Page 29 of Italy and Forever

‘The waltz goes without saying,’ Petra explained. ‘The DJ will know what to do and I already discussed this with Sophie. This is why I’m here.’

Petra gestured urgently to the accordion player and then clapped her hands sharply. ‘Good evening, everyone! We all have something very important to prepare for the wedding reception on Saturday.’

Ginny had the feeling of the wedding unravelling, but she was standing here in her cute, fluffy top and slippers and she didn’t have a clue how to get things back under control.

‘If you don’t already know the steps, we need to learn the waltz!’ Petra declared with a smile that Ginny did not share. ‘Of course, we don’t want Sophie and Andreas to be uncomfortable, alone on the dance floor, so we will all dance the Viennese Waltz together. How special!’

‘Special’ was one way to put it. Ginny ran her tongue nervously over the back of her piercing. She was a terrible dancer. She could just about manage the macarena, but anything more complicated and she’d leave a trail of broken toes behind her. She’d sit this one out. There would be some excuse on the day, something for her to check on.

With a prickle of discomfort she realised the more fundamental problem: she had no partner.

‘We start learning the steps in a line,’ Petra called out, waving at her husband to stand next to her.

Ginny found herself caught in the middle of a row as they practised stepping from side to side, copying Petra and Oswald at the front. Petra counted the beat with words Ginny couldn’t understand, although she caught the occasional, ‘Eins, zwei, drei,’ as the rhythm of the waltz echoed in the room.

Her slippers didn’t have the best grip on the tiles, but she comforted herself with the thought that at least she hadn’t changed into her duck-print pyjamas.

‘Now, we add forward and back. Forward with the right foot, back with the left,’ Petra instructed.

That took Ginny a few tries to master, studying Petra’s feet and colliding with Toni who was giggling through the steps next to her. Kira was participating without even a smirk of disdain, but no one could stand next to Mattia with his opera posture and slouch. It was surely past the children’s bedtime, but Tash’s two and Cillian were swaying along with everyone else too.

The only people conspicuously not participating were Andreas’s raucous friends – and Laurie, who was also nursing a drink. Rhys had a good excuse; he was standing on a chair in one corner taking shots like a sniper.

Ginny caught sight of Sophie sharing a smile with Andreas and she lost the steps for a moment. Despite the banging and crashing and the weird day, Sophie was smiling. Relief doused the crackling flames of her worries for a moment. The bride was happy. It was all Ginny could wish for.

Well, that and a dance partner.

Petra clapped her hands together. ‘Wonderful! Now, we are ready to take a partner.’

Ginny’s heart sank. She was the only single woman in this room and she had no idea how to salvage her pride. Perhaps she could just slip away quietly.

‘Oh, you don’t have a partner?’

Darn, Petra was too observant and the opportunity to escape passed too quickly. Ginny shook her head, her gaze darting around as she waited for inspiration to strike. Maybe Cillian would dance with her. No, he’d given up and was studying the accordion, asking questions. She found Laurie at the bar, but they both quickly looked away from each other again. Nope. She wouldn’t dance with him if he asked and he wouldn’t ask anyway. Not good for her poor pride.

‘Oswald,’ Petra said, calling her husband, ‘why don’t you dance with Ginny?’

No, no, no-o-o. How did one politely decline to dance with the father of the groom? If she were wearing a flirty cocktail dress and bright lipstick on the dance floor at the reception, she might have pulled it off, but in her slippers in the hotel lobby, accepting a pity dance in front of the entire wedding party⁠—

She didn’t want to cry on top of everything.

The sound of someone clearing their throat made her turn without thinking and she froze, blinking rapidly to find Rhys standing there. Was he about to photograph this latest indignity? He could hold an exhibition of all the photos he’d taken of her: Misadventures in Pride and Lost Hope. He might win another award.

But he wasn’t holding his camera. She noticed it on the reception desk behind him. Apparently he wasn’t approaching for his latest arty portrait of her disgrace. Instead, he held one hand out.

Ginny stared at it for long enough that they drew the attention of every other wedding guest. Her mouth was dry and her lungs suddenly clogged.

‘Do you… need a partner?’

13

Relief warred with desperate unease as Ginny lifted her hand tentatively to his. She wanted this moment to be over, the pitying looks off her. She was so glad he’d come to her rescue, she could have kissed him – on the cheek obviously. But when his fingers closed around hers and her nerves lit up like the Eiffel Tower on Valentine’s Day, she began to doubt the wisdom of dancing with him.

‘How are you feeling after the fly-line?’

She understood the subtext. ‘I’m not going to vomit on you.’

When he choked instead of responding, Ginny wondered whether perhaps she had misunderstood the subtext.