Page 58 of An Italian Wedding Adventure

She nodded her head weakly. ‘I blocked your number. You’d just dumped me and it hurt. But you never mentioned it before now!’

‘I thought you knew, that you’d ignored my texts on purpose.’ Something in his strangled tone reminded Sophie of Miro’s death and dread settled in her stomach. Exactly what had he texted her?

‘It doesn’t matter,’ he assured her, settling a hand over hers. ‘I was… in a mess at the time. I probably would have made everything worse if you had come.’

She would have come; she wouldn’t have even hesitated. Her lungs were tight as she tried to work out what this meant for the future, but still couldn’t calculate the end of their relationship any differently.

‘You spent all this time thinking I never contacted you ever again?’ he asked. ‘I mean, Ididn’t, after those two texts. How much difference can it make? I was oversensitive when you didn’t respond.’ He gave a humourless laugh.

‘I would always have responded, Andreas.’ The words were out before they scared her, but when they did, she wasn’t sure if she was ready for his response.

‘You would have answered, even if it was years later and you were with Rory? I can’t imaginehewould have been happy for you to be contacting me.’

‘That’s an impossible question!’ she said, lashing out. ‘I didn’t know you’d texted me. I’m sorry I wasn’t there if you?—’

‘It was probably better the way it turned out,’ he said through gritted teeth.

He was right. They always circled back to the same place: no matter how much he meant to Sophie, the practicalities would crush their relationship sooner or later.

It still felt like she was losing something even more precious than that gemstone he’d recklessly wagered.

‘If you don’t want to help at the wedding, you don’t have to,’ she said, her shoulders slumped. ‘I hope you don’t feel I was manipulating you. I would have been glad of your help, but I do respect your position on marriage – and I know how important this expedition is to you.’

But instead of relief, her words seemed to agitate him even more. ‘Sophie,’ he said, his tone the same as earlier, as though she was supposed to understand something important merely because he said her name.

‘It’s all right?—’

‘It’s not all right.Nothingis all right,’ he growled, taking his wallet from his pocket and throwing a few notes onto the table. Grasping her hand, he hauled her up, calling a farewell to the restaurant owner.

As he stalked back to the apartment in such typical Andreas fashion, Sophie was pricked with the sensation of missing him already. One day, she’d find a way to move on, but today was not that day – especially when he pressed her into the front door as soon as it was closed and kissed her as though he were a long way underwater and she were the air.

He said things with his hands and his lips that her heart was too afraid to hear. The consuming physical sensations of being together were difficult enough to bear, but at least she could hide in her own desire, pretend he was just the most explosive lover she’d ever had, which muddied her thoughts.

But her cover slipped that evening, knowing it could be goodbye, at least for a while. She couldn’t hold his heart, so she held him everywhere else, her hands fisting in his hair, her mouth on his skin.

And when she awoke the following morning to see him sprawled out next to her, hogging the bed, she felt everything at once: annoyed, indulgent, needy and tender. She was so tender, so soft for him and so sore from trying not to hope.

She couldn’t stand it. She slipped quietly out of bed, dressed, and called a taxi. Sometimes, a person had to make their own clean break.

23

They left him alone for nearly a week, which was a week longer than he’d expected. The delay was a reprieve, a chance to regroup – and catch up on preparations for Manaslu. Filip Brzezinski had sent him several messages with leads on sponsors that he needed to follow up and the question of a departure date had already been thrown out.

Andreas avoided that one. Whenever he was tempted to bash out an email suggesting they leave before mid-September, his heart raced and the honed panic centre in his brain warned him that he wasn’t acting with a clear head.

A clear head was what he wished for most and couldn’t seem to find.

He had several bookings now the snow was gone from the lower peaks and climbing could begin in earnest. He even had a group of apprentice guides to keep him busy for a day of training that he always enjoyed.

The trainees were fit and capable and straightforward to instruct – as well as fun to challenge – and seeing his experience put to use to teach them about keeping clients safe, about managing risk and facilitating achievements was more satisfying than he’d imagined.

But when they sat together to discuss the ethics of risk and personal responsibility, his brain fired with images of Sophie, imagining how it would feel to push himself to the limit on a desolate ridge in the Himalayas, knowing she was at home worrying about him.

You didn’t exist in real life for me, no matter how much it felt like you did.

Her words had come back to him in unexpected moments since she’d left – since she’d sneaked away, rather than face goodbye, which was supposed to be his modus operandi. He’d rarely wanted to exist in real life. School had been torture and his parents’ hopes for him leading a normal life a noose around his neck.

Instead, he’d found his true self among the peaks, in that altered state of mind, where his peculiar drive was an asset rather than an oddity. But that week, he was still adrift, despite the chance to head up into the thin air.

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