Chapter 27
27
‘Sophie! Get inside!’ Andreas called.
What was she doing?
He rushed along the lane in quick strides, arriving at the door to find Kira staring doubtfully at Sophie and the pretty, put-together wedding planner looking a little wild and increasingly wet. He ushered her inside with a firm hand on her back, almost expecting her to protest.
Instead, she blinked at him in surprise as he closed the door, shutting out the hiss of rain on the clay roofs and cobblestones.
Tugging off his damp cap, he asked, ‘Are you all right?’
‘Yes, I—’ She swallowed. ‘Where have you been? I’ve been calling you for over an hour.’
Setting the bag of groceries on the table, he tugged his phone out of his back pocket, finding an alarming number of missed calls when he woke up the screen. ‘Sorry, I went for a run and then grocery shopping and left my phone in the car.’
She was still blinking at him as though something had confused her. He hurried to put the kettle on, stealing one of Kira’s teabags.
‘I’ll go get dressed,’ Kira said, glancing between the two of them. ‘You caught me in the shower,’ she said to Sophie. ‘Sorry it took me a minute to answer the door.’
Sophie grimaced, looking as though she wanted to say something, but he set a cup of tea in front of her, earning him a sigh of relief that made a smile tug at his lips.
‘Just to be clear,’ Kira said, pausing in the doorway to her room, ‘I’m not sleeping with him. Not now. Not ever again.’
Sophie spat her tea. Holding a hand to her mouth, she spluttered and coughed. ‘I didn’t—’ she choked out.
While Andreas’s heart pounded in his chest, he busied his hands searching for a cloth to clean up the drops.
‘Sorry, was that too blunt?’ Kira asked with a wince. ‘I could see what she was thinking and I wanted to set the record straight. God, I always screw this stuff up.’ With a dismissive gesture, she disappeared into the bedroom, closing the door behind her.
Wiping up the tea while his mind raced, Andreas glanced at Sophie to find her cheeks pink and her brow knit and all of her expressions seemed to be tailor-made to get under his skin.
‘Did you really think I wasn’t answering my phone because I was… in bed with Kira?’ The pressure that had been building behind his eyes since their stilted conversation last night swelled again.
Her cheeks went from pink to white. ‘Not really.’
‘“Not really”? Or “No”?’
‘Maybe a little.’
‘Sophie,’ he began, sounding pained even to his own ears, ‘I would never do that to you.’
‘Look, I couldn’t have blamed you, if you two were… We broke up – again – three months ago. We were never back together.’
‘That’s not what you told Rory,’ he said before he’d thought it through.
Her eyes flashed. ‘Because you were right and it’s none of his business!’ Her chest rose and fell erratically. ‘I said I wanted a clean break and you are within your rights to sleep with anyone you want.’
‘I still wouldn’t do that, right in front of your eyes.’
‘Oh, come on, Andreas! You’re not going to be a monk for the rest of your life. One of these days, you’ll get together with someone and if we’re still occasionally working together, then it’ll be in front of my eyes. It wasn’t that much of a stretch to think it might be happening now.’
‘Except there’s no way it would be happening now!’ Something hot and uncomfortable bubbled in his chest. ‘I’m not over you yet!’
If she’d been holding her mug of tea at that moment, he’d bet she would have spilled it.
He groaned and ran a hand over his eyes.
‘Please don’t, Andreas.’ She sounded hurt, but he had no idea how to undo what he’d said when it had been the truth. ‘Not now.’
‘Please don’t what? Think about when we were here together back in spring? It’s kind of hard when you show up.’ He collapsed into the chair opposite her. ‘But I am trying.’
She sipped her tea, clutching the mug like a defensive weapon. It pricked him that she looked vulnerable in her bedraggled state, her eyes glazed with stress that he was adding to. He wanted to ask her about Rory, what her ex-husband had meant by blaming their break-up on Andreas – to work out why that made such a difference to his own feelings – but now was obviously not the time.
‘I assume you didn’t come here to discuss our break-ups.’
‘No, definitely not.’ She paused for barely a breath. ‘Lily has just found out she’s pregnant.’
Oh. Was this why Sophie looked brittle? Staring at her hand, limp on the table, he knew he couldn’t hold it, but damn, he wanted to.
‘Are you okay?’ he asked quietly.
Her gaze snapped to his. ‘This isn’t the first time I’ve had a pregnant bride. I’d appreciate it if you didn’t say anything to her.’
‘Of course not.’ He also heard what she hadn’t said: I’d appreciate it if you didn’t remind me that I told you .
‘But it is the first time I’m supposed to take one up a mountain! I don’t even know if it’s allowed – if we’re insured. Do we have to change plans entirely now? That’s what I need you for.’
He nodded slowly. ‘I see. How many weeks is she?’
‘Only five. She doesn’t want any of the guests to know.’
‘Okay, I’ll have to talk to her and Roman. There’s nothing stopping us from going ahead as planned. Pregnancy isn’t considered a medical condition and at five weeks, she wouldn’t need any special equipment, but obviously a fall right now could have consequences – not that there’s much likelihood that she’ll fall.’
‘It’s an unnecessary risk,’ Sophie said quietly. Her gaze lifted to his, full of past conversations.
‘All of this has been an unnecessary risk – controlled, but unnecessary. Do you think they’ll want to go ahead?’
‘I’m not sure, but Lily was disappointed with the timing.’
‘Were you? When it happened to you?’ The question was out before he could stop it.
‘This isn’t about me.’
An ache started up inside him. He shouldn’t push it – push her – but he did anyway. ‘No, but it might help me understand Lily.’ It might help me understand you .
Her brow furrowed but she didn’t immediately shut him down. ‘I certainly wasn’t ready, when it happened. Do you know people who climb while pregnant?’
‘I don’t know anyone who would stop, but…’
‘What?’
He gave half a shrug. ‘The people I know are used to taking risks that affect others. Normal people aren’t.’
‘One of the many reasons climbers aren’t normal,’ she said faintly, repeating what he’d told her years ago. ‘Does knowing she’s pregnant change anything for you? What if it was… your child?’
The lump in his throat expanded at her words. ‘I never… I’ve never thought about having my own child. I suppose for the exact reason that I thought it would change everything.’ He paused, the storm gathering in his chest needing the outlet of words he might want to take back at a later date. ‘I don’t want to be changed.’
She studied him with eyes so steady and sensitive and sad that he was afraid to look into them for too long.
‘So you’ll understand if she wants to change plans and hold the ceremony at the reception venue instead – or somewhere safer.’
‘Of course. They can pledge their love wherever they like,’ he said drily. It was the wrong thing to say, because Sophie drew back with a nod and a withering smile.
‘What if they want to continue? Do you think it’s irresponsible?’
‘You’re asking me what’s irresponsible?’ He gave her a long look. ‘I’ve spent ten hours in the high altitude death zone without oxygen tanks. That’s the most irresponsible thing a person can do, according to my mother.’
Her shudder spoke volumes.
‘I know what I’m capable of myself, but taking risks for other people… I don’t have the faintest clue, Sophie. I’ve never had an answer.’
She must have heard his agitation in his voice, because she regarded him critically. ‘The answer is easier when your only consideration is yourself.’
‘Of course! How would you have felt if I’d said yes to your proposal,’ he began tightly, ‘and left immediately for Gasherbrum? One false step and it could have been me coming home as a corpse. How would you have felt?’
The question turned back on him, asking him how he would have felt on the Japanese Couloir, the wind whipping his clothes, snow up to his knees and his eyes peeled for signs of an avalanche, if he’d known Sophie was worrying about him at home, waiting for news. Everything seized up inside of him.
But her answer was even more terrifying. ‘Andreas,’ she began softly with a shake of her head, ‘how do you think I did feel?’
He couldn’t reply. His mind was too busy rewriting his understanding of the past – and how he’d underestimated the woman in front of him. She was the real daredevil. She’d risked her heart and he hadn’t understood. He hadn’t been ready for her.
‘I’m so?—’
‘Oh, not another apology,’ she said, swiping at her nose and shaking herself, as though that could hold back her tears. ‘My safety might occasionally be your responsibility, but my feelings aren’t – weren’t .’ She winced and ran an agitated hand through her hair. ‘So basically what you’re saying is that the decision is Lily’s, and Roman’s, to make?’
‘Everyone takes responsibility for?—’
‘—themselves on the mountain. I remember.’
When she peered at him in that moment, he was afraid of what she saw, as though she might be able to unravel the hurt and responsibility, drive and compulsion that made him the mess of a man he was.
He spoke before she could express any of those dangerous thoughts. ‘How about we take them out to dinner, the two of us and the two of them, and we talk it through?’
He would do a lot to receive more of those affirming nods from Sophie. Sneaking his hand across the table, he clasped hers and squeezed because he needed to touch her. He very much was not over her.
But he was at a loss to know what he should do about it.
* * *
‘Take some time to think about it, but from my point of view, we can proceed as planned. It’s not a difficult route and I can stay close and make sure you’re clipping in at the best place to minimise the risk of even a minor fall. You’re both experienced. But ultimately, you have to feel comfortable. There’s always the option of hiking up with your parents from the other side.’
Sophie watched him with half a rueful smile. There was something about Andreas when he spoke like that, smooth and low, that made everything seem possible. He could be gruff and even downright rude, but if he wanted you to feel safe, you felt safe.
The long day was catching up to her. Emotions always ran high during weddings, but usually, they weren’t her own. Although she’d been kidding herself for thinking this one would be business as usual when it involved Andreas and his volatile mix of danger and reassurance.
She’d been so na?ve when she’d leaped without looking and asked him to marry her. She couldn’t help thinking he might not have realised how serious she was because she hadn’t appreciated back then how serious a question she was asking him.
Allowing someone into his heart was a fraught and difficult process for Andreas and she was beginning to understand why.
Taking another sip of her floral white wine, she allowed her shoulders to sink against the seat and watched the last glow of daylight fade on the peaks of Monte Baldo across the lake. The water was still and dark. There were no white sails cutting across in the wind; the hydrofoil and the big traghetto ferry were docked for the night.
Lily and Roman would make their promises to each other in an unforgettable ceremony, one way or another. And Sophie admitted to herself where she most wanted to spend the night, now it was eight o’clock and she had no hotel booked.
‘I thought you weren’t even supposed to climb a ladder if you’re pregnant,’ Lily said with a frown.
‘A fall from a ladder is more serious than slipping while using via ferrata safety kit,’ Andreas told her.
‘Really? That’s kind of cool,’ Roman commented. ‘What about the expeditions you do, though? How dangerous is it really to climb Everest?’
Sophie sat up, leaning her elbows on the table to watch him closely. When he glanced at her, she knew he was thinking about the baggage between the two of them, his guilt about his family and his way of life.
‘The danger is part of the attraction,’ he said thoughtfully. ‘No, not the attraction, the purpose.’ He studied his hands, before closing them into fists. ‘The struggle is the point – to struggle and achieve something and be the tiny spot of a human being that you really are in all the space and time around you. If it was easy, if there was no cost, you wouldn’t get that perspective.’
Roman and Lily stared, their food forgotten. Then all of a sudden, Lily burst into tears. Roman was out of his chair in an instant, crouching next to her and draping his arm around her. ‘Shhhh, sweetheart,’ he crooned softly, his mouth against her forehead, and Sophie had to look away before her own eyes pricked.
‘That is’ – she hiccoughed – ‘exactly the feeling I had about our wedding. Our lives are short – small – and they could end at any moment. But if we put in the effort together, we can make something beautiful.’
Those should have been Sophie’s words. She was a marriage celebrant after all. But she was grappling with her mistakes, some of which she was only just realising she’d made. What right did she have to espouse the beauty of marriage when she’d wanted to rush into one that neither of them were ready for and when she’d actually got married, it had been for the wrong reasons.
‘Maybe Andreas should be a marriage celebrant,’ Sophie said lightly, catching his dubious glance at her. ‘Maybe he will cry at your wedding after all.’ Except she understood now that he wouldn’t – she’d lose the bet along with any lingering, stupid feelings. He wouldn’t let anyone close, even her, even though he’d tried to insist he felt something for her.
Maybe she could finally accept that – and they could enjoy what little time they had and the chemistry that had been one of the highlights of her life, without her agonising over losing it forever.
After dinner, they strolled back to the hotel between the olive trees and the old walls on the waterfront, vestiges of the historic Limonaie, greenhouses used in the past to grow lemons at this northern latitude. Waving Lily and Roman inside, Andreas shoved his hands in his pockets and turned to Sophie, apparently expecting a farewell.
‘Is that why you go up?’ she asked instead. ‘You need to find perspective?’
‘Maybe,’ he answered after a long moment simply studying her. ‘There are no logical reasons to climb a mountain. I know that. But without it, I’m… a bit lost. That scares me more than dying in pursuit of a summit.’
‘It takes a big man to admit he’s scared,’ she said with a smile.
‘Only a stupid man pretends he isn’t,’ he replied with a snort.
‘Perhaps you’re just more aware of it than most people,’ she mused. ‘Taking your life into your own hands at a young age must have given you an interesting education.’
‘I was certainly happier on a rock face than at school when I was growing up.’
She had a sudden hankering to have seen him as a teenager.
‘Thank you,’ she said softly, ‘for tonight.’
He shook his head, but she stopped him with a hand on his cheek.
‘Not only for putting your own reservations aside and being so capable and honest with Lily and Roman. I was panicking today. I don’t know how I’m supposed to make this wedding happen when everything’s gone wrong and we haven’t even reached the difficult part.’
He took her hand from his cheek but didn’t let it go. ‘You are making this wedding happen. It’s difficult because it’s something special – exactly what they want. You’re holding it all together beautifully because this is what you do. Despite all your own grief, you’re showing Lily the grace she needs.’
It was too much – his earnest, rough voice, the hard look that brooked no argument, his unshakeable belief in her, well-founded or not. She stretched up and kissed him. She’d intended to pull back and assess the damage, but he melted under her hands, a groan rumbling from his chest.
She wished she could still ignore the simmering, but the kisses were proof that the clean break had been nonsense and closure was a long way off. She snaked her arms around his neck and hung on as he pulled her close. She was even a little bit glad he knew all the reasons why she was struggling so much today.
‘Is this a good idea?’ he asked, his mouth at her jaw.
‘No,’ she said emphatically, her arms tightening around him. ‘But I don’t know what else to do with you.’
‘I can just hold you, like this,’ he said, his arms gently around her. But she needed closer. ‘Whatever you n?—’
Her mouth found his ear, cutting off his words and making him shudder. Even after three months, every little detail of him was so familiar, as though she could feel his spirit in his body as she’d always been able to.
‘I had to give up my room,’ she murmured between kisses.
‘Hmm?’
‘There was a mix-up – a couple broke up and needed an extra room, so I checked out.’
He drew back to study her. ‘You don’t need to kiss me to stay at the apartment. I’m happy getting out the extra bed if necessary.’
‘I know,’ she said, drawing him back to her. ‘But having you in the bed is a nice perk.’
Wrapping her in a cocooning hug, he rested his jaw against the top of her head. ‘Two days,’ he murmured.
‘What’s that?’
‘Two days is as long as we lasted before getting back together.’ His arms tightened.
She stilled, soft and calm against him, but with a ripple of unease at just how good she felt. ‘It’s not “back together”. Just because we—’ She’d been about to say, love each other , but the words alarmed her enough that they got stuck in her throat. She had to remember that for him, love was a weakness. She had to remember how he’d dismissed her so thoroughly eight years before and ignore the little voice that insisted something had changed. He’d never claimed that anything had changed – the opposite, in fact.
Besides, this wasn’t love. Love was… She had no idea what love was – another check-box on her ‘Sophie is a hypocrite’ worksheet – but it couldn’t be this. She didn’t believe in love stories with sad endings.
‘Understood,’ he said with a nod, smoothing his hand over her hair. ‘It’s just a messy break.’