off the bed, smoothed down her hair. Please don’t let it be Camilla Lusso. There was no way she was ready for round two. ‘Come in.’
A bellboy pushed the door open and smiled politely. ‘Excuse me, Fraulein. I have Herr Fitzgerald’s bags if now is convenient?’
If now was what?
‘I beg your pardon?’
‘Frau Lusso asked me to move Herr Fitzgerald’s bags into your room.’ He opened the door a little wider, pushing a trolley through heaped with Alex’s distinctive brown leather bags.
‘But...’ Flora shook her head. Was she dreaming? Hallucinating? Had she been drinking absinthe? That would explain a lot. Maybe the whole hideous evening had been some weird absinthe-related dream.
‘Mr Fitzgerald has his own room.’
‘Not any more,’ Alex stepped into the room, just behind the bellboy. His voice was light but there was a grim set to his face, his eyes narrowed as he stared at her. ‘Camilla very kindly said there was no need for us to be discreet and we absolutely shouldn’t spend the week before Christmas apart. Nice bath. Do you want first dibs or shall I?’
* * *
‘You can’t stay here.’ Flora sank back onto the bed and stared at the pile of bags. It was most unfair; how did Alex have proper stuff? They were more or less the same age. How had he managed to turn into an actual functioning grown-up with matching luggage filled with the correct clothes for every occasion?
‘What do you suggest?’ He seemed unruffled as he opened up the first, neatly packed suitcase and began to lay his top-of-the-line ski kit out onto the other side of the bed.
‘Well, we’ll just say we’re not ready for this step. Say we’re waiting.’
‘We’re waiting?’ An unholy glint appeared in his eye. ‘How virtuous.’
‘People do...’ Her cheeks were hot and she couldn’t look at him. All desire to discuss anything relating to love or sex or kissing with Alex Fitzgerald had evaporated the minute she had caught the disgust in his eyes. Again.
‘They do,’ he agreed, picking up his pile of clothes and disappearing into the walk-in wardrobe with them. ‘Why haven’t you unpacked?’
Flora blinked, a little stunned by his rapid turn of conversation. ‘I have. Those clothes there? They’re mine.’
‘But where are your ski clothes? You can’t hit the slopes in jeans.’
Flora winced. She had a suspicion that hitting would be the right verb if she did venture out on skis—as in her bottom repeatedly and painfully hitting the well-packed snow. ‘I don’t ski.’
Alex had reappeared and was shaking his tuxedo out of another of the bags; somehow it was miraculously uncreased. Another grown-up trick. ‘Flora, we’re here to mingle and promote the hotel. In winter it’s a ski hotel. I don’t think staying away from the slopes is optional. Did you pack anything for the dinners and the ball?’
The what? ‘You didn’t mention a ball.’ Unwanted, hot tears were pricking at her eyes. Any minute he’d inform her that she needed to cook a cordon-bleu meal for sixty and she would win at being completely inadequate.
‘You’ll have to go shopping tomorrow. You need a ski outfit, another couple of formal dresses for dinner and something for the ball.’
Flora leaned forward and covered her face with her hands, trying to block the whole scene, the whole evening, the whole day out. If she wished hard enough then maybe it would all go away. She’d wake up and be back on the train, squashed onto the knee of a leering stranger, and she’d know that there were worse ways to make a fool of herself.
‘I can’t afford to go shopping for things I’ll only wear once. I cut up my credit cards so I wouldn’t be tempted to go into debt and until I get paid next Friday I have exactly two hundred and eight pounds in my account—and I need to live on next week’s pay until I go back to London after New Year. We don’t all have expense accounts and savings and disposable income.’
It was odd, arguing over clothes and money when so much had happened in the last half-hour. But in a way it was easier, far better to worry about the small stuff than the huge, shattering things.
‘You’re doing a job for me so you can use my expense account. We’ll go into Innsbruck tomorrow morning.’
His tone suggested a complete lack of interest in pursuing the subject. It just ramped up Flora’s own annoyance.
‘How very convenient.’ She was going for icy hauteur but was horribly afraid she just sounded sulky. ‘Typical Fitzgerald high-handedness.’ She glared at him. ‘Will you stop that, stop unpacking as if you are planning to stay here? Just say you need the space to work and there simply isn’t the privacy in this room.’ She cast a desperate look at the bath. She’d never dare use it now.
‘I tried that and Camilla offered me her office. Look, Flora...’ Alex put down the pile of jumpers and ran a hand through his hair. ‘If we act like this is a problem then she’ll get suspicious. I probably shouldn’t have lied but I didn’t want her to think badly of you. She’s very strict on first impressions and professional behaviour from everyone she works with. You and I know that what happened didn’t mean anything, it was just a silly moment that got out of hand...’
Whoosh. His words kicked Flora right in the stomach.
‘But look at it from her point of view. It’ll look even worse if she thinks we lied. What’s done is done, it’s only a week.’ He was so dismissive, as if this was no big deal. But then it wasn’t a big deal for him, was it? ‘I’ll take the couch. Your virtue is safe with me.’
That was only too clear. Unfortunately.
‘Come on.’ He grabbed a pillow and a quilt from the wardrobe and took them over to the sofa. ‘Let’s grab some sleep. It was an early start and we’ve a busy day tomorrow. You can have first go in the bathroom and tomorrow...’ He smiled but it didn’t reach his eyes. ‘Tomorrow we’ll figure out a privacy rota for the bath.’
Flora might have got the bed rather than the low, modern, ‘easy on the eye but far less easy on the body’ sofa but that didn’t make sleep any easier. She’d shared rooms with Alex before. Heck, she’d squeezed into a misleadingly named two-man tent with him many times at festivals. But tonight, hearing the slow, easy sounds of his breathing, sleep eluded her.
Flora was more aware of Alex than she had ever been before in her entire life. She had known him as a lanky, red-headed, freckled boy, sleeping on her floor in his striped boarding-school-approved pyjamas, crying out for his long-dead mother in his sleep. She had watched over him as he began to grow into those long limbs, as muscles formed in his shoulders and legs, as other girls began to cast covert—and not so covert—glances at him. And she had watched him learn to glance back.
But she didn’t know him at all tonight.
And yet she couldn’t stop sensing him. Sensing the strength in his arms, the artistry in the sensitive fingers. She knew without looking just how his jaw curved, how his hair fell over his forehead, how his eyes were shuttered, hiding his thoughts even from her. Especially from her. She felt every movement as if he were lying right next
