Page 85 of Italy and Forever

Sophie sighed and squeezed her eyes shut. ‘Why didn’t you tell her you were leaving?’

‘Ginny insisted we were just fooling around. We even agreed that this wouldn’t continue after tomorrow. I hadn’t told any of you about Canada yet, so it seemed…’

‘Ginny said that and you believed her?’ Sophie asked, exasperated.

‘She doesn’t even like me,’ Rhys said baldly. ‘You all know that.’

‘I thought we knew you don’t like her, but Ginny likes everyone,’ Sophie insisted.

Rhys had to admit the last part was true, but it didn’t mean she wanted the man who liked no one haunting her life long-term.

‘I probably should have told her I was leaving, after we… got to know each other better. I’ll apologise if I get a chance, but it doesn’t change anything. I’ve… liked her for a long time, but she doesn’t feel the same and there has to be an end some time.’

He inwardly groaned when he realised he’d robbed both of them of speech.

‘She said she didn’t want anything serious,’ he insisted, ‘and, unlike all of you, I give her credit for knowing what she wants. She’ll be over this – over me – and dating again before you know it and I’ll have my fresh start in Canada.’

Now he needed to stay away for years to clear her out of his system.

He gestured with his camera. ‘We should get back to the party. I assume Andreas has successfully ransomed his bride?’ He glanced at Lucas and Marco, who nodded mutely.

Sophie and Andreas followed him back down the stairs, but he felt them looking at him and caught an urgent exchange of gestures between the two of them.

‘Rhys,’ Sophie said, just before they reached the doors back into the reception room, ‘I’m not sure you’re right about how Ginny feels.’

The lump in his throat was difficult to swallow. How he would love to think there was more to this connection than something fleeting. Certainly, she’d knocked him over, completely and utterly, in the space of a few days. But he didn’t dare believe it.

‘She said it herself, just now,’ he pointed out. ‘She was trying out a “non-dating thing”. Those were her exact words.’ And they had hurt like hell. ‘She’ll have someone new in no time – as she should.’

‘Pride can make us say some foolish things,’ Andreas said solemnly, in a tone that suggested he knew what he was talking about. His hand landed on Rhys’s shoulder. ‘Just because Annie found someone else so quickly doesn’t mean that Ginny is the same. In fact, I can’t think of two women more different. It doesn’t compare.’

‘You’re right,’ he said, wanting to shake off the comforting hand and stomp away to lick his wounds alone. ‘Annie was with me for four years. We lived together, shared space and money and dreams for the future. I only shared a hotel room with Ginny for a few hours over three nights. It really doesn’t compare.’

Rhys stalked to the door and opened it to the pleasant murmur of voices and the clatter of cutlery – and the unexpected image of Laurie’s hand around Ginny’s waist. He was sweeping her around in a terrible approximation of the waltz, although it wasn’t any worse than Rhys’s attempt four nights ago.

Frozen to the spot, he couldn’t even whirl around and yell, ‘See?’ in agitation at Andreas.

When Ginny caught sight of him and her expression fell, he snapped into action, tearing his gaze away. It was always going to end like this. He shouldn’t be angry about the inevitable – but he could still rip himself to pieces for allowing the intimacy that made this moment so much worse.

He heard Sophie gasp behind him and walked away before he could see the pity in her expression. At least he had the perfect excuse to hide in the corner.

The Sony had better be a miracle camera, because he had no idea what sort of photos he was taking for the rest of the evening. Kira caught the bouquet but immediately handed it to Toni. He managed a few close-ups of the bride and groom during the waltz. He was used to finding Ginny without any effort at all, but either it was more difficult in a crowd or she wasn’t dancing.

Somehow, he got through the evening; the job that had asked too much of him. And he made sure there were no more photos of Ginny in his camera roll.

35

Ginny had just about finished crying the following morning in time to take a taxi to the castle and collect the car and everything else they’d left there the night before. She wore her tortoiseshell sunglasses – the pair that didn’t provide much protection from the sun, but looked classy and fun and, most importantly, hid her puffy eyes – and tied a silk scarf around her head to keep her tangled hair back. She hadn’t had time to straighten it, what with all the crying.

Rhys hadn’t appeared at breakfast to wave off Sophie and Andreas, the wimp. After agonising over what she’d say to him, she hadn’t even had the chance to ignore him completely.

She needed to go home, feel sorry for herself for a while and move on. But something inside her still felt wide open. It was all that bloody learning and understanding, the perspective on her rotten love life – because before now, none of it had been love.

The damn hypnotherapist had been right, because what she was feeling was too far out of her comfort zone.

On top of the hurt and the disappointment, she felt horribly guilty about dancing with Laurie. Petra had been going on about the waltz again when Ginny arrived back and Ginny had explained that Rhys would need to take the photos, so she had no partner. It had turned out that even Laurie was helpless against Andreas’s mother when she was intent on something, so she’d found herself as part of an impromptu lesson.

She’d admit to a moment of petty satisfaction when Rhys had walked in to see her dancing, but the satisfaction was gone now, leaving only the memory of Rhys’s stony expression – completely blank.