it was Andreas Hinterdorfer. It beggared belief how someone with no clue about emotions could so thoroughly manipulate hers. No wonder she’d married?—

Nooo. She’d had more than enough of her past mistakes tonight.

So she forced her eyes wide open and waited to see her ex kiss another woman. But when Andreas turned to Kira, all he did was cross his arms and lean heavily on the old paintwork. With a small shake of his head, he gave Kira’s shoulder a squeeze and then he did kiss her – a light press of his lips to her forehead that flashed through Sophie with something other than the hurt and disgust she needed to keep him out of her heart.

It was the memory of him doing the same to her an hour earlier. It seemed two women had wanted to kiss him tonight and he’d put both of them off with a friendly – and absurdly tender – kiss on the forehead.

The rush of embarrassment up to her hairline was a familiar sensation.

Ginny started the car and the headlights flooded the scene with harsh light. Kira was already walking away, her hand raised in a wave, and Andreas flinched, shielding his eyes. The idiot hadn’t even put his coat back on and the light showed up all the furrows of his prodigious muscles.

‘The forearms do not maketh the man,’ Sophie muttered – not quietly enough, because Tita turned to her from where she sat in the passenger seat.

‘But those are not forearms. They are art!’

Ginny snorted a laugh. ‘Sophie was not appreciating them aesthetically. He’s an ex, right? Before or after Rory? And just how ex-y is he really? Looks like it’s not all in the past.’

‘Very ex-y,’ she insisted through gritted teeth, refusing her brain’s request to add an ‘s’ on the front. ‘From before Rory. It was a long time ago and it wasn’t serious.’

‘Really? Andreas looks like he does everything seriously,’ Ginny said as she steered out of the car park and away so Sophie could breathe again.

‘Not me,’ she said emphatically.

‘He didn’t do you seriously?’ Ginny clarified with a wink.

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