Page 8 of A Winter Wedding Adventure (Adventure Weddings #2)

‘Yes, it looks like we’ll be a little delayed, but I’ll be there soon, cara mia,’ Mattia said to Alessandra, his phone pressed to his ear.

He hoped it was true. Traffic was moving, finally, which was more than he could say for their slow trip out of the city and onto the Autobahn.

At least the heat was blasting from the vents on the dashboard of the minivan.

‘I can’t believe you had to go to an audition so close to my wedding!’ It wasn’t her wedding for another three days, but he wouldn’t dare mention that.

‘You haven’t even asked how the audition went.’

‘I know it went well. Nobody can resist you when you sing and I can hear it in your voice that you got the part.’ There were no secrets from Alessandra – and she would never accept anything but the highest praise for his musical ability, even though she was biased.

‘But three months away from home? It’s a long time. ’

‘It’s only ten weeks, actually. And I’ll be able to go home at least once.’

She continued as though he hadn’t said anything. ‘How are you doing after the auditions – and the delay last night? I was worried .’

He smiled faintly. Alessandra was his biggest cheerleader, but she did worry . ‘It was fine. I’m fine, Ale. Focus on the wedding.’ Her marriage – to a guy who barely gave Mattia the time of day, but each to their own.

‘That’s what Carla keeps telling me.’

There was no way he could stop his insides seizing up at the mention of her name, so he let it happen and then waited for his muscles to relax again. ‘She’s right,’ he replied mildly.

‘Yes, something you have in common,’ Alessandra responded brightly – too brightly, considering she was discussing her two best friends who had dated each other and then broken up in sticky circumstances.

‘We’ll be all together soon,’ she said softly, making him glad she couldn’t see his scrunched-up grimace.

‘That’s what I wanted for my wedding – to celebrate it with everyone important to me. ’

He dropped his head back against the seat and tried not to imagine she meant bringing him together again with Carla. ‘I’ll see you this afternoon, hmm?’

‘It’s so beautiful here – and so quiet in the snow. I can’t wait to show you.’

The thought of all the snow didn’t exactly soothe him. ‘I’m glad it’s everything you wanted. Ciao, cara.’

He felt Kira’s curious glance as he disconnected the call, but he waited to see if she’d ask – what she’d ask.

He suspected she wouldn’t be able to wait long.

The hum of the unfamiliar car engine drilled at the back of his mind, but the swish of Kira’s technical trousers sounded somehow louder. She moved around a lot.

‘What were you arguing about?’

‘We weren’t arguing,’ he insisted. ‘Perhaps Italian conversation is more animated than you’re used to.’

‘But you did this thing with your face. You looked like someone just killed your cat.’

He smacked a hand to his chest in horror. ‘Don’t even suggest something like that!’

‘Yikes, you actually have a cat? Sorry.’

‘I don’t have a cat, but that’s terrible.’

The gaze she flicked him was pleasantly warm. ‘I’ll choose my metaphors more carefully from now on.’

‘Thank you,’ he said with a pointed nod and flung himself back against the seat with a sigh. ‘Do you know the happy couple?’ he asked after a moment’s pause.

‘I’ve met them once. Ginny – my colleague – did most of the planning. I just help out when needed, thank God. Why? Are you secretly in love with the bride?’

He choked. ‘No! Alessandra is like a sister to me. But perhaps that makes it worse. She’s always been my biggest supporter and she’s moving on in life… without me.’

Kira’s only reaction was a brief, assessing glance. ‘Maybe you shouldn’t hang onto her.’

He couldn’t help laughing, even though that earned him another doubtful look. ‘That’s your advice? Don’t be attached to anyone because they might leave you?’

She made a low, disgruntled sound in her throat. ‘I didn’t really mean it like that, but it’s good advice anyway, isn’t it?’

‘You don’t have friends, then?’ he asked, provoking her on purpose.

‘I just choose my friends carefully,’ she said, her mouth tight, and because he wasn’t wise the way she was, he was immediately thinking about earning the right to be called her friend. ‘So all of this makes you less than happy about the wedding? Does the singing make you nervous?’

‘No,’ he said with a shake of his head. ‘I want to do that for her. It’s a sort of… blessing. It’s the one thing I do very well.’

Her non-committal nod amused him. ‘You still sound about as excited as I am – which is not very much.’

He nodded. ‘For one, I don’t get on very well with Joe, as much as that upsets Alessandra, and worse…’ He belatedly realised he could be opening Pandora’s box by bringing this up. But he didn’t think he could hold it in anyway. ‘I… dated the bridesmaid.’

‘Mattia, you sly dog.’

It took him a second to understand what she’d said and her teasing tone registered before anything else – and the way she slightly mispronounced his name that he rather liked. But he managed a mock-peevish scowl.

‘Is it going to be awkward?’

‘You have to ask?’ he replied, his voice high. ‘We got together because of Alessandra and now…’ Even Alessandra couldn’t always bend the world to her will.

‘She dumped you, then?’

‘Yes, but it was my fault,’ he mumbled. The more time passed, the more he was convinced of that.

‘What, you couldn’t keep it in your pants?’

‘I did not . How could you even think?—?’

‘Chill out, opera boy. You basically apologised for her dumping you. Unless you cheated, maybe you should give her some of the blame and not beat yourself up?’

She spoke so casually, dropped that drawled nickname – which he chose to interpret as an endearment – and seemed to defuse all his wound-up emotions with a single word. But the situation was more complicated than she made out.

‘I offended her.’

‘Like, you insulted her taste in music or you denied the holocaust?’ Kira asked warily.

‘Neither! I would never do either of those! I just…’ Again, Kira’s outrageous turn of phrase made it easier to get the next part out. ‘She bites her fork when she eats,’ he explained, flinching inwardly at the memory.

‘Is that a euphemism for something?’ Kira asked quizzically.

‘No! Her spoon too. It was like fingernails scraping on the blackboard! Every meal!’

She nodded slowly in dawning comprehension, her lips compressing in thought. He wondered if she realised how expressive her lips were, given the cardboard face she put on for the world. ‘And you told her this.’ It was a guess, not a question. ‘Does she know about your… sensitivity?’

‘The official name is misophonia and yes, she knew. We knew each other for a long time before we dated. It just never bothered me that way before.’

‘Did you ask her to try to stop?’

‘I told her it seemed to be getting worse the longer we were together. She interpreted it as a way to break up with her. She was really hurt.’

‘Did you intend it that way?’

‘Of course not! We’d been together nearly a year. I thought… I thought that was it; we were together.’ That sounded naive now he had to admit that to Kira, but she’d probably already worked out he was a little naive.

‘No offence to the bridesmaid, but that sounds like her problem, not yours.’

That took the wind out of him for a moment.

‘I should have told her sooner – should have brought it up with my therapist straight away,’ he insisted.

‘By the time I mentioned it to Carla, I was quite stressed about it. But breaking up with someone because of an eating habit is the stupidest reason in history and what if…?’

‘What if you missed out on something good, something important to you because of your hearing?’

He’d been about to say, ‘ What if love isn’t enough to make a relationship work?’ Kira’s sentence was close enough for the moment, despite missing the mark.

‘You’re going to see her this afternoon, eat dinner with her tonight. Are you going to be okay?’

He shifted uncomfortably. ‘Maybe there’ll be a snowstorm and we’ll have to stay another night.’

She chuckled, low and rough, and he had the fleeting thought that he’d rarely heard a sound so raw and wonderful. ‘You’d rather brave another fridge?’

‘You’re here to turn all the fridges off for me,’ he pointed out with a pout. ‘But I listened to you crunching on chips last night without thinking I was about to have a heart attack, so I think I’ll be okay.’

‘Oh, God, my mum is always on at me for eating with no manners,’ she said with a wince. ‘But for you, I would have tried.’

Mattia had to bite his lip against the thought that that was one of the nicest things he’d ever heard.

‘If we don’t show up today, the bride will think she’s having a heart attack, right?’ she continued. ‘I think we both have to just face the problem.’

‘You’re annoyingly right. But what’s the worst that could happen?’

‘Um, a hell of a lot of things.’

He sank further into the passenger seat. ‘I do want everything to work out for Alessandra.’

‘But?’

‘There’s no “but”,’ he insisted. ‘She’ll marry him and be happy. Why do you think there’s a “but”?’

She opened her mouth, probably to defend herself, but snapped it shut again, squirming in her seat.

‘A good friend of mine got engaged recently,’ she said in such a rush that he suspected she’d surprised herself with the confession.

‘I understand the thing about moving on without you. Maybe I’m a little salty he’s going ahead and doing this, changing things. ’

He threw her question back at her. ‘He? Are you secretly in love with him?’

‘Pfft,’ was her only reply at first, lifting her chin. ‘Definitely not in love with him.’

‘But?’

‘There is no “but”!’

‘Ah, there definitely is.’ He loved that she was so tough, he could unapologetically rib her like this. ‘What? He’s an ex?’ He turned in his seat to face her, shifting the seat belt.

‘Are you a gossip?’