Page 7 of A Winter Wedding Adventure (Adventure Weddings #2)

Alcohol apparently made Mattia even happier – volatile in his good mood as he swaggered unpredictably. His hand gestures threatened that he could break into song at any moment.

Kira still had her wits about her, although the fuzz surrounding her brain was thicker than she’d realised when she accepted the last ceramic mug of punch from the copper cauldron with a giant ball of flaming sugar set above it.

Perhaps she shouldn’t have had anything to drink, not even punch, but she had to be off-duty sometime and it was alarmingly easy to drop her guard around Mattia.

‘Foia-zahng-en-boiler?’ He whirled back to face her with a question in his eyes, pausing their progress near the bronze statue of Mozart. The muted melodies from the brass band were now behind them, as were the lights and smells of the market. ‘Is that how you say it?’

‘Don’t look at me. You’re the one who asked the woman in the dirndl to repeat the pronunciation so many times. She thought you were flirting with her.’

‘I was just being an embarrassing tourist. I don’t know how to flirt.’

She snorted at that.

‘No, really,’ he insisted. ‘I don’t flirt. I just fall in love.’

That earned him a perplexed glance, but he didn’t elaborate.

He tugged his phone out of the pocket of his sleek coat, fumbling so much, he nearly dropped it.

He didn’t seem to have any gloves with him and the temperature had dropped below zero while the snow created a layer of candy floss over everything.

A moment later, a pleasant voice from his phone piped up, ‘Feuerzangenbowle. Feu-er-zang-en-bow-le.’

‘Foia-zangen-boiler!’ he tried again. ‘You’d think I’d never sung operas in German,’ he said with a wry smile.

‘Even if it’s difficult to pronounce, it was delicious.

Thank you for taking me back to the market.

’ As he spoke emphatically, peering at her with his luscious eyelashes and mile-deep eyes, Kira wasn’t sure whether to laugh or smack him.

Even if he denied it, he was definitely flirting and there was no way he would ever fall in love with her.

‘You dragged me back here. No matter what Alessandra thinks, I’m not your babysitter.’

‘No,’ he agreed half-heartedly. ‘But I had such an awful day, and to think I’d end it here in the snow with you…’ His lips broke into a smile and that was worse than the eyelashes and the hot-chocolate eyes.

She wasn’t sure what point he was making by adding the ‘with you’. ‘What was so bad about your day? Did you fluff your audition piece?’

‘I didn’t… “fluff”,’ he said with a sigh. ‘I got the part.’

‘And that’s not good because…?’

He paused, scraping his teeth along his bottom lip. ‘It means time away from home. I’m not good with change.’

‘Why not just audition in Naples?’

His shrug told her a thousand things at once, each one incomprehensible – like the other-worldly duet. ‘There’s not a lot of work in Napoli. I… fluffed an audition there. I’ve been only semi-professional up until recently, but I have an agent now. I am forced out of my comfort zone.’

The catch in his voice rippled over Kira with second-hand feelings she couldn’t control.

When life got too hot, she found a rock and climbed it, proved herself at each successive difficulty grade.

Mattia haemorrhaged emotion all around him in beautiful puddles, enough that she wondered how he could live like that – and how much longer she had to endure it.

‘At least it will be summer when I come back here,’ he said with a sudden restoration of the brightness it seemed he could summon at will. It gave Kira whiplash and she didn’t reply.

She kept silent in the cab, annoyed that she was hyper-conscious of his hand resting on the seat between them – and the fact that she’d climbed in next to him instead of sitting with the driver.

His soft skin and neat manicure drew a disheartening comparison with her rough knuckles and bitten-down nails.

‘Thank you,’ he said stiltedly as the car crossed the glistening river and headed for the train station, providing glimpses of the illuminated, white fortress set above the old town.

‘For earlier. The fridge.’ The shadows in his expression were evident.

‘Even though you didn’t know what was going on, you… allora, thank you anyway.’

She waved off his gratitude with a shake of her head.

‘Do you think you’ll be able to go back into your room?

Or is it safer to swap? The bed’s a bit small for you, but you’ve used my towel anyway,’ she added drily, hoping to lighten the moment, but the attempt backfired when her words reminded her of the view of him wrapped in that towel and standing close enough for her to see all the droplets.

He coloured, although she didn’t imagine he was remembering the same thing. ‘I think it’ll be okay. I’ve got music and white-noise apps. It just caught me by surprise. I’ll give you my towel.’

She avoided his gaze as they travelled up in the lift, which was difficult with all the mirrors reflecting his chaotic curls and tall figure right back at her.

She’d never had a taste for expensive things, but his fine wool coat drew her eye, falling effortlessly over his form as though it had been tailored for him.

He was a creature adapted for beauty. Of course he was wonderful to look at – and listen to. He was everything she wasn’t.

At his door, he had to rummage in his pockets for long enough that Kira regretted giving him the keycard, but he found it and got the door open. He braced himself as he entered the room, but when he crossed the threshold, the tension drained out of him and he sucked in a deep breath.

‘I’ll just get you a towel.’

He held the heavy door open for her and she stepped in, trying not to notice how close he was in the cramped entrance, close enough for her to pick up the scent of citrus with undertones of honey and spice.

The fading notes of his cologne suited him somehow: sweet and soothing, with hints of darkness underneath.

She drew in a breath as he moved away. She needed to hold onto their differences, the fact that he was too young for her – in attitude if not in body.

But he had a nice body. An even nicer face, full of life – in all its dramas.

And lovely, smooth eyes – that were currently studying her with soft, dangerous curiosity as he held out the folded towel.

She hated that her breath was short with that gaze trained on her, as though he thought he could puzzle out her secrets.

Goosebumps flashed to her hairline. She needed to get out of this confined space where all she could see were his hunched shoulders.

She could so easily imagine stretching onto her toes and pressing her lips to his.

The kiss would be so soft, full of uncertainty and surprise.

She hated surprises. She really didn’t need this right now, just before a wedding that would drag her worst failures back out into the light – that enormous mistake that meant there would definitely be no big wedding in her future.

Straightening, she realised with a jolt that her back was squashed into the door, which was trying its best to shut on her. ‘I, uh… I should go get some sleep.’

Mattia drew back so quickly that he knocked his head on the shelves behind him with an ‘Ahia!’ Kira made for the corridor, but the heavy door landed against her back and she stumbled right into him, her face pressed into the fragrant collar of his shirt – her body colliding with the full length of his.

She registered the pressure of his hands on her back – and the desire to stay where she was. She wasn’t usually a hugger, but the softness of his coat, the heat of his lean body, created a pleasant fog over her skin and in her mind.

It had been a while since she’d been close to anyone – scratched that itch. That wasn’t what this was about. He wasn’t her usual type – not even close. But something flared – something that definitely shouldn’t have right now.

‘Scusa.’ He cleared his throat, shoving at the door that was still trying to close on them.

He managed to prop it open, but trapped Kira against him.

‘Oh, I’m—’ He fumbled with the door again, straining to hold the heavy thing open, and Kira ducked out under one of his arms, slipping awkwardly away with heat in her cheeks.

‘G’night!’ she called over her shoulder without looking back, hoping he wouldn’t think anything of her wobbly tone.

‘Buonanotte!’

As she fumbled with her keycard, she couldn’t resist one last quick glance along the hall. She found him leaning heavily in his doorway with one hand propping him up against the frame, curls tumbling over his forehead as his coat made a cape around his dramatic figure.

When her own door closed behind her with a thump, she leaned against it and took an enormous breath in the pitch-dark room.

She needed to deliver this baritone into the safe hands of his friends as quickly as possible.

* * *

Kira got up early for a run the following morning, grateful for the diligent efforts of the municipal authorities in clearing the footpaths after the substantial snowfall overnight.

Flakes were still floating in front of her as she jogged, but not enough to impede their progress into the mountains for the wedding.

Pounding the pavement cleared her head – and the frigid air cleared her lungs – and she felt herself again.

These weddings were to blame, forcing her into something she wasn’t good at, adding variables she didn’t know how to calculate – variables like quirky singers with magnetic smiles.

She knew the best ways to minimise the dangers of rockfalls, could plot an off-piste ski route across terrain and even teach sullen teenagers to scale the indoor wall.

But emotional high points? She couldn’t shake off a sense of impending doom, even though she told herself it was her own experiences clouding her judgement.

Just because she’d been part of one disastrous wedding a long time ago didn’t mean there was a rational basis for her belief that she was going to ruin this one.

Kira with her blue hair and her big mouth and stubbornly not-pretty face would be well out of her depth and she was looking forward to none of it – well, perhaps the skiing day.

Today, she would be herself again: no heart-pounding, breath-stealing anything .

Whatever had been wrong with her yesterday would be gone today.

She did not have a little crush on the hopeless baritone with the baby face and she didn’t have to be grumpy about that.

She only hoped he wouldn’t want to listen to opera for the entirety of the three-hour drive.

Marching along the corridor when she got back to the hotel, she rapped on his door. ‘I’m going to have a quick shower and grab some breakfast. Then we need to go.’

The door flew open and she jumped back, startled. ‘Good morning.’

How quickly the optimism of the jog could drain away.

He’d looked good in a collared shirt and tailored trousers, but in supple tracksuit bottoms and nothing else, his bare feet flexing appealingly on the hotel carpet, he made her mouth dry.

And that was before she got to his sleepy-eyed, tousle-haired morning face. Oh dear.

‘Don’t you ever think about putting a shirt on before you open the door?’

His smile dimmed, his hand resting self-consciously on his chest, which only drew Kira’s eyes there. ‘Do you always wake up in a bad mood?’

‘When there are weddings involved, yes,’ she muttered.

‘And me? When I’m involved?’ He ducked his head to catch her eye.

‘I’m sure we’ll get on okay when you’re properly dressed.’ And my hormones don’t scream at me so loudly .

‘I was just finishing my yoga.’

Her gaze drifted behind him to where a mat was set up at the foot of the bed. She was rather curious to see his yoga.

‘I’ll meet you in the breakfast room,’ she said, backing away. ‘Don’t take too long with your eyeliner!’

‘I only wear it on stage!’ he called after her. ‘Sorry to disappoint you!’