Page 60 of An Italian Wedding Adventure

‘Of course!’

‘Then it’s simple. When you go, you kiss her goodbye and when you get back, you kiss her hello. At least that seems to be what other people do about occasional absences.’

He shoved her with his elbow. ‘You know what I mean. I have to have complete focus on the mountain. If I’m worrying about what’s happening…’

‘Do you think she’ll run off with someone else?’

‘No! I mean, not if…’

‘Not if you’ve actually admitted that shrivelled-up organ in your chest has always belonged to her – such as it is.’

His second shove was more pointed and she yelped and scowled at him. But although her words annoyed him just as much as she’d intended them to, her description also made his throat close and the air in the cabin suddenly feel too thin.

His gaze swerved to the chest of drawers just visible beyond the room divider, to the top drawer that housed his socks and that unassuming little box from a gemstone trader in Islamabad. He knew why he’d taken on her bet and it hadn’t been recklessness.

Caro studied him warily and recoiled at whatever she saw in his expression. ‘If this is about to get emotional, I should go. I am a Hinterdorfer, after all. I gave you the kick in the arse you needed, so I’m out of here.’ She drained the last drops from her beer bottle and hauled herself off the sofa. ‘Say hi to Sophie for me, when you see her.’

When you see her…

He barely acknowledged Caro’s departure. He reached for his laptop on the coffee table and powered it up. Navigating to the email from Brzezinski, he started a laborious reply with his two-finger typing.

With a faint smile, he thought of Sophie and her stylus and he knew he was doing the right thing. He couldn’t predict or control the future. He’d screwed up so badly with Sophie that he was only inviting further heartache.

But they’d made a bet. They weren’t finished – yet.

24

Sophie was busy with two weddings in quick succession in the weeks that followed her trip to Italy as well as a dog who’d missed her daily walks along the canal near her house – and Reshma’s coddling on the days when Betsy was allowed to come along to the office. But Bath looked different, as though the direction of gravity had shifted slightly and the Earth turned on another axis. Her life felt different.

The first wedding was at a stone cottage in Normandy, replete with a thatched roof and fields of poppies. But although Sophie and Ginny spent hours adding the final touches the bride and groom had requested, including a bower of pink, fragrant roses in a circle – to symbolise eternity – and a rustic, wooden chair design for guests, which had to be rented from two towns away, the day itself had felt off to Sophie.

The residence requirements for getting married in France were complicated, so the couple had already married at the Bristol town hall. The commitment ceremony she had helped them develop felt laboured and she was terrified it was because of her delivery. Not only was she a divorced marriage celebrant, but now she was a divorced, broken-hearted one.

Or perhaps she always had been but was only now admitting to it.

As she fixed a smile to her face for the reception – nearly a hundred friends and family had made the trip, just to test Sophie’s endurance – she wondered for the first time if she’d had enough of weddings, if she could keep doing this without being a hypocrite.

Noticing Sophie’s exaggerated sighs on the drive back, Ginny assured her that all weddings were different – as Sophie well knew. Some couples wore their hearts on their sleeves and some were more concerned with chairs and place settings and they usually knew better than to judge.

The second wedding, the following weekend, was somehow worse. The grooms were a pair of sweethearts who’d been together half their lives and had finally decided to get married even though one of their families still refused to attend. As the wedding was in New York City, Sophie travelled alone to save expenses. That meant a desperate hurry sorting all the final preparations and she found herself constantly in a yellow taxi, rushing to collect the licence and then the hors d’oeuvres for the twenty wedding guests.

But running the wedding alone turned out to be a blessing when she was dabbing at her eyes along with Jacob, as Chris stuttered through his vows. All the meetings she’d had with them over the past year, where they’d bickered gently but been so easy and lovely with each other after all their years together, got under her skin and she wondered if all couples should actually get married when they were in their mid-forties and had been together over twenty years.

Perhaps she needed to switch to destination anniversary celebrations until her hope was restored.

She hadn’t heard from Andreas. Toni from Great Heart had assured her that two guides would be available for the week of the wedding. She’d mentioned one of the guides was Kira, but not the name of the second, so she had to assume that Andreas either hadn’t decided or wasn’t coming. Sophie wasn’t sure which was worse.

She’d wanted a clean break, but it didn’t feel clean. She wanted to hearsomethingfrom him.

By the time June was coming to a close and the next appointment with Lily and Roman loomed, Sophie knew Ginny and Tita had worked out something was wrong, but she’d dissuaded them from asking so far by projecting a subtle aura of stress.

As she brewed coffee and set up the screen in preparation for the meeting, she tried to consciously suppress that aura and found it more difficult than she’d hoped. Sophie didn’t get stressed. She thrived on the tiny details and preferred to be busy than not.

Ginny came in to ask her a question about a venue in Tuscany and Sophie wasn’t sure what kind of nonsense came out of her mouth, she was so distracted.

‘Is it Lily and Roman you’ve got coming today? Shall I send Kira in to you afterwards?’

‘After what?’

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