Page 19 of An Italian Wedding Adventure

‘Oh, shut up,’ Sophie grumbled.

‘If the colour of her cheeks is anything to go by, he did that part very seriously!’ Tita gave her a less-than-subtle thumbs-up.

‘Given the way he was looking at you, I think he might still be seriously interested.’

‘Ginny! We are a wedding planning agency, not a dating app.’

‘Yeah, we’re single women who plan other people’s weddings,’ Ginny said with a dismayed smile. ‘Although I suppose at least you got married once.’

Yes, in a small ceremony at the town hall with only his parents in attendance – another reason thinking of Rory always ended with a stab of grief. She didn’t need Ginny to remind her of what a joke of a wedding planner she was.

‘As the only married one at I Do, I think after everything that happened with Rory, it might do you good to hit the sheets with a gorgeous guy who stares at you as though you’re Princess Diana,’ Tita said.

‘Not Princess Diana! Tita, how old are you? Sophie deserves a guy who looks at her as though she’s chocolate cake!’

‘I’m not really happy with either of those metaphors,’ Sophie mumbled.

‘Do Italians like chocolate cake? Maybe he looks at you the way he’d look at cannoli. Mmm,’ Ginny licked her lips, touching on the subtle gold piercing below the bottom one. She had a notorious sweet tooth. ‘I love cannoli.’

‘Andreas doesn’t eat cannoli,’ Sophie corrected her grumpily.

‘What does he eat? Whatever he loves to eat, that’s the way he was looking at you.’

‘He was not! He eats instant calories out of tins as far away from civilisation as he can get. And besides, he’s from the German-speaking part, which means he would have been looking at me like…’ She took a second to remember the name of the dumplings he’d insisted were the food of the gods in the typically parochial fashion of a person from a small place. ‘Knödel,’ she said with a snort of laughter, the name even funnier than she’d remembered. ‘That would mean he was looking at me as though I were a Knödel, a big dumpling.’

‘That’s kind of sweet,’ Ginny continued, undeterred. ‘He could call you “dumpling”. Maybe you’d end up getting married and?—’

‘I amnotgoing to marry Andreas! For God’s sake! I was young and stupid enough to suggest that once and then I never saw him again!’

She caught herself abruptly, the heavy silence confirming that she’d revealed too much.

Ginny found her voice first. ‘And you have to work with him now? On awedding?’ she squeaked.

Sophie buried her face in her hands and wished she could skip ahead a few months, and get Andreas back into her past.

When Ginny continued, her tone was wary. ‘Soph, I didn’t mean to upset you. I was teasing. I didn’t know he popped your heartbreak cherry.’

‘He didn’t pop my— That is a stupid expression. He didn’t break my heart,’ she insisted. ‘It was all a long time ago. I’ve been married and divorced since.’ And she’d lost a lot more than just a husband, although she’d never wait around for Andreas’s reaction tothatnews. ‘I am perfectly capable of dealing with this calmly and maturely – and professionally.’

Ginny and Tita nodded, the older woman reaching back to squeeze Sophie’s knee.

‘But, you know, a little… Knödelling in Italy wouldn’t hurt?—’

‘This is the last time I tell you two anything!’

There would be no Knödelling with Andreas, under any circumstances.

8

On her arrival in Italy at the end of May, Sophie found her professionalism tested numerous times in just the first few minutes. Before she’d even entered the arrivals hall at Verona airport late in the afternoon, memories – mostly of previous Knödelling – assailed her.

She’d been here once to visit Andreas. He’d been late to collect her and when he’d finally swung by in his old Fiat Panda, she’d still been stupidly happy to see him. Any aggravation had disappeared when she’d caught sight of him in a worn leather jacket, peering up with a wide smile just for her. Then he’d kissed her for long enough that they’d nearly outstayed the short-term parking limit.

In hindsight, she could see there was something desperate in his affection. He’d always known there were limits to their relationship. Sophie had still stupidly thought they might cross the lines together and find a solution. She just wished she could switch off the shivers up her spine when she remembered the feel of his hand on the back of her neck as he kissed her.

She’d flown into Verona several times since then. Italy was perennially popular with her clients for its great food, charming locations for photoshoots and comparatively straightforward bureaucracy around tying the knot. But that morning, Sophie’s cynicism – usually kept well under control in the face of her clients’ starry-eyed optimism – was flaring and she could only see the questionable symbolism of marrying in the city that was famous for a pair of star-crossed lovers who came to a tragic – and foolish – end.

The words ‘tragic’ and ‘foolish’ drew far too many parallels with the last time Andreas had met her here. They’d had several weeks apart, talking on the phone every day – Sophie had always been the one to call, it mortified her to remember – and then she’d taken a few days off work to visit him.

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