Page 58 of Italy and Forever

She peered around him to check that the others weren’t watching, before stepping close and giving him a gentle shove in the chest. ‘What were you doing, feeding me in front of everyone?’

‘I thought you’d take the fork from me, not let me feed you!’ he replied, dipping his head to speak furtively.

She didn’t quite manage to take her hand from his chest and he gave it a squeeze and left it where it was.

‘Ah,’ was her only reply at first as a glow showed up on her cheeks. ‘I don’t know what they’re going to think.’

He gave half a shrug. ‘Well, there’s… nothing to think, is there? Nothing to suspect except that—’ He didn’t want to finish that sentence. He’d meant to reassure her, but the statement struck him somewhere uncomfortable. He swallowed to clear his throat. ‘Can I come to your room again tonight?’

He held his breath, wishing they could have a normal conversation, instead of this heart-pounding nonsense that strung him tight. Then a smile spread over her face – and kept going, brightening, lifting her whole body, and it might have been the best thing he’d done all day, asking if he could sleep with her again.

Then her shoulders dropped. ‘We’re having a working bee to do the wedding favours tonight. I stupidly suggested we could do it together in my room with wine. I don’t know how long the others are going to be there.’

‘I don’t have a clue what any of that means, but… you could knock on my door afterwards.’

‘See if the old man is still awake?’

‘Exactly,’ he said drily. ‘But if you’re drunk, we just sleep.’

‘Well, that’s a reason not to drink too much.’

He answered with only a shrug, disturbed that he didn’t mind the idea of just lying next to her while she slept off an evening of wine with the girls. It was probably because they didn’t have long.

When his thoughts flashed with the question of whether they’d see each other again back in England before he left, he quickly batted it away again. Distracted, he didn’t appreciate the significance when she stretched onto her toes and lifted her chin and before he realised what was happening, she’d pressed a lingering kiss to his cheek.

His face flamed. A kiss on the cheek wasn’t supposed to light up his nervous system like a bonfire.

‘What if the others see?’ he said – a panic reaction to get her to move away before he kissed her properly, here and now.

‘Then at least they might stop asking you if I’m torturing you with wedding stuff. I’m not asking you to help with the favours.’

‘No, you’re torturing me in other ways,’ he mumbled, gripping her waist for the briefest moment. Her gleeful laugh at that comment made him glad he’d risked saying it. ‘At least they aren’t calling you a walking red flag.’

‘When you don’t commit and you don’t communicate and you leave for months at a time – those are a lot of red flags. But I’m kind of enjoying walking on the wild side for a few days.’

A few days… She’d said it.

‘You do take beautiful photos. That’s got to be a big green flag. I think you could even take beautiful photos of people, if you believed you could.’

Only if they’re all photos of you…

‘Ginny? Oh, there you two are. Are you coming?’

He was startled to see Kira standing in the doorway. Surely she’d seen enough to prompt some questions. He hoped Ginny didn’t face any unpleasant advice this evening while they did whatever it was they had to do with favours.

But Kira’s expression was smooth and she turned away again without waiting for them to follow.

Ginny’s hand gave his a squeeze, her body language light and playful while his chest was heavy. ‘I’ll see you later. I’ll have to check out the condom machine.’ With a wink, she brushed past him and headed for the doors.

25

For the first time in her career, Ginny was asking herself if wedding favours were really worth all the time and effort. She was perched on her bed with Reshma and Toni. Tita and Sophie were bent over their work at the little table by the window. Usually Ginny loved these moments with her colleagues, creating the beautiful details that guests would remember from an I Do wedding.

But tonight she wanted to be down the hall in Rhys’s room.

She took a measured sip of her wine, trying not to blush when she thought of Rhys telling her firmly that nothing would happen if she was drunk. Red flag, my arse. Emotionally unavailable, sure, but who wasn’t these days?

‘I’m not sure I’m doing this right,’ Tita said, studying her little pieces of string. ‘Is it supposed to look like a figure of eight or a pretzel?’