62
Flora opened the package with excitement. This was the wedding album that she had been expecting. The wedding planners in Italy had promised a swift delivery and Flora couldn’t wait to see the photographs of their special day. She gasped at the cream leather album with their names written in gold across the cover. Turning the first page she beamed with delight at seeing herself and Dylan on the steps of St Lawrence at Lucina – she looking a tad nervous, Dylan looking completely composed, not to mention devastatingly handsome. He smiled lazily into the camera like a true pro. But then, he was used to cameras flashing and snapping at him.
Flora’s mind spun back to when she had first met him, in the stables on the Treweham Hall estate, where she had worked. It seemed like she’d known him forever now, but in fact it had only been a year and a half since he had first introduced himself with his winning smile, which Flora had completely fallen for. The moment she had looked into those blue, mesmerising eyes she had been smitten. Flora had obviously known who he was. Dylan Delany had been her idol since pony club. She had applied to be a groom at Treweham Hall in the hope of meeting him. Everybody knew he was Tobias Cavendish-Blake’s friend.
When she did actually stumble across him, he had proved to be everything she had fantasised about. For Flora, it had been love at first sight. For Dylan, it had taken a little longer. He’d soon realised where his loyalties lay after straying elsewhere, albeit in a drunken stupor, not to mention the old flame who had hovered too close for Flora’s liking. Loyalty had been new to Dylan, never having experienced it before. Up until meeting Flora, he had woven in and out of relationships, ducking and diving any form of commitment.
Now Flora knew he couldn’t envisage life without her. Flora understood him, understood his world, unlike any of his previous girlfriends. She was a horsewoman and helped him run his training yard with ease and efficiency. In a nutshell, Flora was his perfect match. And now look at them, thought Flora as she turned the pages of the wedding album. Large, clear images of them by the altar exchanging marriage vows, walking hand in hand down the aisle as husband and wife, in the piazza San Lorenzo square laughing with the locals, dining with her parents in the rooftop restaurant; but the picture that still stole Flora’s heart had to be the selfie, which she had taken of the two of them on the balcony with the eternal city behind. That defined them. That was the photo telling everyone they had “just got hitched”. Her thoughts were interrupted by her mobile ringing.
‘Hi, you OK?’ Dylan asked with concern. She’d been due at the yard over an hour ago.
‘Yeah, fine. The wedding album’s just arrived.’
‘Ah, I see – bring it with you.’
‘Will do, the pictures are fantastic,’ she gushed.
‘Well, what do you expect, with a fantastic-looking husband?’ he replied with humour.
‘I’m in them too,’ she replied grinning. ‘See you in a minute.’ She shook her head at hearing him laugh down the phone. Then she glanced down at her tiny bump, which was beginning to show. Yes, a lot had happened since meeting Dylan Delany, her heart-throb, in the stables that day.
