Toni took a slug of wine. ‘Yes, that’s unfortunately a very apt description of the way I talked him into an affair.’
Sophie was too perceptive. ‘Is that why you don’t want to go back to the island? Because it got awkward between the two of you?’
It was on the tip of her tongue to say yes. The statement was close enough to the truth, but also so far from the actual problem– that she missed the way they were together, how real life had felt there. Why had the reasons for their arguments on the last few days grown hazy? She’d seen absolutely no possibility of being with him without her world caving in, but that seemed melodramatic after a little distance and missing him was its own problem she hadn’t anticipated.
‘I suppose you could say that,’ she answered.
Kira peered doubtfully at her. ‘Do you mean “I’ve seen you naked” awkward? Or “I secretly want to have your babies” awkward?’
‘Neither! Gabri doesn’t want children. He doesn’tlikechildren,’ she blurted out before she realised how much that would give away. ‘I mean, it’s not quite as it sounds. He had a bad experience with his ex-wife. It’s not just a preference thing – although that’s fine, if people don’t want children. God, I understand that after everything Cilli’s put me through.’Stop talking, Toni.
Biting her lip, she stared into her lap with an inward groan. It was all out now. She’d have to hear their well-meaning opinions and suffer their pity for the sixty-fifth time. Now she was the widow who’d finally managed to fall in love again – with the wrong guy.
‘Sorry,’ Kira said under her breath. ‘Bad choice of words.’
‘Do you love him?’ Ginny asked, her voice high.
‘After two weeks? Of course not,’ she insisted, even though it felt like a lie.
‘You’re trying to be rational, I understand,’ Ginny continued, this time in a measured tone, ‘but you’d be surprised how many couples get together quickly in real life. I organised a wedding for some clients where they met while backpacking around Australia and then he moved to the UK three weeks later. Another couple last year got legally married three years ago because there was no other way for him to get a visa to stay, butthen they got married properly on Corsica, where his family is originally from. It was beautiful. I can imagine seeing someone for the first time and already having an idea that they could be the one.’
Ginny sighed as only a person in their twenties who’d never been in love was capable of. Toni glanced up to find matching indulgent expressions on Sophie and Kira’s faces.
‘What?’ said Ginny. ‘You two are ridiculously in love, so you can’t laugh at me for dreaming of the same.’
Kira snorted. ‘The first time I saw Mattia, he made no sense to me. I wouldn’t have been surprised if he’d grown wings and disappeared into a fantasy world. I never imagined how things would work out between us.’
‘He is too beautiful for this world,’ Sophie joked. ‘But you can’t believe I fell in love with Andreas at first sight. He turned down my marriage proposal!’
‘Becauseyou fell in love with him at first sight – at the wrong time!’ Ginny insisted. ‘You both prove my point. I think it’s entirely possible to fall in love with someone in a short space of time.’
Toni couldn’t help thinking of that moment she’d first seen Gabri, leaning on the plastic table with the espresso cup in front of him, all four-day beard and long hair and a gaping linen shirt. Those blue eyes. Perhaps she had fallen for him, a little.
‘I bloody hope so anyway,’ Ginny continued with a humph. ‘I’ve met so many frogs, I’d better have a prince coming.’
‘Do you even know that story?’ Sophie asked with a chuckle. ‘One of the frogs turns out tobethe prince. Maybe you’ve met your soulmate already and you just didn’t realise.’
‘I doubt it,’ she said flatly. ‘They’ve all definitely been slippery and slimy. Not a romantic Italian affair with a handsome man.’
‘And he rescued Cilli for you?’ Kira asked, her eyes narrow.
‘He didn’trescuehim… It’s complicated. He doesn’t want the stress and responsibility of a family and that’s fair enough.’
‘But he still stepped up when you needed him,’ Ginny said with a soft smile. ‘Sounds like he’d come round, to be honest.’
Toni shook her head vehemently. ‘Not that any of this matters, but someone “coming round” just isn’t good enough. Having feelings for each other isn’t enough.’
‘Enough for what?’ Kira asked.
‘That’s another reason why all of this is pointless. He lives on his island and I live here where Cilli has his life and his stability.’Where I used to live with Miro. Although she’d had to sell the house when he died. Then she’d lived nearly eight years struggling alone before her parents moved down to help.
It seemed suddenly absurd that she’d stayed in Weymouth all these years. Sure, the team at Great Heart had meant a lot – one of her only remaining links to Miro, since his parents had both died too. That link had meant more to her than her own comfort. She’d never even considered there might be other options.
Shit, Gabri was right. It wasn’t her friends and family continuing to treat her like the grieving widow nine years on. It washer, holding on, refusing to see the world beyond her own ripped-apart family – refusing to seeherselfas anything other than a dead man’s wife.
But even so, she wasn’t a carefree single person like Ginny’s clients. She couldn’t just move to an Italian island and see if she could work something out with Gabri. There was too much at stake.
‘But if he lived here—’ Ginny began.
