Page 49 of A Wedding in Tuscany

Tuscany

Iwake luxuriously?not to the bleat of an alarm, not bolting out of bed to head to the gym before work?but slowly, stretching beneath the covers and sighing contentedly before opening my eyes. I’ve finally succumbed to the ‘I’m on holidays’ feeling. Bliss.

‘Good morning, beautiful,’ says Josh. I accept a kiss on my cheek, take a swig of water, then turn to get a proper one. There’s nothing romantic about morning breath.

‘Good morning.’

‘You were smiling in your sleep,’ he says.

‘You were watching me.’

‘Only for a few minutes.’ I grin, wide awake now, and snuggle into the crook of his arm. ‘Do you feel it too?’ I ask.

‘Feel what?’ He twirls a loose curl around his finger and leans in for another kiss.

‘That holiday feeling.’

‘Oh, I feel it. Do you?’ he asks, pressing his erection into my thigh.

I giggle. ‘Oi,’ I chastise, but I don’t mean it and he knows that.

His lips are soft as they make their way down my neck and across my collar bone, and they hum against my skin as his deep chuckle turns to a sigh. When his hand trails slowly up my thigh and slips under my knickers, I gasp again as he caresses me. He’s gentle at first?teasing me?but as I raise my hips, pushing against his hand, he expertly takes me to that magical place where I lose track of everything?where I am, who I am?and it’s just sensation and wonder and …

I come back to the room, a little out of breath, and open my eyes to see him smiling down at me. ‘God, you’re beautiful,’ he says.

‘Thank you. Your turn,’ I reply, pulling him on top of me.

‘You two are up later than usual,’ says Cat. She’s making toast?her signature dish.

‘Mmm?’ I reply evasively as I flick on the kettle. She smiles smugly and I poke my tongue out at her?a sisterly way of saying, ‘Shut up! You’re having lots of sex too.’

‘Oh, and happy birthday eve,’ she adds.

‘Um, thanks.’

‘Jean-Luc’s on the balcony,’ she says to Josh. ‘He’s made coffee.’

‘Oh, cool.’ Josh grabs a mug from the cupboard and heads outside.

‘So, how are you feeling?’ asks Cat?with everything that’s going on, it’s the most loaded question ever.

‘How are you feeling?’ I retort. She looks up from the toaster, her puckered mouth sitting left of centre. ‘That good, huh?’

She leans closer and whispers, ‘Jean-Luc asked me again last night, right before dinner.’

‘Asked you …?’ Her eyes widen pointedly. ‘Oh, right. And?’ This disclosure reminds me that I’ve yet to pin her down on the subject?or Jean-Luc?and I wait with bated breath.

Instead of replying, Cat sighs and stares into the toaster. Like me, she prides herself on toasting bread to the perfect shade of brown but she’s stalling.

‘And I’m not sure,’ she says eventually. ‘Last night, he mentioned living in Paris again. And our marriage will be legal in France, so the logistics of me living there are …’ Her hesitancy comes with a defeated shrug.

‘Except you don’t want to live there. And your marriage will be legal in the UK too.’

‘I know …’

‘And what about the other thing?’ I ask. She pauses buttering toast and looks at me, a furrow between her brows. ‘It’s not just the city. How are you feeling about moving in together? Still worried about that?’

Her frown intensifies and she goes back to the toast. ‘I don’t know.’