Page 32 of A Winter Wedding Adventure
He managed to shoot Alessandra a scowl at the hint of satisfaction in her comment, but he had to convulsively swallow again to equalise the pressure.
‘I’m fine,’ he grated out, shocked at the reedy quality of his own voice.
‘Hasn’t he ridden the cable car in Sorrento?’ Joe asked.
‘Not since I was a child,’ Mattia replied as the gondola clattered over the wheels of the next pylon. ‘I vomited,’ he added with a tilt of his head that he regretted a moment later when he noticed spots at the sides of his vision.
Skiers criss-crossed below them as the station came into view and the hum of the giant wheels moving the cables droned more loudly. One down, only two more cable car rides to go until they reached their ridiculously high altitude destination.
Another curse of his sensitive hearing was that he caught every word when Joe murmured to one of the groomsmen, ‘At least he’s one of the girls and isn’t coming skiing with us tomorrow.’
A sharp intake of breath behind him. It was Kira, he knew it was Kira and he could hear her bristling in his defence. Whatever scratch to his pride he’d experienced at Joe’s words was nothing compared to the satisfaction bubbling in his stomach now.
The gondola braked suddenly and inched around the turning, the doors bouncing open. He stepped out on wobbly legs and whoosh, the air was forced from his lungs again, this time by the bitter cold. His hands iced up instantly – at least, that’s how it felt.
‘Do you need a second?’ Alessandra’s hand on his back was gentle. ‘Carla can stay with you. Just take your time and come up when you’re ready. We can enjoy the view at the top while we wait for you both.’
He shot Carla an alarmed gaze, but she only responded with a close-lipped shrug. Perhaps he did need a moment – away from Alessandra and her machinations, and definitely away from Carla. ‘There’s no need for Carla to stay behind. You all go ahead. I’ll catch up – please,’ he insisted. ‘I’m fine,’ he assured Alessandra who was studying him doubtfully.
For one of the first times in his life, her attention chafed.
He waved them off with a sigh of relief, glad to send them on ahead without him. In the concrete courtyard between the two gondola stations, fog swirled, thick in one place and wispy in another, skiers and pylons and rocks appearing and disappearing in the distance. His breath crystallised as soon as it left his lungs.
Even if he had taken the cable car near Sorrento recently, he was not in Campania any more. Piles of snow lined the courtyard, with pillows of it clinging to the roofs and more floating down to form a fine layer at his feet. He noticed icicles clinging to the eaves of the station buildings.
Icicles!
Fascinated, he took swift steps to the lowest part of a pitched roof and stepped up onto a metal ski stand, stretching onto his toes and?—
‘What the hell are you doing?’
13
Kira watched with a sense of inevitability as his foot slipped. What else had she expected when she’d decided at the last minute to wait for him? Those shoes had zero tread and this man attracted mishaps like the sun in the solar system. That might also explain that blinding smile he could produce at the drop of a hat.
Before she could reach him, he landed heavily with his stomach against the ski stand, his head dashing against the wood cladding on the wall.
‘Yikes! Mattia!’
‘Icicles,’ he said weakly when she reached him.
‘Icicles?’
‘I wanted to touch the icicles.’
Of course he’d wanted to touch the icicles. He went to rub a hand over his face, but she snagged his wrist before he could.
‘Careful, you’re bleeding.’ She’d never struggled to keep a straight face while saying those words.
‘I always wanted to play the Phantom of the Opera. It’s a baritone part,’ he murmured in reply. His gaze snagged hers. ‘I made you smile – laugh, even.’
Her straight face slipped entirely. ‘I’m laughing at you, not with you.’ But boy, this was so much better than brooding about seeing Christian again. Maybe she could just lean into this… thing between them, even if it didn’t make sense.
It was his turn to chuckle. ‘Joe was laughing at me. You are too kind for that.’
Her smile dimmed as she remembered the groom’s callous words. She opened her mouth to say something, but Mattia beat her to it. He was developing a habit of doing that.
‘It’s nice that you wanted to defend me.’
