Christmas in the Snow (22 page)

A moment contracted between them – the one that had been coming all night.

‘Well . . . what if I don’t want to be free of you?’ she said back, a flirtatious smile on her lips.

Maxime stepped towards her, parting her knees to get closer, his hands sliding up her thighs. Sitting on the barrel, she was the same height as him and she closed her eyes as he leaned in, his
lips touching hers with a softness that was at odds with the throbbing music and pulsating crowd. She let the kiss ride the rest of the song, her arms trailing languidly over his shoulders as she
stopped caring about whether anyone was watching.

Beyoncé started up and he pulled back, his eyes weighted upon her.

‘Now dance for me.’

Allegra blinked back at him. Folding her legs in, she slowly stood up, feeling the beat of the music vibrating beneath her feet through the barrel, feeling her body begin to sway, her eyes to
close. Max was right. Age was a feeling. She was thirty-one years old and most of the time she behaved like she was twenty years older than that. But not now, not here. She was drunk, yes, but for
once she felt how she thought she probably was supposed to feel: sexy, wanted, desired, needed, uninhibited, wild, young, free—

‘Miss Fisher?’

Her eyes flew open, panic bolting through her body like bullets as she scanned the crowd for the source of the voice. Who . . . ? Who . . . ? She didn’t have to look far.

Zhou Yong was standing not five metres away, a tray of drinks in his hand.

‘What a surprise seeing you here.’

Allegra couldn’t reply. How could this have happened? What were the chances of running into him like this? Him, of all people! She would have given everything she owned for it to be
anyone
but him.

‘We weren’t sure if it was you or not.’

We?

Her eyes lifted behind him and caught sight of the familiar silhouette that was always in her peripheral vision, always in her mind. Sam stared back at her with a black expression.

Correction. Almost anyone.

‘Nuh.’

Her hand flailed blindly out to the side, swatting at the sound that had jerked her out of a motionless oblivion. It stopped. Her arm dropped down again, the hand limp, limbs heavy.

But it had been enough.

What . . . ? Where . . . ?

Her mind was beginning to buzz, trying to establish the basic facts of the semi-conscious moment. Where was she? The light seemed to be coming from the wrong side of the bed. She always woke up
on her left, but that usually meant the sun was on her back. Not her face. But she was on her left. Wasn’t she? Left. Opposite to her right. Her writing hand. Wait, where was it?

Her brainwaves were starting to spike. She usually slept beneath a duvet, but . . . One hand patted the bed . . . There was no duvet here. There was . . . Her hand continued patting, but lack of
contact with anything except the mattress forced a frown and one eye to open.

Too much. The eye shut again, as if in pain. The light hurt and one hand found its way to her face, providing shelter. She tucked her legs up closer to her chest, tightening like a bud.

What day was it, then? Meeting . . . ? Daily . . . 6.30 a.m. with Bob . . .

It came to her then, last night’s events rushing at her like a torrent of white water, drenching her as selective memories came back in vivid technicolour: her dancing on the barrel, Max
kissing her, Sam and Zhou’s faces . . .

Her eyes flew open and she sat up in a swift, ill-advised motion, her vision catching up a second later as her hands patted her body for evidence of . . . She frowned. She was alone and still
fully clothed. Still wearing yesterday’s ski kit.

She had slept in her ski kit?
Her mouth dropped open in dismay at the sight of her stirrup trousers twisted up round her ankles, her jacket unbelted and unzipped, but still on. No
wonder she hadn’t missed the duvet.

She groaned, dropping her head into her hands as the shock of being upright tagged onto her body’s to-do list, along with breathing, not vomiting . . . Her mind was more beleaguered than
her body, though, as she struggled to assemble the facts first. What had happened with Max? How had she got home? Had she walked back in her ski boots? Had she left them behind? Had Max carried her
home again? Why hadn’t he stayed? Or had he, but then left?

But no, no, if he’d stayed, she wouldn’t still be in her clothes . . .

Her phone was on the bed beside her, Pierre’s controversial final text to her open on the display. She frowned. Why had she been looking at that?

A sickening thought came to her, and with fumbling fingers, she scrolled through her outbox. Please no, please no . . . Say she hadn’t been so off her head that she’d lost that
inhibition too. Her discrimination case against Pierre would be completely undermined if she’d texted him back . . .

But there was nothing there.

She collapsed back on the pillow. Probably her fingers hadn’t been dextrous enough to send a text last night.

She groaned again. Oh God, how much had she had to drink?

‘Iz?’ she croaked, lifting her head slightly, but the door was shut and she didn’t have enough power to raise her voice.

She dropped her head again, feeling like the whole world was against her. After another minute, she slowly swung her legs off the bed and stood up, holding on to the headboard for a moment,
before walking to the door and opening it. Isobel’s door was closed and Allegra hesitated for a moment, as the blur of last night’s events swirled around her sister’s antics too.
Brice . . . ?

Knocking on the door once, she opened it. Isobel was lying face down on top of the bed, her hair over her face, also wearing her ski kit. But she was alone. Crucially, she was alone.

‘Iz? You OK?’ Allegra asked, one hand going to her temple as her cracked voice hurt her head.

A grunt was all that came back in reply, but she was breathing at least.

Allegra shut the door again and walked back to her bedroom – holding on to the walls for support – to run a shower. She stood under the hot water until it ran cold, letting it pummel
her stiff muscles, the steam opening up her blood vessels and giving the toxins an escape route.

It helped a little, but she needed food and she and Isobel hadn’t shopped yet.

Ignoring her ski kit, which she left in an ignominious heap on the bedroom floor – she needed to draw a line between yesterday and today – she pulled on her black jeans, red Nordic
jumper and Sorel snow boots, and left a note for Isobel on the kitchen table. Closing the door softly behind her, she descended the creaky stairs, pulling on her bobble hat and ski gloves, and
belting up her jacket with shaky hands.

The cold air, as it hit her face, felt like a shot of Alka-Seltzer and she inhaled deeply as she leaned against the wall for a few seconds. She was clean, fresh and she hadn’t been sick
yet. She was doing well. She hadn’t drunk like that since . . . Actually, she’d never drunk like that. Not at sixth-form college, not at university, and when entertaining clients, she
famously never drank more than two martinis.

Heavy snow had fallen overnight and hers were the first footsteps to break through the new cover; her and Isobel’s tracks from last night had been completely obscured. She walked slowly
down the narrow street, stopping as she emerged on the Bahnhofstrasse. It was nearly ten o’clock and most people were already on the slopes – Max and Brice too? – but the street
was still crowded nonetheless with locals and non-skiing visitors soaking up the chocolate-box Christmas scene.

She stopped outside the Bogner boutique and watched the dynamic, extreme skiing films running on loop on the TV screens in the windows. They wouldn’t be skiing today. She sincerely doubted
Isobel would even get out of bed today.

She wandered on, stopping at a hole-in-the-wall crêperie, and minutes later was leaning against a thick stone windowsill, tucking into a deep, crunchy liege waffle and wiping maple syrup
off her chin with a paper napkin.

Her physical recovery was coming in pigeon steps, but her mind was still tormented by the blanks from last night, and Zhou and Sam’s faces kept flashing in front of her eyes. Zhou’s
shock, Sam’s disgust . . .

Her head dropped again. What had she done? In just a few minutes she had undone a professional reputation that had been a decade in the making. She may have stopped short of drunk-texting
Pierre, but she had given Kemp all the ammunition he needed to smear her reputation and undermine her. She might be gone from PLF and he might have won the Yong deal, but he had to be worried that
she was more dangerous to him now that she would be working against them. And it was all the more reason for him to play dirty.

She blinked and started walking again, trying to push the thoughts away. Denial. That had been her strategy till now, three days of turning away from the facts – shopping, skiing, getting
drunk – as she tried to outpace the shock. But she couldn’t lose any more time. She knew how Pierre operated; he’d already ‘managed’ the news of her departure to the
press, and once Kemp reported back that he’d seen her last night . . . She had to start retaking control.

She had yet to listen to a single message on her phone and the inbox had been full for over twenty-four hours now. She put it to her ear as she walked, her lower lip trembling as Bob and Kirsty
apparently tag-teamed in trying to get hold of her, Kirsty’s ice-cool composure slipping as she ended: ‘I really hope you’re OK.’ Lots of colleagues – Kevin Lam
included – had offered their condolences and words of support, keeping in her good books just in case she should choose to take people with her; after all, it wasn’t like morale had
been high at PLF lately.

Her feet stopped as she came to Kemp’s voice on there too. ‘Fisher? Kemp. We need to talk. Call me back.’

She remembered his words in Selfridges, demanding her undelivered final proposal, and anger and contempt blasted through her body, more toxic than last night’s alcohol. She felt the ground
beneath her drop a little and put her hands out for balance, but she was in the middle of the street and she stumbled. A church with shallow, wide steps was opposite and she walked over, collapsing
onto the steps with a sob – her head in her hands as she wondered yet again how her life had imploded so spectacularly, so unfairly.

Bells started ringing out from the tower above her as the double oak doors opened and a steady stream of people filed out, all closing their coats and pulling on gloves as they emerged into the
sub-freezing temperatures, their minds and souls cleansed for another week.

She sat on the steps until her bottom went numb – jeans were scant protection – and wondered whether Isobel was up yet.

As she rose to standing, her body felt stiff and aged, and she gave an embarrassed smile as a man in a cassock stepped out, closing the doors to, a spritz of incense wafting out onto the street.
It would be eighteen years this Christmas since she had set foot in a church. Christmas Eve in fact.

She turned to leave, just as the heavy door was pushed open again and the priest’s head popped out.

‘
Möchten Sie kommen?
’ he smiled.

‘I’m sorry? I don’t understand.’

‘English?’

She nodded.

‘Would you like to come in?’

‘Oh no, no,’ she said, taking a step down, away. ‘I’m fine, thanks.’

He took a step out. ‘Are you sure? You look cold – and like you could do with someone to talk to.’

She blinked at him, tears threatening. The hangover was leaving her feeling stripped of a layer of skin and she wasn’t sure that she could pull off her usual hiding act today.
‘I’m not . . . Catholic.’

He shrugged lightly. ‘We don’t need to read the small print.’

She shook her head again, finding it hard to meet his eye.

‘It is up to you, of course. I’m making coffee. Please come in if you would like.’

He smiled kindly before he left, and she stared at the tight grain on the wooden door as it closed behind him. It had none of the elaborate embellishments she associated with the Catholic Church
– it was just a plain, cat-slide-roofed building with an arched portico sheltering the doors – although she supposed that at this altitude, things were designed to endure rather than
look pretty. And besides, how could anything man-made compare to the granite cathedrals of the mountains surrounding them on all sides here?

Not sure why she was doing it – the lure of a hot coffee, perhaps? – she pulled on the handle and peered inside, only to be surprised by the unexpected majesty within: soaring
hollowed-out ceilings, an ornate gilded altar and pastel-painted frescoes that were in juxtaposition to the pristine whitewash, light suffusing the nave from deep windows.

She walked slowly down the aisle, her boots almost silent on the ancient stone floor, her eyes moving side to side towards the shadows as though expecting an ambush. She couldn’t see the
priest, although she could hear the sound of a kettle billowing steam from a room off to the side, and she sank heavily onto one of the wooden pews, her gaze fixed on a stained-glass window that
depicted Mary and the baby Jesus.

Her eyes skipped lightly around the room, taking in baroque golden crosses and gold-embroidered linens. It was a moment before she noticed the priest coming towards her, two steaming mugs in his
hands.

He looked pleased to see her.

‘Are we allowed to drink in here?’ she asked with a worried expression, as he handed one over and sat beside her on the pew.

‘Well, technically, I’m the boss, so . . .’ he smiled.

She took it with a grateful smile, almost sighing with pleasure as the heat thawed her hands. Coffee was
exactly
what she needed.

‘Your English is very good,’ she said after a moment.

‘Thank you. I studied in Cambridge for seven years.’

‘Oh.’

They fell silent, his eyes ahead on the ornate stained-glass windows in a kind of peaceful contemplation. Allegra tried to steal a proper look at him – tall and thin, with black
wire-rimmed glasses, she guessed he was in his early forties.