One Summer by Rachel Billington - Paperback Fiction

K, a middle-aged painter, has returned from a hermit-like existence in Chile to attend the wedding of a girl he once loved to the point of obsession; but when he arrives at the English country church, it is empty, and the wedding has been postponed. He drives back to his hotel—a place he'd visited many years before—opens a bottle of champagne, and with it, a door to the past. When K first saw Claudia 15 years before, he fell instantly and dangerously in love—so much so that he managed to forget he had a wife and a life already full. He became consumed by Claudia, who was little more than a child then, 24 years his junior, and their love proved to be destructive and ultimately tragic. Years later, he now finds his old love is on the verge of a very different future, but the past, inevitably, awaits them both—and he is determined to take her back there.