Page 27 of Italy and Forever

She registered an unexpected sound behind her and it took a moment for her to identify it.

Glancing back, she quickly regretted it when her whole body turned and she was rushing down sideways. She flung her arms out to try to steady herself, which didn’t quite work.

‘Are you laughing at me?’ she asked indignantly. ‘Yi-i-i-i-ikes! Oh, fuck!’

The fly-line dipped suddenly and swerved, swinging through a few loops as it made its way down. She clutched the straps of her harness, but that didn’t help, so she grasped the handlebar again, her knuckles white.

‘That tree had a mat tied to it!’ she cried. ‘That means people do sometimes collide with the trunks. Aaah!’ The ground rose up, close enough that she was worried she was going to make an unscheduled landing. She hiked her legs up, but that only rattled her carabiners and made her twist again and she blew out a breath to try to settle her animal brain.

‘I’m pretty sure if you don’t swing out, you’ll be fine.’

‘I swing out at every curve!’ she protested. ‘It’s called centrifugal force and I’m not immune to the laws of physi-i-i-i-i-i-ics!’ Her breath was sucked out of her again as they swung around yet another corner.

She had impressions of colour and sunlight, rushing water, but mainly it was her own heartbeat, racing in her ears. They shot out of the trees and over the water into the unexpectedly bright sunlight. Ginny glimpsed the rapids, the rocky gorge and the vivid water and, in the distance, a looming summit.

Then it was over. Another wooden platform, a gentle stop. Ginny flopped forward against her straps. Her head spun and her hands shook.

The attendant said something and she simply nodded without listening. A moment later, she crashed onto her backside when she unclipped her harness from the straps.

Warm hands grasped hers and pulled. ‘Up you come.’

She recognised Rhys’s voice in an abstract way, still not quite believing her feet were on the ground again.

‘All right. You did great.’

‘You patronising—’ She didn’t have the energy to finish the sentence. Her muscles had turned to pure adrenaline.

She thought he replied, ‘I know,’ but her blood was rushing in her ears. At least she had a railing under her hands now and she blinked and squinted as her vision returned to normal – in time to see Rhys snapping a photo of her.

‘Hey!’

‘You’re going to want this later. Proof that you survived.’

‘I’m going to want you to delete that later.’

‘That’s your choice. I won’t show anyone else,’ he promised. She glanced up to find an amused smile on his face. The smile accentuated his square jaw, drew attention to soft lips. He had no right to be so hot while teasing her.

Looking at him fed her another drop of understanding, but she couldn’t put him together yet. There was something she was missing here. They clearly didn’t get on, but this buzz was persistent. It was probably just her own hopeless – and meaningless – attraction.

She hauled herself upright, determined to restore some of her dignity, but dizziness shot straight to her skull. She stumbled on the steps down from the platform, then her stomach turned.

‘Whoa!’ she heard from over her shoulder, then an arm curled around her just in time to help her keep her balance as she doubled over and hurled into the undergrowth.

Urgh, lucky she hadn’t eaten much today.

12

‘I’m all right,’ Ginny insisted for the fiftieth time. ‘It was just motion sickness. I’m taking it easy at the buffet just in case,’ she reassured Reshma.

‘I’m just glad Rhys was with you,’ Tita said emphatically, giving her shoulder a squeeze. ‘You looked very wobbly when you made it back to the car park.’

‘Did Rhys tell the entire world?’ Ginny muttered as her boss and colleague reluctantly left her to her meagre dinner. She didn’t enjoy the reminder of the awkward stroll back through the forest to the car park either. She’d spent half the time wondering whether she’d imagined his fingers smoothing her hair out of the way as she’d brought up the contents of her stomach, and the other half painfully reliving all of the embarrassing moments she’d shared with that man.

He hadn’t spoken to her for the rest of the day – not that he’d had any reason to, but it was fair enough if he wanted to avoid her. He obviously found her stressful and they’d have to survive several hours in each other’s company tomorrow. The prospect made her grimace into her rice.

After the strange day, she’d wanted to talk to Sophie, make sure the bride was holding up under the onslaught of bad-taste jokes and troubling wedding metaphors, but tonight didn’t seem like the right time, when Ginny was dead on her feet and still a little queasy.

The food perked her up somewhat and she took herself upstairs to her room as soon as she was done. She was a wedding planner, not a rep on a coach tour. The guests could fend for themselves for an evening.