Page 33 of Italy and Forever

Ginny wanted to tell him he didn’t have to, but he looked so apprehensive, her throat was thick and she wasn’t sure her words would register anyway. Bending his tall body, he brought her hand up, hesitated long enough for her to feel the warm gust of his breath, then his mouth feathered over her skin.

The pressure of his lips was slight, but she felt it through her whole body. Her knees wobbled. By the time he lifted his head, she was worried she might hyperventilate.

It was the single most romantic moment of her life.

‘Of course, you don’t actually kiss her hand,’ Petra continued.

The alarm in his expression would have been funny in other circumstances. Rhys dropped her hand as though it were burning. There was another flame in his cheeks, the blush fierce under his pale skin.

She wanted to reassure him that he hadn’t done anything wrong and she’d assumed he was supposed to give her a real kiss too, but what came out of her mouth was, ‘Whoops, that was weird.’

14

Rhys waited in the lobby the following morning with his nerves strung tight. If he’d had any other way to get to the church, he would have taken it. He’d even woken up this morning and considered wandering down the road to thumb a lift into Bruneck – just so he could avoid sitting in a car with Ginny.

Thank God she couldn’t read minds, because if she knew how much he was dreading this, she’d feel terrible and that was the perfect illustration of how bad he was for her. The reasons he needed to stay away from her stacked up in a teetering pile, and yet his mind kept returning to last night, her arm resting on his.

The number of times he would have kissed her, in other circumstances – full on the mouth, not that kiss to her knuckles that never should have happened.

It had become an uncomfortable background hum, the desire to kiss Ginny, all because of the simple piercing that made her easy to identify. The numerous little rejections she’d delivered to him without realising it stung, even though he’d taken them on the chin as punishment for his inappropriate fantasies – fantasies like losing his fingers in her hair.

He should be fantasising about Canada, the Columbia River and Uto Peak, great stretches of isolation and his dream job, to capture it all on camera. He just needed to get through this wedding.

There were footsteps on the stairs, but he quickly realised it wasn’t Ginny and then a short, familiar figure wearing running gear appeared around the door. If he hadn’t already recognised her straight shoulders and the stubborn lift of her chin, the blue hair would have given her away in an instant.

‘Hey,’ Kira said when she noticed him on her way to the doors. She glanced at the camera bags at his feet. ‘You going somewhere?’

He nodded. ‘To check out the church and the reception venue.’

‘With Ginny?’

Surely he was imagining her wary tone.

She came closer with a gulp. ‘It was nice of you to dance with her. It was a plot twist I wasn’t expecting. She has chronic bad luck with partners.’

‘Mmm,’ was all he said in reply, hoping his flaming cheeks didn’t give anything away.

‘I kind of feel sorry for her because she’s been planning her own wedding for years, in six thousand different ways, and she wants thirteen kids or something.’

Trust Kira to kick him in the stomach with the truth.

‘You should see your face,’ she said with a chuckle, slapping him on the shoulder, but then she froze, her expression slipping. ‘I didn’t mean⁠—’

‘Fuck off, Kira,’ he said fondly. ‘You’re allowed to make a face joke.’

‘Right,’ she said, more apologetically than he would have expected. Seeing Kira develop empathy was some kind of miracle that Mattia could probably take credit for. ‘I do know you better than that.’

Perhaps that was why he was escaping to Canada.

She sighed, grimacing as she thought about something that mustn’t have been very pleasant. ‘Just be nice to Ginny. She’s so desperate to be in love with someone, I… I worry about her sometimes.’

‘Kira, concerned with someone’s feelings?’ he joked.

She gave him a friendly shove and he retaliated with his elbow like a second grader.

‘Am I interrupting something?’

He straightened and whirled to face Ginny. Distracted by the tussle with Kira, he’d forgotten to brace himself and he sucked in an audible breath. Her hair was down around her shoulders, but he’d recognise the rich reddish brown anywhere now. She had a hoop through the piercing, curling over her bottom lip.