Chapter 27
It was clear why the islands of the Tuscan Archipelago were such a popular choice for the clients of I Do Destinations. If Toni hadn’t already understood the attraction of Elba, with its vineyards, terracotta towns and secret coves, the day on the island of Pianosa would have convinced her.
Arriving off the chartered ferry at the main settlement with its pale, crenelated fortifications, a white sand beach stretched as far as she could see in one direction and the sea glowed aqua near the shore.
Their national park guides met the party at the pier and they split into three groups: one would tour the island by bicycle, one would remain relaxing on the beach, and the final group were to tour the former maximum-security prison located in the middle of the island – one-time home to political terrorists and mafia bosses.
It wasn’t very romantic, but the bride and groom had chosen that option.
Toni and Reshma spent the morning preparing the elaborate picnic on the beach and scouting some locations for photos. Reshma seemed a little wary of her, which made sense after her outburst yesterday.
‘Would you get married here?’ she asked Reshma as they placed a cool box under a bush for some shade.
Reshma’s look of alarm was comical. ‘Who am I supposed to marry?’
‘I have no idea. That’s not what I asked.
I only know you’re not already married because Tita told me.
’ The receptionist and booking wiz from I Do Destinations was chatty on the phone, but everyone had picked up on the amount of time Reshma had been spending with her new business partner from Great Heart, Willard Coombes.
He was about ten years older than her and understood more about glaciers than relationships, but something seemed to be drawing them together, though neither would admit anything was going on.
‘I think,’ Reshma answered carefully, ‘probably not. In my experience, there are three reasons why people want a destination wedding, rather than a big event at home. One: they want to escape certain people and have an excuse not to invite them. Two: they are envious of other people who got married where the sun is guaranteed to shine. Or three: they’ve seen hurt and hardships in their lives and want to write a new story for their marriage. ’
‘None of those apply to you?’ Toni asked, amused by the veiled cynicism in Reshma’s words.
‘The first and the second, absolutely,’ she answered with a wry smile. ‘But I’m not sure I have the courage for number three for myself and honestly, the first two are shitty reasons to drag your wedding party halfway across Europe.’
‘Which do you think is true for Alison and Nathaniel?’
‘I’m guessing number two,’ Reshma said with a smile. ‘But judging my clients would be inexcusable.’
They paused to stretch and Toni’s gaze fell on the slightly hazy, mountainous formation that was the Isola d’Elba, around ten miles away. That was the tiny world Gabri had reduced himself to when life got too much. It was a beautiful hideaway.
‘What about you?’ Reshma asked, which was probably fair play, since Toni had touched a nerve of hers. ‘Would you get married here? To a hypothetical groom who will never exist?’
She eyed Reshma. ‘Hypothetically? Maybe I would, you know.’
Still looking out to sea, Reshma continued, ‘It’s easy to be cynical, but when you witness number three, you have to accept that hope is just as powerful. Weddings look to the future, not the past, and that’s a sentiment I approve of.’
Toni studied her, thinking of Sophie and Ginny, the two other wedding planners she was starting to call friends, and Kira, her colleague from Great Heart who’d been dragged kicking and screaming into the world of weddings and then found her own soulmate in the least likely candidate.
Toni had never felt like one of them; her life was too different.
Maybe that had been the self-pity talking.
But one difference was insurmountable: they could look to the future, while part of Toni would always be tied to the past. Besides, Sophie was engaged and Kira was so clearly enamoured with her new boyfriend. And Reshma…
Emboldened by the conversation, Toni risked the question. ‘What is going on between you and Will, by the way? We all know your business meetings don’t have to happen out of hours.’
But Reshma replied with the perfect deflection: ‘Oh, probably something similar to what’s going on between you and Gabri.’
Did that mean Reshma was just as confused? Or was she talking about attraction and opportunity? That thought made her wince.
They arrived back at the southern port of Marina di Campo in plenty of time to drive back for dinner.
After the peaceful day by the water, forgetting her own troubles, Toni was feeling tentatively hopeful about the wedding, increasingly confident that she wouldn’t ruin it.
She was looking forward to a quiet dinner with Cillian and Daphne with no grand subterfuge to carry out.
But when they pulled into the car park at the resort, there was Gabri, leaning against the pillar at the entrance, clearly waiting for someone. Toni’s equilibrium fled. She hated it, how she didn’t know what to feel when she looked at him – more likely she was afraid of everything she did feel.
He was so horribly beautiful to look at – even more so than that first time she’d admired him as he sipped his espresso at the bar. Even though he turned her upside down, the hit of endorphins when she saw him could grow addictive if she let it.
Reshma squeezed her arm. ‘I’ll take the guests down for dinner.’
Toni nodded, hoping Reshma understood the thank you that was stuck in her throat along with her breath.
As soon as the wedding party dispersed, Gabri took a step purposefully in her direction, sending her nerves off on a trip.
But his pained expression suggested this might not end in another intimate hug.
‘I made a mess of things today,’ he blurted out instead of a greeting. ‘You were right. I shouldn’t have spoken so much to Cillian.’
Her skin went cold in an instant. ‘What happened?’
‘He wanted to know about… us.’
‘Ohhhh, shit.’ She pressed the heel of her hand into her forehead. ‘What did you tell him?’ She should have made sure she was back early yesterday to speak to him. What had she been thinking, bringing him along on this trip when she had so much to do?
‘I told him we were friends, but he didn’t believe me.’
‘Why not?’
‘He said we hugged differently. Your friend Andreas doesn’t hug you like that.
’ His brow was low – the gruff look she recognised with a twinge – his mouth flat under the moustache.
‘Then he suggested that if I were truly your friend, I’d visit you at your home and when I said I wouldn’t, he accused me of hurting your feelings and honestly, I wasn’t so sure I haven’t. ’
When he said so categorically that he wouldn’t visit her, that did hurt her feelings, no matter how emphatically she told herself she’d never expected that.
Their week together had been perfect, but even Toni, with all her cynicism, was surprised by how quickly it had all crumbled in the face of her normal life.
‘My feelings are my own business. That’s what we agreed,’ she reminded him.
‘Does that mean you feel… Toni, I wanted—’ He lifted his hand too quickly for her to stop him – or perhaps she didn’t want to. However it had happened, his fingers were smoothing her hair and her breath stuttered.
But if she sank into those sensations, she’d have to admit that she’d kept this part of her dormant – dead – for nine long years.
‘Toni,’ he managed, full of breath and… frustration. ‘If things were different—’
She cut him off with a vehement shake of her head. ‘Don’t say it. That’s a train of thought I can’t entertain. It leads to the bottom, and I can’t go there again.’
He didn’t follow her instructions, the reckless idealist. ‘This week was more than an awkward first date,’ he insisted, studying the progress of his thumbs on her cheeks.
‘A lot more than convenient, opportunistic sex. We created something together. I saw you, Toni, like the insides of an expensive Swiss watch, all intricacies and delicate design and beauty.’
She needed to stop him talking before the stinging behind her eyes became tears, but she hesitated instead.
‘I have to say it. We changed each other and I don’t know how I’m supposed to just stop touching you, go back to being your long-distance friend with all these intense impressions of you that live on my skin!’
Despite resisting his meaning, Toni understood enough that the words sliced through her. Squeezing her eyes shut so she couldn’t see his probing gaze, she extricated herself from his hold.
‘I won’t pretend not to understand what you’re saying – or that I don’t feel it too,’ she began, his indrawn breath echoing in her ears.
‘But things aren’t different. Whether you can go back to being my online friend…
’ Another twinge. ‘That’ll be up to you.
I’ll respect your decision if you feel you can’t write to me any more. ’
‘That’s not what I—’ He cut himself off, scraping a hand over his face. ‘I just want you to understand you mean something to me and I wish that were enough.’
‘Enough for what? Happily ever after? A wedding on the beach and a son you never wanted? Don’t go there, Gabri. We both know that’s never what this was about. Maybe I shouldn’t have kissed you. When we kiss, I forget… everything.’
With his eyes blazing, his shoulders taut, it was entirely unfair how good he looked. It was lucky she was leaving in two days, or she might stop resisting.
‘I’ll deal with Cillian,’ she continued when he appeared to run out of words. ‘I should have spoken to him sooner. I don’t think there was anything you could have said today to improve the situation, so please let it go. He’s not your responsibility.’
He simply sighed: not exactly agreement.
Toni’s words fled as well. Perhaps she’d said too many already.
She should go, get back to her son, but she paused, wondering if she’d remember the shade of Gabri’s eyes in his golden face.
Asking herself if her memories of Miro’s green ones were as clear as they should be and berating herself for the comparison.
He glanced down at his feet. ‘You are stronger than I am.’
‘No, I’m not,’ she said with a huff.
Ghosting a hand down her arm in a stolen gesture of affection, he snatched it back and said, ‘I’ll see you tomorrow,’ before turning for the car park.
She would see him tomorrow and it would probably be stiff and awkward, trying to keep her distance. And damn, that felt like another loss she was doomed to bear in her life.
After dinner, Toni cajoled Cillian into a walk along the beach. She didn’t want her mother as a witness to this conversation that she didn’t want to have.
‘I want to check on the turtles,’ he said, taking off at a run for the far end of the beach.
When she caught up with him, he’d tumbled to his knees by the tape barrier and was staring avidly at the unassuming square of sand.
‘I wish I could see them hatch. Cristina said there’s a small chance they will, but probably not. Maybe we can come back and see them?’
The spike of discomfort at his words gave Toni a flash of sympathy for Gabri. Children could be a roller coaster.
‘Sweetie, did you have an argument with Gabri today?’
The twist of emotions on his face cut right to her heart. ‘Don’t tell me I’m in trouble – or that I don’t understand. You like him and he doesn’t like you and that’s not fair.’
She plonked herself on the sand next to him, her thoughts in knots. ‘It’s a little more complicated than that.’
‘Oh, he doesn’t like me?’
‘No!’ she protested immediately. ‘If anything, the opposite. He doesn’t have his own kids and is a bit scared of doing the wrong thing, but I think he likes you more than he expected to.
’ It was awful, the necessity of telling the truth to a child.
‘But why do you think I like him? I like the way things are, just the two of us.’
He gave a shrug. ‘You’re organising weddings. Adults are always in a couple.’
‘Not always.’
‘Most of them,’ he said peevishly. ‘Even Andreas has Sophie now.’
The way everyone went on about it, you’d think the laws of physics had changed because Andreas Hinterdorfer had fallen in love.
‘I had your dad, Cilli. I loved him very much and I love you and…’
‘Why did you kiss Gabri, then? You like him.’
‘I don’t know him well enough for that,’ she insisted – weakly, even to her own ears. ‘And besides, he lives here and we live in Weymouth. There’s not a lot we can do about that. It’s no one’s fault.’
‘But he still hurt your feelings.’
Only by coming so close to naming what was growing between them like a determined weed in the Mediterranean sun…
She pulled Cillian to her, smoothing his hair, waiting for that feeling that all was right with the world, because he was in her arms. The peace stole over her with its familiar warmth, but the grip of loss didn’t lessen. They existed alongside one another.
The panicked thought assailed her: aiming to survive for Cillian’s sake had kept her going all these years, but he was growing up.
In another ten years, that pressure that kept her skin on would let up and she’d have to face everything she’d buried – including these feelings about her one magical week where the Isola d’Elba and its flora and fauna had touched her spirit.
‘Thank you for wanting to defend me,’ she began, ‘but I’m always here for you.’
He drew back to look at her. ‘Is it because of me that you don’t have a boyfriend or a new husband?’
‘No,’ she replied immediately.
‘So, it’s because of Dad.’
‘No,’ she insisted again. ‘Maybe,’ she corrected with a sigh.
Glancing out at the sea, she noticed the sun drawing its final descent over Monte Capanne as Cillian’s head landed softly on her shoulder.
‘Am I supposed to be sad about Dad?’
‘Oh, sweetheart.’ That’s all the answer Toni managed, as the tears that had been threatening for days finally made their way down her cheeks.
She didn’t have an answer, hadn’t even dared ask herself the questions, as the years since his death piled up like sandbags during a flood.
‘I don’t know, but I am sure I love you to bits. ’
‘I love you too, Mum.’