Page 17 of A Winter Wedding Adventure
‘No offence to the bridesmaid, but that sounds like her problem, not yours.’
That took the wind out of him for a moment. ‘I should have told her sooner – should have brought it up with my therapist straight away,’ he insisted. ‘By the time I mentioned it to Carla, I was quite stressed about it. But breaking up with someone because of an eating habit is the stupidest reason in history and what if…?’
‘What if you missed out on something good, something important to you because of your hearing?’
He’d been about to say, ‘What if love isn’t enough to make a relationship work?’ Kira’s sentence was close enough for the moment, despite missing the mark.
‘You’re going to see her this afternoon, eat dinner with her tonight. Are you going to be okay?’
He shifted uncomfortably. ‘Maybe there’ll be a snowstorm and we’ll have to stay another night.’
She chuckled, low and rough, and he had the fleeting thought that he’d rarely heard a sound so raw and wonderful. ‘You’d rather brave another fridge?’
‘You’re here to turn all the fridges off for me,’ he pointed out with a pout. ‘But I listened to you crunching on chips last night without thinking I was about to have a heart attack, so I think I’ll be okay.’
‘Oh, God, my mum is always on at me for eating with no manners,’ she said with a wince. ‘But for you, I would have tried.’
Mattia had to bite his lip against the thought that that was one of the nicest things he’d ever heard.
‘If we don’t show up today, the bride will think she’s having a heart attack, right?’ she continued. ‘I think we both have to just face the problem.’
‘You’re annoyingly right. But what’s the worst that could happen?’
‘Um, a hell of a lot of things.’
He sank further into the passenger seat. ‘I do want everything to work out for Alessandra.’
‘But?’
‘There’s no “but”,’ he insisted. ‘She’ll marry him and be happy. Why do you think there’s a “but”?’
She opened her mouth, probably to defend herself, but snapped it shut again, squirming in her seat. ‘A good friend of mine got engaged recently,’ she said in such a rush that he suspected she’d surprised herself with the confession. ‘I understand the thing about moving on without you. Maybe I’m a little salty he’s going ahead and doing this, changing things.’
He threw her question back at her. ‘He? Are you secretly in love with him?’
‘Pfft,’ was her only reply at first, lifting her chin. ‘Definitely not in love with him.’
‘But?’
‘There is no “but”!’
‘Ah, there definitely is.’ He loved that she was so tough, he could unapologetically rib her like this. ‘What? He’s an ex?’ He turned in his seat to face her, shifting the seat belt.
‘Are you a gossip?’
‘I’m naturally curious.’ Especially about you. ‘Will you have to go to his wedding? Are you over him or do you hold a torch?’ What kind of guy is he?
‘There was nothing to get over. I suppose I’ll have to go to his wedding, but they’re not rushing anything. I just never thought he’d agree to get married at all. We were kind of kindred spirits like that: nothing in life is certain and we shouldn’t make promises we can’t keep.’
He couldn’t decide if her words were sensible or bleak – and whether she truly believed them or simply used these opinions to keep people away. ‘So we just shouldn’t make promises?’
‘Not in relationships, anyway,’ she said flatly. ‘Another reason I hate that I now have to work on weddings.’
‘You and this friend, you were just casual,’ he guessed.
‘You can’t dump friends, right?’
‘No,’ he agreed emphatically. ‘One of the reasons I don’t really understand bed friends – not that I’m judging you, if you can manage that.’
