Page 86 of An Italian Wedding Adventure

‘God, what am I even doing here?’ Unclipping her helmet and slipping it off, she dropped her rucksack to the ground with a thunk and fell back against the wall. ‘How did I ever think I could do this – withyou?’

33

One minute, Sophie was leaning against the rough stone, numb and limp, her reserves of hope and goodwill completely dry, and the next, she was scooped upright and conveyed around a dark corner by the large form of Andreas, his arm curled around her waist.

‘What are you?—?’

‘Shh, we’re just going somewhere we can talk.’

‘I don’t need to talk! I need to get back to my disaster of a wedding!’

‘I think you’ll find it’s notyourwedding,’ he said in a pointed tone that briefly robbed her of speech.

‘And I don’t need to get lost in a tunnel with you!’ she hissed when she’d recovered.

‘We’re not going to get lost.’

‘Because your sense of direction is superhuman and you have a map of these tunnels tattooed on your arsch?’

He stopped, the headlamp turning as if in slow motion until it flashed in her face again.

‘Ow!’ She slapped a hand over her eyes.

‘No, because we’ve only gone around one corner. The others are safe with Kira for a minute.’

Her nostrils flared as she took a deep breath.

‘Besides, you know I don’t have any tattoos – on my arse or anywhere else.’

She crossed her arms. ‘Did you drag me down here to talk about your arse?’ She caught a twitch of a smile on his lips, but she couldn’t see much else. ‘Can you take that thing off? It’s glaring.’

He tugged the headlamp down to hang around his neck, leaving his face with a pasty glow, all harsh lines of shadow. ‘What’s the matter?’

‘What’snotthe matter?’ she threw her hands into the air. ‘This isnobody’sidea of a dream wedding!’

‘Lily and Roman don’t want a dream wedding. They wanttheirwedding.’

She eyed him. That platitude was nowhere near enough to combat the truth of how badly she’d screwed up. ‘That’s rich, coming from you.’

‘What about everything you told me back in June – in February? Pushing the limits of the human heart?’

Heat flooded her cheeks and she cringed at her own words. ‘What a stupid thing to say,’ she muttered. ‘It’s all for show. People get married for a whole host of reasons, but I don’t think anyone does it to prove what their heart is capable of.’ She snorted. ‘It’s just an excuse for a huge party and I haven’t even managedthatthis time. I was just looking for meaning where there is none.’

She swiped a hand across her nose, distressed to find moisture on her cheeks that was too warm to be rain.

‘A divorced wedding planner was ironic enough, but a wedding planner who has no clue about lo—’ She cut herself off with a hiccough that emerged around the lump in her throat.

She wished she’d kept it together until tomorrow, after he was safely gone.

He was standing too close in the confined space, the air around her full of his energy. He was breathing heavily – too heavily to be from exertion – and she noticed his jaw working fiercely.

‘Where has this come from? You were so excited about this wedding. The florist and cake and the nice dress. Andthem.The wedding party. You’re magic with your clients because you mean it.’

Despite her misery, the sudden chill that made her teeth chatter and the complete failure of the day, having Andreas call her ‘magic’ lit a warm light inside her that tried desperately to catch.

‘You don’t believe in weddings, Andreas,’ she said flatly.

It was so quiet in the dank tunnel that she heard him swallow. ‘I believe in this one,’ he finally said. ‘And I believe in you.’

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