Page 16 of A Winter Wedding Adventure (Adventure Weddings #2)

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.’

‘You seem to have plenty of women lining up to defend you,’ she said, aiming for a dry tone to cover her peevishness as she peered up at the trickle of blood on his forehead.

‘Jealous?’

With any other person, she’d have given him a shove and a glare, but his tone was so light and… hopeful. Instead of telling him off, she blushed – she actually blushed.

‘How am I supposed to tell Alessandra you scratched up your face trying to reach an icicle?’

‘Spoken like a true wedding planner.’

That earned him a shove – lightly, on the shoulder. ‘Oh, shut up!’ Unfortunately, the rough touch still reminded her of a bathroom door flying open to give her a more intimate view of an opera singer than she’d ever imagined.

She wasn’t supposed to be remembering that. Not only was she the world’s worst wedding planner, there was the side gig as a matchmaker – which she was also screwing up spectacularly.

‘Come on. Let’s get you cleaned up. I have a first aid kit in my bag.’

A violent shiver racked him and he fumbled in his pockets, retrieving a pair of fine leather gloves that belonged on the catwalk in Milan and not at 2150m of altitude. His scarf looked to be made of wool, with an intricate pattern in grey and blue, but it was far too thin.

‘Didn’t you bring any snow gear?’ she asked.

‘I don’t own any. I didn’t realise…’

When he trailed off, she turned to find his gaze turned up again, taking in the ever-changing panorama of the peaks in the fog. They were only at the first station and the views would get so much better, but he appeared to run out of words anyway.

‘I didn’t realise any of this,’ he said when he’d regained his balance. ‘I didn’t know what it would be like up here.’

‘That’s fair enough,’ she replied, leading him into the men’s toilets without hesitation and propping her pack on the sink to find her first aid kit. ‘Were you feeling sick in the gondola?’

He shook his head and then shrugged with less certainty. ‘A little. It was more?—’

‘The sounds?’ she guessed. ‘But it’s quiet.’

‘That’s worse sometimes,’ he admitted. ‘I can feel tinnitus closing in on me.’

‘What about the pressure in your ears? Is it painful? You have something to suck on in your pocket, right? Might help for the next one.’

He appeared surprised for a moment that she knew what was in his pockets, but he had been quite strung out when he’d emptied them in front of her two nights ago. ‘You’re right. I’m sure that’ll help.’

She moistened a swab and approached carefully, trying to focus on his words and not the intimate position she’d found herself in with him once more.

He clutched the sink with his fine hands and she could imagine he was resisting reaching for her to steady himself.

That probably wasn’t the case. More likely, she was misreading his gaze and imagining the air between them growing thin.

When she dabbed at the scratch, he hissed in shock.

‘It’s not deep,’ she reassured him.

‘I don’t think I’d cope if something actually happened to me – blood spurting and all of that. I’d pass out.’ Another smile threatened, but it was preferable to that nonsense about the air between them.

‘Sometimes, that makes people easier to treat,’ she said evenly, cleaning the last of the blood.

It was a minor abrasion, but it would probably scab over into a dark, dappled patch on his forehead that would show up in photos.

‘You know,’ she continued with a sigh, ‘I’ve worked on two weddings so far and in both of them, we’ve had to patch up a bridesmaid. ’

He laughed, full and rich, like his singing voice, and it showered down Kira’s spine. ‘I’m not strictly speaking a bridesmaid, although I’ll allow it, since I am on Alessandra’s side. Bridesman, perhaps?’

‘“Bridesman” sounds like a spy code name or a mythical creature. You’re definitely rather the mythical creature.’ She mumbled the last part, forgetting he would hear every word.

But if his expression was anything to go by, he enjoyed what he heard. ‘Does Alessandra know this is the experience you bring? Patching up mythical creatures?’

She stuck her chin out. ‘First aid training is always an asset.’

The next thing she felt, to her utter shock, was his finger under her chin, the smooth tip of his thumb moving along her jaw, and his face close enough to feel a gust of his breath.

Oh, shit, there was no universe she’d imagined where he touched her like this, as though stage lights shone right on them.

‘Mattia,’ she began, meaning to put him off, but not quite managing to form any more words, her breath short.

His gaze dipped, roaming her face from under his lashes. ‘Mmm?’

His voice should have come with a warning label: Do not listen unless you wish your heart to leap out of your chest. Her thoughts were well ahead of her actions, wondering how it would feel to kiss him, if it would be above average because it had been a while for her or because he trained his lips as part of his job.

The above average part was not in question, despite the fact that he was clueless in the snow, as bright as the bloody sun and probably still hung up on his ex.

Her phone peeped, making him jump. The half a second of distraction was enough time for Kira to tear herself away. She tugged the device out of her pocket to find a message from Ginny:

Well that didn’t work out as planned.

Ginny had no idea.

Kira’s skin felt tight and jitters tempted her hands as she washed them and then packed up the first aid kit.

She didn’t want to think about what had just happened – or nearly happened – but her mind wouldn’t stop replaying the firm pressure of his fingers on her face.

Falling into bed with someone, scratching an itch, would be unwise in the circumstances, but understandable.

Touching her face, a prelude to a kiss that wouldn’t go anywhere, however…

The sensation of being out of control, at the mercy of her own feelings, shook her.

She had to see Christian again in a few days.

She had to prove – if only to herself – that she wasn’t the fool she’d been twelve years ago.

It wasn’t a great time to discover she could still be susceptible to these idiotic flutters.

Part of her still wished he’d kissed her.

Angry with herself for succumbing to weakness – if only in her own head – she wrenched her rucksack closed and stomped for the exit.

‘Kira!’

She heard the curiosity in his voice and ignored it.

The queue for the second gondola was mercifully short and she hoped he’d let the subject drop by the time they’d got through the turnstiles and into the cabin, but as soon as he settled next to her on the leather bench seat, he said, ‘I’m sorry if I did something wrong.’

‘It was just a scratch. No harm done. Next time, choose a low-hanging icicle,’ she insisted, purposefully misunderstanding.

‘I wasn’t talking about the icicle.’

Goosebumps raced up her arms.

‘I am glad it’s you who stayed back to babysit me.’

That was too much. ‘You know what? You shouldn’t be glad. Alessandra wanted to give you and Carla a moment alone. You have unfinished business with her.’ She tugged off her beanie and ran a hand through her hair.

‘I told you what happened with Carla.’

The cable whisked the gondola up at sudden speed and Mattia cut himself off with a startled choke, falling back against the seat. His shoulder pressed into hers; it was no touch at all, but Kira felt it in the whoosh of her stomach.

‘You told me you regretted how it ended. Looks like she’s keen for a do-over.’

He was so close to her, she heard the deep, disgruntled noise in his throat at her comment. ‘That doesn’t mean I can just go back.’

‘Urgh, you said you were afraid you’d missed out on something amazing! Here’s your chance.’

Tension was rolling off his tall frame as he leaned his head back against the Plexiglas. ‘Why do you want me to give Carla another chance?’ he asked, his tone strained.

‘Alessandra wants romance at her wedding.’

The honey and citrus scent of him reached her nose. His throat bobbed as he swallowed.

‘I asked why you want me to give Carla a chance?’

She froze, her gaze fixed on his face as he stared blankly past her. She did want him to get back together with Carla so she could forget all of the ways he imposed on her emotions – and she vehemently didn’t.

‘You want a partner – commitment, love.’ She flapped a hand dismissively. He wanted all those things that had given her hives for… oh, about as long as it had been since she’d last seen Christian. ‘You thought you’d found all that with her. Why not try to fix it?’

‘Because I don’t think she’s the right person for me after all,’ he said, sounding far more rational than he should have, making a pronouncement like that.

‘People aren’t “right” and “wrong”,’ she insisted, tearing her gaze away from him. If that were true, then she was always ‘wrong’.

Gazing out at the mix of manicured ski slopes and wild rocks and cliffs, the sharp dips and sudden rises of a landscape that was too big to be tamed, the view called to her, as always. In the physical challenge of a climb or a difficult descent, life appeared simple: breath, muscle, fuel, sleep.

Survival, she could do. Anything more complex and she was out of her depth.

‘I’m assuming she’s learned to eat without clinking her cutlery now,’ she pushed, shifting to give herself an inch of breathing room.

But he stretched in response, his knee knocking hers.

If he kept touching her, she’d… start to think it felt easy and natural.

‘You two looked cosy last night. Ginny said you had an intimate discussion after dinner.’

He sat up straight, shooting her a disapproving look that was several notches too dramatic. ‘We did not look “cosy”, and do you want to know why I was out in the corridor last night?’

She didn’t really, but he continued before she could stop him.

‘I was looking for you !’