Page 35 of A Wedding in Tuscany

Tuscany

Jean-Luc and Josh just left with Mum and Dad. They’re dropping them off at their accommodation and then heading to the location of Sarah’s party. Josh has gone all out and Sarah is going to be so surprised?the good kind, I’ve assured her a thousand times. She can get so angsty about these things.

Though I’m one to talk.

‘Hey,’ she says from the doorway. Speak of the devil.

‘Hello.’

‘Just resting?’ she asks. I pat the bed beside me and she comes over, slips off her shoes, and lies down. ‘You okay?’

‘I’m just brilliant,’ I declare and we both chuckle.

‘Look, tomorrow we’ll go to Siena and find a new dress.’

‘Or Jaelee might bring something that’ll work,’ I say.

‘I thought you said you have totally different tastes.’

‘Mmm, mostly.’ I recall the elegant silk shift Jaelee lent me on our bus trip for my date with Jean-Luc in Rome. She’d only just bought it during our brief stint in Florence but that’s Jae, generous to a fault.

‘Well, either way, we’ll get the dress thing sorted?and the venue.’

I roll onto my side. ‘I cannot believe those rooms.’

‘I swear, Cat?and we can go online right now and I’ll show you?when Mum first raised having the wedding here at the castle, the photos told a very different story. Most of them were of the great hall.’

‘I believe you. I don’t think you’d deliberately sabotage my wedding.’

‘I thought of making it a themed wedding?tell everyone it’s “Indiana Jones”.’

‘I was thinking toga party,’ I say, ‘You know, come dressed in your best bedsheet.’

We dissolve into giggles.

‘Oh, my god!’ she says, sitting up. ‘I don’t know why I didn’t think of this earlier. What about the venue for my thing? Maybe we can swap out the party for the wedding?do my party at the castle. We could even swap the dates?bring the wedding forward two days.’

It’s an incredibly generous offer?and it would also mean that Cécile and Louis would miss the wedding (a tempting bonus)?but I know how much thought and planning Josh has put into Sarah’s birthday celebration. I’ve no doubt it would break his heart to change plans now, especially moving the party to one of those heinous rooms.

‘Sez, that’s lovely, really, but Josh … let’s just say that you are absolutely going to love your birthday celebration?as is. So, no, we’re not doing that, all right?’

She flops back onto the bed. ‘Fine.’

‘What?’ I ask.

‘What what?’

‘What’s the matter? It’s not just the wedding, is it?’

‘Yeah, no, well … yeah, it’s the wedding stuff,’ she says unconvincingly.

‘Sez … come on. Any time one of us brings up your birthday, you get this odd look on your face.’

‘What look?’

‘A miserable look.’

‘Oh. I thought I was hiding it better.’ She props herself up again. ‘You don’t think that Josh … has he noticed?’