Stacey had known.
Decision made, he called Maria on the house phone. ‘Hold lunch. I’m going to ski down to the village to check on the arrangements for the party.’
‘Will Señorita Winner stay here?’
‘Señorita Winner is coming with me.’
‘No way!’ Stacey exclaimed when Luc told her what he planned. ‘Are you kidding me?’
‘Don’t you trust me?’
‘You know I do.’
‘But…?’ he prompted.
‘But if I’m pregnant…’
‘You’re not sick, as you put it,’ he reminded her, ‘and there’s a smaller risk of having an accident if I take you back to the village, than if I leave you to your own devices up here. The frustration of not knowing where the plans are for the party will kill you…if the roof doesn’t cave in from the weight of snow first.’
She glanced up to the exposed rafters with concern. ‘Is there a danger of that?’
‘No,’ Luc admitted. ‘But for the sake of the party and my guests, as well as getting you checked out, we need to get down to the village asap. The gondolas aren’t running yet, so what I’m proposing is the safest way.’
‘You’re that good a skier? Of course you are,’ she commented dryly. ‘Is there anything you can’t do?’
‘I don’t know.’ He shrugged. ‘Let’s find out. You haven’t eaten anything, so I’ll take you for lunch.’
Stacey’s eyes widened. ‘Let me get this straight. You’re proposing to take me to the village on your skis?’
‘On my skis,’ Luc confirmed.
‘You are joking, I hope?’ Stacey stared down the dizzying drop. ‘This is a cliff edge. You can’t possibly ski down it.’
She let out a yelp as Luc proved her wrong. With his arm locked around her waist, he kept her securely in place on the front of his skis as he dropped from the edge like a stone. Just when she thought they would continue like that to the bottom of the mountain, he made a big sweeping turn, before heading sideways at a much slower pace, until finally he stopped at the side of the slope. ‘See? I told you that you can trust me to keep you safe.’
‘Just warn me when you’re going to do something like that again,’ she begged through ice-cold lips.
‘I won’t let you fall,’ he promised. ‘I could lift you off the ground in front of me and still take us both down the mountain safely, but if you stand on my skis it’s easier for me to put my arms around you to keep you in place.’
‘I wish you joy of that,’ she said, laughing tensely at her hopeless joke.
‘True,’ Lucas agreed. His lips pressed down attractively. ‘I’ve been trying to keep you in place for years and haven’t succeeded, so I have no idea what makes me think I can do it now.’
‘You trust me?’ she suggested.
He huffed a laugh, then coaxed, ‘Come on. Let’s try another run. Just a short one until you get used to it.’
‘Won’t my boots crack your skis?’
‘You’re wearing snow boots, and you’ve only got little feet.’
‘You’ve got slim skis,’ she pointed out.
‘But big feet,’ Luc countered.
‘Very big feet,’ she agreed, tensing as they started to move again.
Stacey’s throat dried as she stared down the abyss. Her job had taken her to some surprising places, but nothing like this. Only desperation to know if she was pregnant, and to see the team again so she could get the final plans for the party under way, could make her grit her teeth and carry on. Was this her preferred method of descending a mountain? If Luc hadn’t been involved, her answer would be a firm no.
Nothing about being with Lucas is normal. Get used to it, her inner voice advised.
And she did. After the first few frightening drops, shimmies and turns, Luc tracked across the entire width of the slope, before stopping to make sure she was okay to continue. ‘Enjoy it,’ he urged. ‘This is the closest you’ll come to flight without leaving the ground.’
She forced a laugh. ‘Please don’t leave the ground. I saw those drops from the gondola before the storm closed in.’
‘Don’t worry. I ski this slope several times a day when I’m here, so I know it like the back of my hand.’
‘How often do you look at the back of your hand?’
He laughed and they were off again, though not straight down as she had feared, but swooping from side to side in a rhythmical pattern she could almost get used to, if she could only close her mind to the fear of what seemed to her to be a controlled fall down the mountain.
‘Relax,’ Luc murmured against her cheek the next time he brought them to a halt. His mouth was so close they shared the same crisp champagne air.
‘I want to trust you. Honestly I do. I trusted you with my body, so it should only be a small step to trust you with my life, shouldn’t it?’ Her laugh sounded tense, even to her, and Luc’s expression was unreadable.
‘There are no small steps up here,’ she observed with a twist of her mouth. ‘It’s all giant leaps and furious speed, and I don’t get how you do it while I’m standing on the front of your skis. It’s a miracle I don’t quite believe in yet.’
‘Just believe I’ll keep you safe. That’s all you need to do,’ Luc told her with an easy shrug. And with that they were off again, skimming down the slope.
Surprising herself, Stacey found her confidence gradually growing as she got used to the speed. It helped that Luc made regular stops ‘to check she was still breathing’, as he jokingly put it.
‘I’m tougher than I look,’ she assured him.
‘No mistaking that,’ he said.
No mistake at all. With Luc’s body moulded tightly to hers, she wasn’t skiing, she was flying, and with the wind in her face and his heat behind her, the experience was wonderful, magical. There was silence all around, apart from the swish of skis on snow, and not one other person on the mountain to disturb the solitude. It was just the two of them, equally dependent on the cooperation of the other. ‘I can see the houses in the village,’ she called out at last.
Luc cruised to a halt. The mist had cleared, and the snow had stopped falling, leaving the sky above an improbable shade of unrelieved blue. ‘Suddenly, I feel optimistic,’ she exclaimed excitedly, turning to look at him.
