‘Why don’t we just come up to the shop,’ Toni’s mother suggested. ‘We’ll need to wash it anyway. You can help him, can’t you?’
His throat constricting, he thought back to Toni’s calm demeanour as she’d treated her own wounds a week ago. It didn’t make sense that her presence in his house – his life – seemed to give everything a different colour.
His breath choppy, he managed a nod and gave Cillian an assessing glance. ‘I’ll carry you, yes?’
The boy’s immediate nod gave him that uneasy feeling of unearned trust, and yet he had no desire to walk away from it. He wanted to take Toni’s son and make sure nothing bad ever happened to him.
Cillian was heavy in his arms, but not so much that Gabri struggled. He kept his gaze averted from the bloody knee, from Cillian’s face – from anything that would make the moment impossible to bear.
Directing them to the bathroom out back, he took a few deep breaths of the fragrant air of his workshop, coming to terms with the interlopers in his space – one of them currently bleeding. People came with mess and bodily fluids, responsibility,arguments, cross purposes and burdens, but living without them wasn’t necessarily the answer.
When Toni’s mother emerged into the workshop a few minutes later, he didn’t know what to make of her earnest study of him.
‘How is the patient?’ he asked.
‘All patched up.’
The silence strung tight, but he didn’t know what to say to her that wasn’t,Your daughter is a very special woman.
‘I’m Daphne, by the way,’ she introduced herself curtly. ‘We never quite made it to introductions the other two times we’ve met.’
She fell silent again, as though prompting him to do his part in the conversation. After an agonising moment where he seemed to have forgotten every single pleasantry in the English language, he eventually blurted out, ‘She didn’t mean to deceive you. It was a mix-up and she didn’t want you to worry.’
‘Worry? About my grown daughter spending a week on an Italian island with a handsome man? What would I have to worry about?’ A smile tickled at her lips. Then she delivered the devastating part: ‘You won’t break her heart, will you?’ He picked up the threat in her tone.
Break her heart in a week? A woman who knew how to build boundaries and would do anything for the safety of her son – and the memory of her husband?
‘No,’ he replied.
But he might break his own.
25
While Toni wasn’t sure she should have left her mother and son in Gabri’s care, she would admit to enjoying the escape from a certain interrogation and she was glad they were taken care of when her day grew ever busier. After rushing back to the hotel to drop off the turtle ornaments, she saw the notification that Reshma’s flight had been delayed, which meant rearranging her workload.
The last wedding guests were arriving that afternoon, in time for dinner and the rehearsal at sunset. Tomorrow was the boat trip to the nearby island of Pianosa for photos and then it was the big day, albeit a strangely shaped wedding day, given the ceremony would take place at eight-thirty in the evening as the sun set.
While she waited for Reshma to make her way from the airport in Pisa, she managed to assemble the wedding favours – tourmaline crystals, a little pot of local honey and a personalised magnet – in their voile bags with fiddly ribbons, and check on the preparations for dinner before she had to leave for Portoferraio to collect her boss.
As she weaved the Panda through the vineyards and around the stone township of Capoliveri, catching glimpses of mountains and the ever-present turquoise sea, even the view couldn’t quite distract her from the challenges to come. Her nerves felt like a bubble expanding into every corner of her she usually left empty.
She’d never had a lot to do with Reshma Bakshi, the founder of I Do Destinations and as such, the head of the new, merged company behind Great Heart Adventure Weddings. They hadn’t got off to a good start last year, when Reshma had casually suggested the company didn’t need two administrators, which would have been adios to Toni’s job.
Andreas had stepped in for her that day. She wondered if he still thought about Miro every time he did something for her or whether it was just habit after so many years. At least he’d stuck around despite his grief.
Toni didnotwant to be thinking about Miro right now, not with the rehearsal this evening and the way she felt as though her skin was inside out after everything that had happened with Gabri. She had no idea what she’d say to her mum when the inevitable moment ambushed her – or when Cillian asked his innocent questions.
Of course, Reshma was already waiting when Toni pulled up at the port, even though she thought she’d left plenty of time. Her boss didn’t even wait for her to get out of the car. She just stowed her case in the boot and jumped in. Toni wouldn’t have been surprised if she’d said,Drive, instead of the actual greeting that emerged from her lips.
‘How’s it all going?’
Actually, that wasn’t quite a greeting.
‘Fine,’ Toni said carefully.
‘Okay.’
Only the necessity of looking at the road as she turned the car around stopped her from staring at Reshma in puzzlement.
