Sergio didn’t say anything and silence filled the room, as heavy as a lead weight.
‘This is beginning to get on my nerves, Susie. What exactly is it that you want to say? If it’s a little speech about our future, then I’ll spare you the trauma of initiating the subject. You know how I feel on the matter.’
Sudden tension lent his voice a sharp edge that made her flinch back, as if she had been struck.
‘Of course I know!’ she snapped tensely. ‘You’ve made it perfectly clear from day one and you haven’t let up since!’
Startled at her own outburst, because it was so unlike her, she felt tears prick the back of her eyes. She blinked rapidly and took a few deep breaths. She’d been snapping at him since he had arrived and she would continue until she got what she had to say off her chest.
Sergio’s jaw hardened. ‘The reason I’m repeating myself,’ he drawled, with just the right level of boredom to induce in her another jag of misery, ‘is because weddings can sometimes do things to a girl. She sees her best friend, or in your case her cousin, walking up the aisle and suddenly she starts thinking that it’s about time her turn came along.’
‘I wasn’t thinking that.’
‘No? Because your father happened to mention in passing that a big white wedding is the only thing you’ve ever really wanted. Apparently you used to spend your childhood days dressing up your dolls in big wedding dresses and marrying them off to whatever stuffed toy was handy.’
Susie’s cheeks flamed. She’d forgotten about that. She’d certainly never thought that her father had paid the slightest bit of attention to that phase of her life.
‘I had no idea you’d been having such in-depth conversations with my parents. What else did they happen to mention “in passing”?’
‘That you insisted on that secretarial course which had only ever been a suggestion. You clung to it and stuck it out—even though it was obvious from day one that you were allergic to all things technological and got bored the second you stepped foot inside an office.’
Shaking, Susie slithered towards the chaise longue and sat down, giving her wobbly legs a rest.
He had no right to just turn up and then to burrow his way into her past via her parents. Not now. Not when everything was changing.
‘That’s not the way I remember it...’ she said, distracted. ‘Alex was always the golden girl.’
‘Memories can get a little distorted. The truth usually lies somewhere in the middle.’
‘Well, it doesn’t matter. The truth is your showing up uninvited to Clarissa’s wedding...meeting my parents...wasn’t a good idea.’
‘Because they might get the wrong impression and think that this is more serious than it actually is...? Your mother might start shopping for a hat...? Your father will begin to prepare his father-of-the-bride speech...? You’ve already mentioned that. This conversation is beginning to go round in circles.’
‘It’s okay for you to sit there and smirk!’ she said in a high-pitched voice. ‘But you don’t know what it’s like!’
‘And maybe you’re overplaying how you think your family might respond to the fact that you’re going out with me. They might, actually, be a little more pragmatic than you give them credit for... They might be just a little more realistic...’ He shifted, looked at her with cool, assessing eyes. ‘And since when have you taken to shouting?’
‘I wasn’t shouting. I was trying to make a point.’ She sighed and ran her fingers through her tumbling hair. ‘Maybe this is just a side to me that you haven’t seen before. The shouting side.’
She wiped her perspiring hands on her dress and flopped back on the chaise longue, because her legs were beginning to come over all weak and wobbly again.
‘Look...I just want you to know that I don’t expect anything from you. Nothing at all.’
Sergio’s eyes narrowed. He tilted his head to one side, as though listening for something only he would be able to hear.
‘I’m not following you.’
Tense as a bowstring, Susie sprang to her feet and began pacing the room, her movements agitated. Every so often her eyes slid across to him—and the closed expression on his beautiful face didn’t exactly fill her with confidence.