The Wedding Diary (Choc Lit) by Margaret James Page A

problems, so on Monday morning the men could get on with the next phase of the stables project.
    Then he made his way back to the car park, mentally clicking through the list of things he had to do and places where he had to go before he went to Italy.
    He was looking forward to the Italian trip, because he would be seeing a guy whose father, brothers, cousins, uncles – those who didn’t run restaurants and cafés and let out apartments
to Lucca’s summer visitors, anyway – were all involved in building work of some kind, in various restorations and conversions, and who himself was project-managing the total restoration of a sixteenth-century manor house. Or a
castello
, or
palazzo
, or whatever Italians called such things.
    Sixteenth, seventeenth, eighteenth-century domestic architecture was his own special subject. The one he’d choose if he should ever go on
Mastermind
, which of course he wouldn’t, because there was no way you’d ever get him sitting in that big black leather chair.
    But the thought of working in the warm Italian sunshine, of project-managing restorations for the many well-heeled British who, in spite of the recession, were still buying anything from a castle to a cowshed over there – it had a most definite appeal.
    He was working hard on his Italian, listening to CDs as he drove round the country, repeating words and phrases after someone very florid and excitable, someone who used far too many exclamation marks.
Andiamo!
Pronto! Presto! Arrivederci! Si, Signor, Signora, Signorina!
    He got a lot of nervous looks at traffic lights and junctions as he tried to get some
brio
into what he said and as he attempted to get the accent right.
    He had been in e-mail contact with Pietro since last autumn, had told him he’d be coming to Lucca in late spring or early summer, and Pietro said that would be fine –
perfetto
,
ideale
,
assoluto
.
    Of course, he’d meant to go with Maddy, to combine a bit of business with a lot of pleasure. They’d drive around the Tuscan countryside and visit hilltop villages. They’d sit in shady cafés and drink cold Pinot Grigio. They’d make lazy love on linen sheets throughout the warm Italian nights.
    He’d wondered if they might find something wonderful themselves, if she would fall in love with some
castello
or
casale
. If she’d turn to him and say – this is it, my darling, this is where I want to live, where we’ll bring up our children.
    But of course all that had been a fantasy. He wouldn’t be doing any of it now, and this would be a business trip, no fun in it at all.
    He thought about the girl he’d seen this afternoon, the pretty, kind and helpful girl from Barry Chapman’s salvage yard, who was getting married at the Melbury Court Hotel.
    She hadn’t looked very happy at the prospect. In fact, she’d looked like she had lost a grand and found a penny, and he wondered why. Where was her fiancé, and why hadn’t he been there today? Why did she seem so anxious and so sad?
    Then he thought – what’s it to do with you? Why are you so worried about a girl you’re never going to see again?
    He made some notes about the stuff he’d done today, he sent some e-mails and then he rang Jules.
    ‘I’ll be back in London eightish, nineish,’ he began. ‘Yeah, I’m fine. Gwennie’s still at her sister’s, is that right? She’s going straight into work on Monday morning? What do you mean, I don’t sound fine? I’m doing really well today.’
    Who am I trying to fool, he asked himself. ‘Jules, old mate,’ he added, ‘do you fancy getting very drunk with me tonight?’
    Cat didn’t usually drink spirits.
    But, once she was on the train back home, she realised she needed something stronger than rubbish-from-the-trolley instant coffee.
    So she bought a shot of vodka and a can of tonic, and drank it in defiance of the sixty-something couple sitting opposite who had a squirming grandchild on each lap and were glaring at her as if she were the