Page 8 of Italy and Forever

‘Frightening?’ he suggested.

She turned to him with a smile. ‘Exactly. I should be thankful Andreas is pushing everything forwards, but this about-face from him…’

‘Is frightening,’ Rhys repeated with a sage nod.

‘I suppose life never waits for us to get our heads around these things.’

‘It doesn’t,’ he agreed quietly.

‘You, um… No “plus-one” for our wedding?’ she asked tentatively.

He shook his head. ‘And please, no single friends, wedding florists or opera singers for me.’ When he thought about it, it was concerning how quickly so many of his friends at Great Heart had fallen in love since the merger with I Do Destinations.

‘I wouldn’t dream of it,’ Sophie said in a tone that suggested otherwise. ‘Ginny might be secretly hoping we’ll throw her in the path of her soulmate, but we’re not a matchmaking agency.’

There was movement at the doorway and then came a familiar voice. ‘Hey, Soph, I need the email address for that⁠—’

He could tell the exact moment she caught sight of him, because her words choked off and he had the sudden conviction that, by coming here, he was making everything worse.

4

Ginny’s awkwardness with Rhys had been bad enough before he’d served her a flaming shot and she’d set her hair on fire. Now her blood was rushing in her ears so loudly she could barely hear her own thoughts. To make matters worse, her brain had switched off at the sight of his sculpted jaw and that light fuzz of stubble. It would take her a second to boot up again. She couldn’t imagine why he was here – or why he’d shot to his feet like a gentleman in a Jane Austen adaptation the moment she’d walked into the room.

‘Coffee!’ she blurted out and marched to the machine in the corner of the room.

‘I’ll, uh, leave you to it,’ Sophie said with a wince as she tiptoed out, the wise – and traitorous – woman.

The silence that filled the room in the wake of Sophie’s departure pressed on Ginny’s lungs.

‘Not working at the pub today?’ she asked over her shoulder as the machine spat out the first beverage. ‘It’s a long way to come, if you’ve got a shift later. Oh, you found the photo book from Alessandra’s wedding. You know we’ve got that venue booked in again – the museum. It’s so funny how things work out.’

The only sound she heard from behind her was something like, ‘Mffh.’

‘Sit down,’ she said, gesturing with her head, because her hands were busy trying desperately not to spill the milk. ‘Oh, I didn’t ask if you have milk.’

‘I don’t.’

‘Of course you don’t. Great Heart men – and Kira – drink their coffee as black as their souls.’

The noise he made at that was more of a gurgle.

‘You were more talkative when you had your back turned at the pub,’ she remarked, peering at him. He sat stiffly, hands clasped between his knees, as though the comfy sofa were a pew. Although she was trying not to care, she wished she knew how to put him at ease. None of her usual techniques worked on him.

‘That’s probably true,’ he mumbled in agreement.

She set the second coffee – milk-free this time – in front of him and perched on the armchair facing him. ‘Three whole words,’ she commented.

He glanced up at her. Why she found that solemn brow so intriguing, she didn’t want to know. ‘That was all I could get in,’ he commented evenly.

‘Pfft.’ It was her turn to reply inarticulately. ‘Look, if you’ve come all this way to apologise for setting my hair on fire, you needn’t have. It was an accident and I was just as much at fault. I’ve calmed down now.’

She really needed him to say something, but when she turned to him, he was watching her with even more discomfort.

‘You don’t even have to like me,’ she rushed on. ‘You were right. I need to learn to take up space. I realised that might be a good self-improvement challenge to focus on while I’ve given myself this dating ban. Isn’t it funny how “dating ban” sounds like something handed down by a judge, like a driving ban, as though I were terrorising the public with all my dating?’

Finally, she managed to stop speaking. Stick to the point, Weller, she berated herself.

‘I don’t suppose you know any photographers we might not have tried?’ she asked.