Page 82 of An Italian Wedding Adventure

Lily’s expression blossomed instantly. ‘You’re the best, Sophie. You’re right. Mum kept going on about the pictures, but I don’t want to spend my wedding day worrying about my appearance. Roman has seen me looking a lot worse!’

‘And he still can’t take his eyes off you now.’

Andreas followed Sophie’s gaze to find Roman studying Lily with a soft light in his eyes that only Roman could pull off. Andreas caught Kira rolling her eyes.

‘They’d be sickening if they weren’t kind of cool for wanting to get married at the top of a via ferrata,’ she murmured.

‘Even though that means Great Heart now has a side business in weddings?’ he prompted.

She gave a disgruntled sigh. ‘It would have been better if I could climb with the main group instead of the boring hike with the parents. But it’s not as bad as it could have been so far. If I don’t have to put on a dress and choose from eleven different forks at dinner, I could get used to it. I’m sure not all grooms are as soppy as him, anyway.’ She eyed Andreas and his hair stood on end as the suspicion assailed him that she was imagininghimas a groom.

He could see exactly who the bride would be.

With a loud swallow, he forced his mind back to the task at hand, packing copious bottles of water into the back of the minibus. When he’d finished, he searched out Sophie and found her with her phone to her ear, a line etched between her brows.

He wandered over, glancing around to make sure no one was watching before brushing a hand down her back. She didn’t acknowledge the caress, but her body leaned into the touch and he lingered with his hand at her back.

When she pulled her phone from her ear without saying anything, he asked, ‘Everything all right?’

‘The photographer is late and I can’t reach her. How long can we safely wait? We have such rotten luck with photographers and it was so hard to find someone who agreed to come up the via ferrata.’

He pulled out his phone in its chunky case and stabbed at the screen that never seemed as responsive to his fingers as it should be. The weather forecast made him pause. ‘Half an hour if we have to, but the showers forecast are showing a little earlier now. It’s not something I’d usually worry about, but this is a big group and…’

‘It’s a wedding,’ Sophie finished for him with a small smile.

‘It’s the weirdest wedding I’ve ever seen, but yes. It’s different because it’s a wedding.’

‘You haven’t seen any,’ she reminded him drily. ‘Rain would be dangerous on the via ferrata right? Today’s forecast looked perfect all week!’

‘The Garda microclimate strikes again. But light rain is no problem. We’re heading up early. Chances are, it’ll be fine and it’s just the reception that might be a little damp. Maybe they’ll get a kick out of it – go dancing in the rain.’

‘I’m not going to go dancing in the rain in my dress,’ she said emphatically. ‘It’s crepe silk.’

He had no idea what crepe silk was, but he was desperate to see it. ‘You wear a dress when you’re working?’

She eyed him. ‘What did you think I wear? Army fatigues?’

‘After going on about trying to put me into a suit, I thought you wore one of those.’

‘I blend in better in a dress and it generally keeps everyone more at ease.Youcould have worn a dress, if the suit was all that was stopping you from coming to the reception,’ she joked.

Of course it wasn’t the reason why he didn’t want to go to the reception, although he struggled to remember what his reasons were, now he was thinking about Sophie in a pretty dress. He’d thought his ideal woman wore a harness and was draped in ropes, and he loved the dust-smudged version of Sophie who followed him up into the mountains. But he was dying to see the version of her that enjoyed the soft material of a nice dress.

Her phone rang and he gathered that the photographer had been located and was on her way after a childcare emergency to do with the early start he’d insisted on. Sophie snapped back into duty mode, but as he turned to go, she shot out a hand and squeezed his arm. It was a light, casual touch, but his chest heaved with the significance of it, that she’d reached for him.

Significance, symbolism, promises… Today’s expedition was beginning to feel like nothing he’d ever achieved before.

* * *

The weather had often been an innocent malignant force in Andreas’s life. He’d made two attempts of Cho Oyu, both of which had failed – once due to high winds and the other time a volatile icefall. But he’d rarely wished so earnestly for the ability to control the weather as he did that day. For Lily and Roman – for Sophie.

The morning was perfect: vivid blue sky with a few puffy clouds for decoration. It was cool in the shade. Around half the group opted to hike up with Kira, leaving the bride and groom and a handful of friends – plus Sophie and the photographer – to tramp excitedly along the narrow path through the forest, commenting on the remains of the World War I fortifications.

When they emerged from the cover of the trees at the bottom of the via ferrata, the exposed section was thankfully not too hot, but a billowing cloud in the north caught his eye.

There was a ripple of unease through the group as they gazed at the jagged rock.

‘Wow,’ Lucia said emphatically as she stepped into her harness. ‘That’s an “easy” climb?’

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