Page 16 of Snowed In with You

Lucy silently eased her door shut, then grabbed her phone and hurried into the bathroom to have a wee and message Jonno. She opened WhatsApp, then immediately closed it and put her phone on the edge of the bathtub. Sasha was on the agency Group Board, and if she was having a fling with one of the account managers, they’d almost certainly both lose their job. Also Sasha was probably a good ten or fifteen years older than Nate, although obviously that was nobody’s business but theirs. But it wouldn’t go down well, because women in leadership were supposed to be unimpeachably virtuous and never rock the boat.

Does Jonno know? Lucy considered the question for a moment, and decided that he almost certainly didn’t. He’d NEVER have been able to keep it to himself; gossip that huge would send him into meltdown. Two pints on a Friday ensured Jonno spilled his guts on all kinds of things that Lucy shouldn’t know – the artworker on the Pukka Paws account getting fired for watching Pornhub in his lunchbreak, the data analyst who was in treatment for a gambling habit, the big row over exec bonuses that Jonno had heard about from a mate in Head Office.

They told each other everything, but in the years they’d worked together, there’d never been anything this big and potentially explosive. She sighed heavily and silently apologised to him, because on this occasion, in the spirit of the sisterhood, she was going to pretend she’d seen nothing.

Lucy hurried back to bed and hunkered down under the duvet, rubbing her feet on the sheet to warm them up as she mentally reconstructed her view of Nate. She’d thought he was surly and dull – human wallpaper, Jonno had called him. But now he was reborn as Sasha’s hot toyboy, leaving the party early so nobody would catch a whiff of the sexual tension and guess that he and Sasha were planning a late-night liaison. Lucy smiled to herself, ashamed to admit that it made Nate considerably more interesting. It’s always the quiet ones you have to watch.

CHAPTER SEVEN

On Friday Lucy didn’t come down to breakfast until after ten, hoping to avoid another entreaty to go skiing, or accompany Olly and Maya to the spa. She’d had a fitful sleep full of confusing dreams about Sasha and Nate and Leo, and neither option seemed any more appealing in daylight than it had the night before.

The first thing she noticed was the breathtaking view through the doors to the terrace. The window in her room looked out onto the back of another property, but here she could see the whole picture postcard, with the valley perfectly framing the distant Matterhorn. The sky was a dazzling blue, the village groaning under a heavy blanket of pristine snow. Lucy pulled out her phone and took some photos, briefly considering sending them to her mum, but knowing it would cause offence if she looked like she was having a nice time when Leo was still dead.

‘Hey,’ said a voice. Lucy turned away from the window, expecting to see some other stragglers, but there was only Nate.

‘Hi,’ she said, her heart sinking. She’d fallen asleep last night with a small feeling of admiration for Sasha and Nate for managing to work in the same company whilst having a secret affair, but she’d woken up with a whole bunch of questions. Lucy was certain that Sasha had been leading the account when he started work in the Bristol office, so is that how Nate got the job on Titan? If Sasha had smoothed the path for him, it was a huge betrayal, and presumably he was party to all kinds of pillow talk that gave him an advantage. In the cold light of day, it all seemed a lot more like Sasha and Nate were mugging off the whole team, and she’d planned to avoid him today so she didn’t inadvertently let slip that she knew.

‘Everyone else has gone,’ he said.

Lucy nodded and pressed the cappuccino button on the coffee machine. It creaked and gurgled for a moment, then started spouting frothy milk. ‘Why are you still here?’

‘There’s an avalanche warning,’ said Nate with a shrug. ‘I decided not to go.’

Lucy laughed, shielding her eyes from the dazzling sunshine through the window.

‘Don’t laugh,’ snapped Nate. ‘Half a metre of snow fell last night, and there’s more coming later. The risk is level three, they’ve already closed all the off-piste.’

‘Right,’ said Lucy, resisting the urge to roll her eyes. ‘But wouldn’t they close the rest of the slopes if the risk was actually high?’

‘They did some blasting this morning.’ Lucy noticed that he was nervous and fidgety, like he’d already had too much coffee. Or not enough sleep.

‘Blasting what?’ she asked, draining half her mug in one go. She wasn’t really very interested, but it felt polite to ask.

‘The slopes. They use explosives to set off controlled avalanches, you could hear them earlier.’ He rubbed at his face with one hand, his eyes repeatedly glancing at the window like they might be buried alive at any moment.

‘OK . . . So what’s the problem?’

Nate looked down, colour rushing to his cheeks as he hugged his arms around himself. ‘It’s nothing,’ he said, standing up and shaking his head in frustration. ‘Maybe I’m coming down with something. Probably picked it up on the plane.’ He glared at Lucy, like she’d stuffed a mystery virus in his hand luggage and everything that was shit in his world was her fault. She bit back a snappy retort about how he wasn’t the only one having a difficult day, because that implied she wanted to talk about it. But the last person she wanted to discuss Leo with right now was Nate Lambert. He might still be good-looking, but any intrigue he’d held for Lucy before last night was now well and truly gone. She’d been open to discovering a different side to Nate – hoping for it, even – but nothing she’d seen in the last twenty-four hours had convinced her he was anything other than dismissive and rude, not to mention that he was boosting his career off the back of a secret relationship. Sasha was welcome to him, frankly.

‘I’ll see you later,’ he mumbled, grabbing his mug and leaving the room. Lucy let him go without comment, and turned her attention to the table of breakfast options.

By eleven Lucy was in need of some fresh air, so she zipped up a grey, knee-length duvet coat, pulled on a white bobble hat and added a pair of giant sunglasses for good measure. The whole look wasn’t exactly Victoria Beckham does Chanel, but it would do for a walk around Zermatt in the sunshine. Everyone else was up the mountain and Nate was nowhere to be seen, so it wasn’t like she was going to bump into anyone she knew.

The first thing Lucy discovered was that packed snow was deceptively slippery to walk on, even in the fur-lined boots she’d specifically bought for the trip. The fresh powder banked up on the footpath was impossible to navigate, so she picked her way along the edge of the ploughed road through the village like a child learning to ice skate.

‘Hey, British woman, you need ice grips,’ said an amused male voice. Lucy turned to see a man on the wooden decking of a coffee shop, leaning against a pillar as he smoked furiously. He was about forty, wearing a black ski jacket with silver trousers that hugged his muscular thighs like foil-wrapped hams. Dark hair, with a well-trimmed beard and white marks around his eyes from ski goggles. A local, then. Or maybe an instructor. The accent sounded like he spoke German, either way.

‘How did you know I was British?’ asked Lucy, pulling off her sunglasses and contemplating whether her hair was clean enough to shake it free in a sexy fashion. She’d sprayed half a can of dry shampoo on it this morning, so there was a reasonable chance it might freeze into whatever shape it was in when she removed the hat.

‘Because you’re wearing all the wrong clothes,’ said the man with a wry smile. ‘Jeans retain moisture, you need ice grips for your boots, and you will boil to death in that coat as soon as the sun touches you.’

‘Well, thank you, that’s super-helpful,’ said Lucy snarkily. ‘But I’m sure I’ll be fine.’

‘Don’t be like that,’ said the man, his smile broadening in a way that made Lucy’s thighs tingle. Lovely teeth, despite the smoking habit. Why were hot European men so committed to tobacco? The rest of the world had given up years ago. ‘Come and have lunch.’

‘You’ve just insulted my outfit, and now you want to buy me lunch?’ asked Lucy incredulously.

‘No,’ said the man. ‘I want to give you lunch. This is my cafe. What’s your name?’