Christmas in the Snow (40 page)

But Allegra couldn’t play yet, maybe not at all. Everyone else in the room was here to party, but she was here to work. She looked around for the Yongs – it would be good to make her
pitch early before she found Pierre – but she found only Zhou, who was holding court by the Christmas tree.

‘Hey!’ she shouted over the music.

‘Legs! Where have you been?’ Zhou beamed, kissing her enthusiastically on each cheek. Legs? He’d called her Legs? Over the course of last night and today their relationship had
naturally shifted from being purely professional to something more personal, but this was a quantum leap again. Then she saw the unnatural brightness in his eyes and realized he was cruising on
more than just adrenalin.

She noticed he was standing with an auburn-haired woman who appeared to be trying to burrow into the crook of his arm and Allegra suspected she wouldn’t be the first – or last
– woman vying for an overnight stopover in the chalet with him.

She leaned in and spoke in his ear. ‘Are your parents here yet?’

He pulled back, an apologetic expression on his face. ‘Oh, Legs, I’m sorry. They called about half an hour ago to say they can’t make it. They’ll be here in the morning
instead.’ He squeezed her arm lightly.

‘Oh,’ she said, disappointed. She’d geared herself up for the meeting and it felt hard to just let the focus go.

‘Hey! That’s a good thing! It gives us twelve more hours to party!’

She smiled and nodded, realizing that was why he was letting loose. She knew he wouldn’t be this unbridled – or off his head – in his parents’ company, although it was
hard to imagine them at a party like this under any circumstances, no matter how he behaved.

‘Is . . . is Pierre coming, by the way?’ she asked as casually as she could.

‘Pierre?’ Zhou said in a scoffing tone. ‘Why would he be coming?’

Her heart plummeted at his scorn. ‘I don’t know,’ she said, as lightly as she could. ‘I just thought that, you know, because you’d invited me, maybe you’d
have invited him too . . .’ Her voice trailed away, a weight beginning to press down on her chest.

Zhou disentangled himself from the brunette and threw his arms around her in an exuberant hug. He was definitely high. ‘Legs, tonight is about fun! Not work! We are going to party and we
are all going to let ourselves go.’ He brought his face close to hers. ‘Including you. In fact,
especially
you. OK?’

She nodded, hoping she wasn’t going to cry. The tension cables that held her together felt slack suddenly. No Pierre? No Yongs? He stopped a passing waiter and grabbed her a vodka. From
the taste of it, it was a double.

‘Good! Now, where’s Sam?’

‘Sam? He’s . . . he’s talking to someone.’

‘We should find him.’

‘No! No! He . . . uh, he didn’t look like he wanted to be disturbed.’

Zhou grinned. ‘Trust me. He does.’

‘Wait! Why . . . why don’t you introduce me to these people here?’ And before he could protest, she turned and burst in on the conversation of the men beside them. ‘Hi.
Allegra Fisher,’ she said, pulling out one of her legendary smiles.

Zhou sighed, not discreetly. ‘Allegra, this is Anatoly Greshnev.’

‘A pleasure.’ Allegra shook his hand; she knew the name: Russian gas company.

‘And this is Jae Won. He’s just sold his app to Google for half a billion.’

‘Wow, congratulations!’ she shouted. Was it her imagination or was the music getting louder and louder? ‘I guess drinks are on you, then.’

‘And this is Frank Kopitsch.’ She knew the name again – the Alps’s rock-’n’-roll architect, who designed megachalets, in fact probably this one.

She kept smiling, kept shaking hands. To have all these high-net-worth individuals in one room, much less one group . . . It was a brilliant networking opportunity to bring in a portfolio from
even a couple of these guys. She looked across at Zhou, remembering his suggestion that she could start up on her own. No matter what he said, she was going to be working tonight, one way or
another.

Anatoly was mid-flow about his new yacht in the Azores and she tried to listen, to look for ways in with him, but her eyes drifted and she saw plenty of other women ‘working’ too.
She wondered about the woman still with Sam. Was she here on business?

The backless brunette was laughing at something he’d said – Ed Milliband impression maybe? – and as the woman stepped right, slightly, letting a waiter pass, Allegra,
engrossed, automatically stepped right too, inadvertently standing on Frank’s foot.

‘Oh, sorry!’ she shouted, stepping back again.

Frank, whose hair was long – 1980s heavy-metal-long – and grey, with some blond highlights at the front, clasped her elbow lightly, as though she’d lost her balance. He was
wearing a black shirt and leather trousers, and was no doubt here for the networking opportunities too. She saw his gaze dragged along with a passing blonde in stacked Louboutins and a fallout
dress, her arms held high as she ‘squeezed’ through the crowd.

‘Did you build this chalet, Frank?’ she asked, having to lean in to him to make herself heard.

He responded in kind. ‘I did!’ he said, clearly flattered to learn she already knew of him. ‘Do you like it?’

‘It’s magnificent. I’ve never seen a pool with quite such a wow factor.’

‘We had every tile hand-gilded,’ he said proudly.

‘Really?’
she nodded, not remotely interested. ‘And the glass walls and roof in here . . . just amazing.’ She took a sip of her drink. Pierre wasn’t
coming.

‘If I was to tell you about the thermal restrictions, the load-bearing calculations of the snow on the glass . . .’ He rolled his eyes. ‘Every time on a build I say to myself,
Frank, this is the last time you are putting yourself through this. The demands are crazy; frankly, it’s inhuman. And yet . . .’ He held out his hands. ‘I’m a sucker. My job
is my mistress.’

It wasn’t a great thought. She tipped her head to the side sympathetically. ‘And what are you working on at the moment?’

‘An eighteen-sleeper in Winkelmatten. Cinema, snow room, conference room, private nightclub . . .’

‘Anyone I’d know?’

‘Oh yes.’ He strummed a few chords of air guitar and then pretended to smoke a spliff, as if that would tell her the client’s identity, as opposed to holding up a mirror to the
entire music industry.

‘Allegra!’ The word surfed the crowd and she turned to see Massi pushing his way through the bodies towards her.

‘What is
this
?’ he asked, hands held out low towards her, disappointment tainting his voice.

‘As well you know, I gave the dress to Iz. You’ve just been looking at her in it!’

Massi looked aghast at her. ‘But
you
are supposed to be golden tonight,’ he explained. ‘The golden girl. This is what we said. Tonight is a
beeg
night.’

‘Massi, I’m not auditioning for
The X Factor
,’ she laughed, trying to lessen his devastation.

‘But you look like . . . a member of the stuff,’ he hissed, desperation in his eyes.

Frank frowned, clearly not keeping up with Massi’s stranglehold of the English language.

‘He means “staff”,’ Allegra shouted, taking another sip. God, but she had a sudden thirst on. Pierre wasn’t coming, the Yongs weren’t here, and she was left
with an abundance of adrenalin that had nowhere to go. ‘Fairytale of New York’ was pumping through the speakers, Kirsty MacColl’s voice clear and defiant, throwing verbal punches
at her lover even as she came in for the kiss.

‘But you were so sexy in the dress.’ He had begun to whine. ‘I wanted you to stand out of the cloud. I wanted every man’s eyes on you.’

‘Did it ever occur to you that maybe I don’t want every man’s eyes on me?’ she asked, placing a hand on his arm. ‘Besides, I think there are more than enough women
here vying for that honour.’ As if to prove her point, a rail-thin white-blonde with a tight bun and infeasible cleavage sashayed past. Frank’s eyes followed again.

‘But you are lost here,’ Massi scolded.

‘Lost is what I want,’ she replied truthfully. She had wanted to hide in this crowd tonight, be visible to the only two men who mattered in her life right now. But neither of them
had showed and she was left here like a lone shadow in the lights.

‘Hey! Allegra?’

Another voice cut into their conversation. She turned as if in slow motion.

Max smiled back at her, a beer in one hand, his eyes on her alone as he leaned in and kissed her on the corner of her mouth, just like last time – deliberately ambiguous, much like their
relationship, which had been kindled but not consummated.

He stood apart from the crowd for the same reasons as her – woefully underdressed – but he was still better-looking than was polite in a red and navy check shirt and jeans. She half
wondered where he’d got the beer from – as far as she was aware, vintage champagne and vodka were tonight’s tipples, in keeping with the party (and indeed chalet’s)
all-white Christmas theme.

‘What are you doing here?’ she gasped in surprise, her eyes searching the crowd for the others.

‘Jacques is hanging with a girl who was invited. She said it was cool to come.’ He shrugged. ‘I thought you left Zermatt. You said you were only staying a few days.’

It was hard to find her voice. ‘Our plans changed.’

‘Because . . . ?’

She had no intention of getting into the details of her grandmother’s memorial service. ‘We’re finishing up some family business.’

‘Unfinished business, huh?’ he smiled, his eyes soft upon her, and she knew he was alluding to them. ‘Well,
I
am pleased. Where are you staying? Same place?’

‘Uh, no . . . Here, actually.’

‘
Here?
’ He looked younger suddenly, as he took in the lavish scale of the chalet. It belonged to a world that he would probably never see beyond this point. Nor would much
care to.

She nodded, remembering suddenly Frank and Massi standing beside them, watching everything. ‘God, I’m sorry – I’m being so rude. Frank, Massi, this is Max.’

The men nodded sternly – both suspicious of the beautiful man-child in their midst who was seemingly unaware of the glances he attracted from women and appeared to have eyes only for
Allegra.

Massi took a half-step into the space. ‘We have met before,’ he said in a low growl.

‘Yeah?’ Max replied with a quizzical grin. Everything about him – his longer hair, baby beard, baggy clothes, ready smile and languid pose – marked him out as a different
animal to the buttoned-up international playboys here tonight. ‘So, did you ski today?’ Max asked, opening up the conversation to the rest of the group, but his eyes permanently coming
back to Allegra, like the swing of a compass to magnetic north.

Frank excused himself on the pretext of getting a fresh drink, most likely making a beeline for any woman who was surrounded by less men.

‘Well, do you want to say, or shall I?’ Massi asked her, but he had lost the happy-go-lucky smile she had already come to know and quite love.

She gave an exaggerated groan, eager to keep the tone light. She didn’t quite understand Massi’s undoubted aversion to Max. ‘We went heli-skiing and I lost a ski at the
top.’

Max immediately pulled a face that suggested he understood exactly the potential gravity of that scenario. ‘But how? You are so good.’

‘Just caught an edge,’ she sighed, trying not to remember her hurt at Bob’s phone call to Sam.

‘So how did you get down?’ He looked across at Massi. ‘You stayed with her, yes?’

The point was subtle, but there. They were squaring up.

‘I was already ahead,’ Massi said, pushing out his chest. ‘I knew nothing about it till the phone call from Sam. He was
with
her.’

Allegra’s eyes snapped across to Massi. Had he deliberately put the stress on that word, or was it just his terrible English?

Max seemed to pick up the unusual syntax too. ‘Who’s Sam?’

‘Sam, you remember. He is over there,’ Massi said, stepping closer to Max and wrapping an arm over the younger man’s shoulder, pointing out Sam across the room. ‘Can you
see him?’

It was easy to spot him – he was already staring over at them all.

Allegra felt her stomach twist as Massi waved, a generous friendly gesture to come over. Max’s gaze strayed questioningly to Allegra and she felt her stomach lurch.

‘Hey. What’s up?’

Sam was standing beside them with a drink in his hand and that familiar dark look that was like a firewall – keeping everything outside out, keeping everything inside in. He didn’t
look at her at all and she felt the last of the afternoon’s truce crumble like a stale cake. His earlier warmth on the snow had gone completely and they were back to their usual
checkmate.

‘Sam, I want you to meet Allegra’s friend Max,’ Massi said with an unnaturally light tone.

‘Oh, yes. I remember. We met the other night,’ Max said first, tipping his beer bottle in easy greeting, but the tension in their little group had tightened into a hard knot.
Everyone felt it.

‘I remember too.’

‘You see, Sam remembers too,’ Massi said, looking back down at Max, his usually laughing eyes wide and stony cold. ‘He remembers
everything
that happened at the Broken
Bar, don’t you, Sam?’

‘That’s right.’

Max looked between the two older men, seemingly not intimidated by them, seemingly not as baffled by their aggression as Allegra.

‘What’s going on here?’ she asked.

‘Hey, man, it was all legal, just a bit of fun,’ Max shrugged.

‘Yeah. There’s just the small issue of consent,’ Sam snarled.

‘Did she look to you like she wasn’t having a good t—’

He didn’t get to finish the sentence. In the next moment, Sam had rushed at him, slamming him against the wall.

‘Oh my God! Massi, do something!’ she cried, seeing Sam’s hand drawn back in a fist, ready to fly. The people immediately around them parted, looking on curiously as Max was
held up by his shirt collar, his feet on tiptoes on the ground, but there was too much noise and movement for the ruckus to be noticed by the rest of the crowd.