Page 50 of An Italian Wedding Adventure

The shops in the centre of Verona were just opening their doors as the trio arrived at the Via Mazzini after parking the car – a slightly newer Fiat Panda.

‘We have to visit the shops here before the crowds arrive,’ Caro said.

Even for early in the morning, the pedestrian zone was buzzing with shoppers walking beneath the wrought-iron balconies that inevitably made visitors think ofRomeo and Julietin this town. The Gucci store in a historic stone building with arched, stuccoed windows was still closed, which didn’t bother Petra and Caro, as they seemed to have their favourite smaller boutiques.

By the time they emerged onto Piazza Erbe, the Saturday-morning bustle was in full swing. Petra seemed a little stressed by the crowds – as Sophie knew Andreas would have been – but Sophie enjoyed the buzz of conversation in Italian, the stallholders selling scarves and hats, jewellery, souvenirs and towels with the image of the Venetian winged lion. Behind them, the Mazzanti houses took the scene five hundred years back in time with their decorative patterns and frescoes of long-forgotten figures.

The buildings on the square were tightly packed, the morning sun picking up the yellow and white and terracotta of the render. The crooked balconies overflowed with plants and two historic towers of ancient brick rose above the long square, into the blue sky.

‘A bride and groom had photos taken here last year,’ she said as they passed the Domus Mercatorum, the striped brick structure on the corner with crenellations and arched windows. ‘We came here at six in the morning to whirl past all the sights with the photographer.’

‘Ouch, that’s early!’ Caro said emphatically. ‘Our farm hours aren’t that bad.’

‘The photos were amazing, though,’ Sophie said, smiling as she remembered the bride’s serene smile as she posed in her flowing dress in front of the Roman arena as the sunlight burst across the sky. ‘Let me show you.’

She unlocked her phone and tapped the gallery app, but then froze when she noticed she’d forgotten to close the app and instead of the little grid of thumbnails, a larger photo appeared on her screen – a photo she wasn’t quite fast enough to shut down.

Of course Caro was too quick to have missed it. ‘Was that Andreas? Did you have him practising a wedding with you?’

‘What’s that?’

Sophie held her phone to her chest, her mind racing. ‘I just needed to check how it would look – for my clients!’

‘May I see?’

Sophie wasn’t sure how she could refuse that request, asked so softly by Andreas’s mother, so she swallowed her cringe and unlocked her phone again. ‘The framing isn’t great. A stranger took it. The cross should be slightly off-centre. And the bride is going to have flowers in her hair and hopefully look a bit fresher than me—’ She cut off her babbling, not sure if Petra and Caro were even listening.

When Petra looked up, she had a light in her eyes that made Sophie’s stomach dip. Taking a deep breath, she blurted out the words she probably should have said last night. ‘I should tell you that we aren’t together and we have no intention of being together despite… everything you’ve seen.’

There was only a nod in reply.

Sophie decided it was better to imply that the reasons they weren’t together lay with her. ‘I mean, after what happened eight years ago, there’s no way I could consider a relationship with him again.’

‘After what happened… You mean with Miro?’ Petra asked.

‘I meant between him and me. The twenty-ninth of February thing.’ She mumbled the last part.

‘What happened on the twenty-ninth of February?’

Didn’t they know? Or had she confused them? ‘It’s the… date where traditionally, women have been able to ask men to marry them.’ It sounded so foolish. Her cheeks were hot and she wished she’d never been that twenty-six-year-old idiot who’d taken those traditions seriously.

Caro clasped her forearm. ‘You asked him to marry you?’

Oh God, she needed a hole to fall into right now. She gritted her teeth, cursing Andreas.

‘Wow, I’m impressed,’ Caro continued.

‘He said no,’ she added, only realising the absurdity of that comment far too late.

‘But what about—?’ Caro bit her lip and glanced at Petra. ‘I thought you broke up after he got back from Gasherbrum? That’s what he said anyway.’

Sophie stifled a grumble at Andreas and his ‘break’ versus ‘break-up’ pedantry. She’d never seen him again. That was clearly enough of a break-up.

‘No, he turned me down and then we broke up. It was probably for the best.’ She should have said,It was for the best, but that continuing pull between her and Andreas wouldn’t let her.

‘I felt certain we’d meet you one day, but I didn’t imagine these would be the circumstances,’ Petra said smoothly, glancing at Sophie’s phone. ‘It was partly my fault that he never brought you home.’

‘Why? Andreas is the one who didn’t want to introduce me to you. I mean, I know he had his reasons, but I don’t understand why you would blame yourself.’

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