Page 7 of An Italian Wedding Adventure

He tugged off his cap with a sigh, running a hand through his unruly hair and over his face. ‘If you don’t have much time, come with me and explain what you need. Maybe we can find another solution.’ Without checking to see if she was following, he swept back out of the door.

Go, Reshma mouthed at her. ‘This is why you came with me: to start planning your adventure wedding,’ she said in a low voice.

‘I really don’t think?—’

‘Go on, Sophie,’ Willard added. ‘You know he’ll bluster, but he’ll give you any help you need.’

Not wanting to explain her reluctance to Reshma, she followed Andreas into the reception area to find him pressing a kiss to Toni’s forehead. Sophie stopped short.

‘Let me know what else you need for Cilli’s birthday and I’ll see you later.’

Blinking, Sophie’s breath stalled as she faced the possibility that she had beenrightand not just vindictive when she’d suspected Andreas had cosied up with his best friend’s widow. Another woman, slim and energetic, with a bright-blue bob and not very much clothing for a February day, pulled him into a hug and he farewelled her with a very familiar squeeze to her elbow. Had every woman in this place fallen prey to Andreas’s careless charm?

When they broke apart, Sophie was surprised by the tingle of recognition. The blue hair was new, but that was Kira Watling. She’d been a trainee when Sophie had met her – far too young for Andreas. Kira gave Sophie a second look, but didn’t seem to recognise her.

‘Are you coming?’ Andreas had paused in the doorway, leaning heavily on the frame and tossing his keys from hand to hand.

‘If I have to,’ she mumbled.

* * *

Andreas didn’t know what he was doing. Scaring her off, maybe – hopefully. Regressing to the cabbage-headed idiot he’d been back when they were together. Whatever his murky motivations, ten minutes in the Land Rover next to him would surely be enough for her to lose all desire to work together.

On awedding.

He slammed the sticky door on her, making her jump. After heaving closed the doors to the boot, he climbed into the driver’s seat and turned the key, hoping the old girl would start up cleanly.

‘Is this seriously the same old Land Rover?’

He nodded, twisting the key again when the engine merely coughed. ‘It works.’

‘Are you sure?’

‘Yes,’ he ground out. ‘I drove back from Wales this morning.’

‘I noticed.’

He sneaked a glance at her. She was staring out of the windscreen, her arms crossed and a fancy buckled handbag on her lap.

‘So, you’re a wedding planner these days?’ he asked when the engine finally roared to life. He’d been aiming for casual, but felt certain the waver in his voice would have given him away. She wasn’t the same girl who’d learned to climb, pitched a tent cheerfully in the middle of nowhere and driven two hours several times a week just to seehim.

Ouch, he caught himself for the patronising use of the word ‘girl’. She’d been a woman then – a young one – and she was definitely a woman now.

‘Yes,’ she answered defensively – which was fair, because his question had been so obviously barbed. ‘And you’re still in Weymouth.’

‘Some of the time,’ he said as he gritted his teeth to take the corner, braking and wrenching the wheel.

Sophie’s arms shot out and she grasped the handle inside the door to stop herself flying into him. The handbag tumbled into the footwell and she cursed under her breath, which was cute, because he heard every consonant.

‘You haven’t managed to fix the power steering in eight years?’

He frowned. ‘I forgot this thing even had power steering.’

‘What do you mean you’re here “some of the time”? Am I supposed to ask?’

‘Do whatever you like!’ he said, shoving the stick into fourth gear. ‘Don’t ask, if you don’t want to know.’

Her sigh bordered on a growl. ‘I didn’t think you’d still be here.’

---