‘Our hiking group went there two years ago, but we couldn’t join them,’ Roman added, turning to the first album again. ‘Lake Garda would be wonderful.’

‘And the summit wedding?’ Lily asked. ‘Would that work here?’

Sophie truly didn’t have any desire to trek to the top of a mountain with a wedding party, but her boss had drilled into her when she’d started this job that the client was in charge – or had to feel that way at least.

‘We can make it happen,’ Sophie reassured her. She just wasn’t at all surehow. God, she hoped her boss, the queen of weddings Reshma Bakshi, would have an idea – something better than Sophie’s first thought: sub-contracting a company like Great Heart Adventures in Weymouth.

Noticing she’d scribbled down the name of the adventure travel agency, she hastily rubbed it out with her finger. Reshma would have a better solution – one that didn’t dig into Sophie’s past. And besides, there was no chance thathestill worked there. He was probably at the top of K2 right now, freezing his fingers off for no apparent reason.

Swallowing her uncertainty for the rest of the consultation, Sophie reminded herself that she’d already organised two weddings at the lake and she would find a way to work this out – she always did.

If Lily and Roman wanted an adventurous wedding, they’d get the most adventurous damn wedding anyone had ever seen and it would have nothing to do with the larger-than-life Italian mountaineer who’d been the first to show Sophie how little she really knew about relationships.

2

One of these days, the old Land Rover was going to give up the ghost.

Andreas wrenched the gear stick into neutral with a grinding noise that pounded into his skull. The car park at the climbing gym and headquarters of the adventure travel company was mercifully flat, otherwise the handbrake wouldn’t have held. The undercarriage seemed rustier every time he dared look at it and the passenger door didn’t openorclose properly and now boasted several dents from where he’d slammed it.

The old truck had clocked a lot of miles, usually full of ropes and helmets, straps, carabiners and tents. When Andreas jumped out and yanked the door of the boot open that day, the less-than-fresh scent of sweaty socks and sodden wool reached his nose – odours the old Land Rover was more than familiar with.

Pausing to rub a hand over his gritty eyes and grimy face, he hefted four coils of brightly coloured rope and a pile of slings tied carefully together and kicked the boot closed with one foot. The smell stayed with him as he trudged to the glass doors and he realised with a grimace that it was not only the contents of his rucksack that stank. It was him. The Land Rover was used to that too.

The reception area was more utilitarian than interior designed, with hooks for equipment, chipboard dividers and a wall of metal lockers on one side. The logo of the company – a stylised version of the heartbeat electrogram – hung on a slate-blue wall behind the reception desk with the words ‘Great Heart’ on either side of the spike and ‘Adventures’ below. As soon as he crossed the threshold and dumped the damp equipment in a free corner, the dusty scent of chalk and the calm shouts from the belayers on the floor enveloped him in a familiar greeting.

Either here in wet and windy Weymouth in February or anywhere else in the world, a climbing gym was a kind of spiritual home. Even if he knew no one, there was brotherhood here – and sisterhood. But the gym at Great Heart was almost literally home. His bedsit around the corner from Asda was more of a place to store his clothes than anything else.

The receptionist appeared through the office door as he was heading out for another load of equipment. She jumped when she saw him, but then a broad smile stretched on her lips. ‘Andreas! Griaß di.’

He tugged off his grimy baseball cap, although his hair wasn’t much cleaner. ‘Hoila, Toni.’ It was their little routine of greetings in Tyrolean, although her husband had spoken an Austrian variety, not Andreas’s further chewed southern dialect.

Pressing a kiss to her cheek and then looping his arms around her, he gave her a squeeze, letting go when she poked him, wrinkling her nose.

‘Have you just got back? You don’t need to answer that. I can smell the mountain on you. How was it?’

‘It’s February in Eyri. How do you think it was?’ He’d adjusted to calling the National Park by its Welsh name. As a member of a linguistic minority himself, he’d embraced the change.

‘Any snow?’

He shook his head. ‘But it was arse cold in the tent. Clients were disappointed we only got to carry the crampons.’

‘Not just the clients, I’m guessing.’

He didn’t respond. It did no good bemoaning the absence of real expeditions over the past few years and he knew that fact troubled the founder of Great Heart Adventures – famed mountaineer Willard Coombs – just as much as it disappointed Andreas. At least Andreas also had work as a mountain guide when he was back home in Italy and had been sponsored to open new routes on several six-thousanders over the past few years. Will had got a little old for expeditions even before the bookings had dried up.

Stretching his stiff back, Andreas thought with chagrin that everyone got too old eventually. With his fortieth birthday just passed – here in Weymouth so he could avoid his family and only had to suffer through a pint at the pub with his colleagues to mark the miserable day – he had more and more work to do to stay in shape.

All the more reason why there was nothing in his life except trekking and the gym – exactly the way he wanted it.

‘How’s Cilli? Getting excited for his birthday party?’ Make that work, the gym and his seven-year-old godson, Cillian.

‘His birthday isn’t for six weeks! Don’t dare mention it when you see him, or it’ll be your responsibility when he bounces off the ceiling,’ Toni said with a grimace.

He mimed zipping his lips.

‘But seriously, thanks for offering to help with the party. He wanted to take his friends climbing so much.’

‘It’s nothing,’ he assured her.