Page 29 of A Winter Wedding Adventure (Adventure Weddings #2)

‘I tried yesterday, but he was drunk; he would have told me anything if he thought I’d forgive him.’

‘Surely that’s true love?’ Mattia suggested with a wince.

‘I thought you had ideals about love, Matty,’ she said softly.

With an awkward glance at Carla, he considered his response. ‘Maybe my ideals are finally being tempered with realism.’

Alessandra’s sigh was deep. ‘That’s a shame, but I suppose it really means you don’t need me to look after you any more.’

He thought of the difficult years at school and university, as he’d come to terms with his sensitive ears and even more sensitive brain. A lot had changed since then; something had changed over the past seventy-two hours.

‘No, Ale. I don’t.’

* * *

Upstairs in the loft, Kira grabbed a squeegee from the storage cupboard and continued into the bouldering room, heading straight to the slanting window.

She hadn’t come up here to reminisce, but memories assailed her anyway: Mattia appearing, mostly naked and out of breath, all because he was worried about her and he liked her and he cared about her pathetic past – even though she hadn’t told him the full extent of Christian’s betrayal.

She’d had her fingers in his hair and he’d called her carissima .

Gritting her teeth, she ignored the urge to haul herself up on the grips to prove her resilience and clear her head and opened the window instead. As Norbert had said on the phone, the roof was dotted with solar panels, currently buried under a layer of snow.

Grasping the squeegee, she nudged aside as much snow as she could, clearing the two nearest panels. The rest would come online as the snow softened and slid off and hopefully, they’d have enough power to run the boiler for a few hours.

Returning downstairs, she refused to glance at the closed door of Alessandra’s room or wonder what they might be talking about.

Kira’s phone rang as she made her way through the dining room, giving her the perfect excuse for slipping past the guests apologetically without pausing. When she tugged her phone out of the pocket of her ski jacket, she was surprised to see Willard’s name.

With a tug in her chest, she connected the call to talk to her boss.

‘Will? Everything okay?’ Great Heart Adventures, Will’s pride and joy, had caused him more than its share of grey hairs over the past five years of financial trouble.

Since the merger, Kira still hadn’t quite processed the end of the money worries or got used to Will’s new enthusiasm for life – and, remarkably, weddings.

‘I’m calling to ask you that, Watling.’ Just hearing his gruff voice set her emotions bubbling.

‘I’ve been snowed in before,’ she answered.

A pause. ‘Kira?’ Damn it, when someone had climbed a mountain with you, they were too good at picking up on what you didn’t want to say. ‘I can’t get up there to help you, so talk to me.’

Nobody could get up there to help her. She was used to shouldering everything alone, so it shouldn’t have made any difference, but she felt exposed and it had everything to do with Mattia and his fine feelings.

‘Everything’s all right,’ she insisted. ‘The heating will spring on for a few hours when the snow melts off the solar panels and we have wood and plenty of food. It’s fine. ’

‘I have every confidence in you,’ Will said.

‘Yes, well, I’ll keep everyone alive. Survival is more along the lines of my qualifications.’

‘But?’ he prompted.

She’d arrived in the kitchen to see the frying pan on the stove and a plate on the bench. Her stomach flipped, thinking of Mattia feeding her egg. He’d touched her, talked to her – looked at her. But she’d always known there could be nothing between them except ‘it’s complicated’.

The man was afraid of fire and fridges, for goodness’ sake.

‘Weddings aren’t for me,’ she grumbled, hoping her old friend would accept the flippant explanation.

‘No one’s asking you to get married,’ Will joked. ‘What’s the problem?’

She laughed, leaning her forehead against the door to the technical room.

She was tired – physically, but also running low on emotional resources, which were usually in scarce enough supply anyway.

‘What isn’t the problem? I’m ruining this wedding.

I implied the decorations were frivolous the first time I met the bride and I accidentally insulted the groom’s mother.

I’m going to see my ex-boyfriend at the ceremony for the first time in twelve years and it’s going to cause a scene.

The groom got drunk on my watch and the opera singer I’m supposed to be keeping safe has a head injury and makes me cry when he performs.’ She took a breath.

‘Worst of all, I kissed him. I kissed the bridesman.’

Silence. She’d expected some reaction from Will, even just a laugh. Perhaps she’d been lucky and the connection had cut out before he’d heard the end of her tirade. She shouldn’t have said anything, even if she could count on Will not to pass on her faux pas to anyone at I Do.

‘Are you still there?’

‘Um.’

‘Um? Will, what’s going on?’

‘I, er, probably should have told you that Reshma’s here.’

‘Reshma’s where?’

‘Right beside me,’ he said gently. ‘Listening to every word.’

There was only one word she could say in reaction, even if it was another that probably wasn’t appropriate for the ears of the head of I Do Destinations. ‘Fuck.’

She heard a muffled, ‘Give me the phone,’ and then Reshma’s voice in her ear. ‘Have you told Ginny any of this?’ Reshma didn’t sound as though she’d kill Kira, but perhaps she’d just wait until she could do it in person.

‘She was there when I screwed up on the first night.’

‘But the… other things?’

Her throat closed as she wondered which one was considered worse: ruining the ceremony with her own dramas or kissing a member of the wedding party. ‘Ginny doesn’t know,’ she managed to explain. ‘I’d hoped no one would have to know.’

She heard a deep sigh over the line and recognised Willard – and his disappointment in her. It hurt more than she wanted to admit, even to herself.

‘Kira,’ he began, his voice so smooth, she knew something bad must be coming. ‘I know this is your personal history, but perhaps it’s better if the team at I Do understand why you struggle with weddings?’

Tears pricked in her eyes and all the heightened emotions collapsed on her at once in an avalanche she could no longer hold off.

With a flash, she saw the decorated church, Alessandra and Joe toasting the gathered family and friends, Mattia’s rich, haunting voice travelling through the violent landscape – and her thoughts raced back to a day she’d hoped she’d left behind, but was evidently still as fresh in her memory as though it had been yesterday.

‘I wish it made no difference,’ she began grimly, ‘and I don’t want sympathy, or for you to think any differently about me, but maybe you should know.

’ Taking a deep breath, she forced herself to continue.

‘I was engaged once, when I was very young – too young. I nearly got married. But on the day of the wedding, he… he left me at the altar.’

A noise made her turn, slowing in horror as she began to suspect who was behind her. Gathered in the doorway of the kitchen, ears pricked and eyes round with shock, stood Joe, Rav and Hugh, the parents of the couple, Tonya and even Yolanda the waitress – all witnesses to her mortifying confession.