Sacha clomped out of the rental shop with the gait of a posturing hip-hop artist on stage, but he still looked gorgeous enough to make Ren ache.
‘I’m going to fall over before I get anywhere near the skis,’ he muttered.
‘You’ll get used to it,’ she reassured him, holding him steady as he stamped the boots into the bindings of the skis.
‘Hope you both slept well!’ Charlie said by way of greeting, sliding effortlessly to a stop at the bottom of the slope. Charlotte whooshed down beside him, as though they’d choreographed the move as well as their matching names. Charlie’s goggles were pushed up on his forehead, sending his blond hair sticking up in a way Ren would have convinced herself was charming a year ago. But that morning, all she saw was the shit-eating grin and the disdainful look he spared for Sacha with his rented equipment and his ski clothing from a cheaper sports chain.
‘We slept well,’ Sacha replied evenly before Ren could find her voice. But before he could say anything else, a ski slipped, he slid backwards, poles flailing, and landed heavily on his side.
Charlie stifled a laugh. Ren had no hope of hiding her scowl, but it only made Charlie’s smile wider. She popped off her skis and went to help Sacha up. He met her gaze with a grave one of his own as she clutched his arm and hauled him up. She smiled in return – not one of her desperate bright ones, but a small one, because she was touched that he was doing this for her, and for once the lure of the mountain wasn’t as strong as the desire to keep looking at his face.
‘Perhaps he should stay in the lodge and drink hot chocolate,’ said Charlie. ‘He’s not going to make it to the black slopes with us in one weekend. In fact, if you don’t want to break a bone, you should stay on the bunny slope.’
‘I am very happy to stay on this bunny slope and learn at my own speed.’
‘And I’m going to teach him,’ Ren added, ignoring Sacha’s attempt to deter her with a sharp shake of his head.
Charlie’s smile faltered. Someone behind Ren caught his attention and he lifted his hand in a wave. ‘Morning, Ziggy. I’m surprised to hear Ren will be spending the day teaching her boyfriend to ski. Don’t you usually take her with you and chat business over lunch at one of the restaurants on the slopes? Since it appears Livia is only human after all and can’t ski at her age.’
‘Who said anything about my age?’ Charlie nearly swallowed his tongue when Grandmama emerged from the lodge looking elegant even in silver-and-black ski clothing, with her slim frame and swept-back grey hair. ‘I will meet you all for lunch. Of course my knees won’t take me down the slopes any more, but there are snowmobiles. For everyone else, there is the red or the black slope.’
Everyone looked at Sacha, wobbling on his stationary skis. ‘We’ll meet you for lunch,’ Ren blurted out. ‘We can take the lift back down afterward if Sacha won’t make it. Just tell me where and what time.’
‘We were expecting you to join us on the slopes, Ren,’ Ziggy spoke up. ‘A representative of the family, since Livia can’t. I’ll book an instructor for him.’
‘No.’ For a word that was usually so difficult to say, it flowed surprisingly easily. ‘I said I’d be there for lunch. No one will be discussing business while racing down the piste.’ To say nothing of the fact that she was no substitute for Livia in business dealings.
Ren escaped with only a narrow-eyed stare from Ziggy that gave her the strange sensation of the walls closing in on her gradually.
‘You don’t need to stay with me,’ Sacha said when Ziggy and the others moved off towards the lift.
‘I want to.’ Wow, it was all spilling out.
His brow shot up. She wanted to press a smacking kiss on his lips to make her point, but she didn’t want him to interpret that as part of the act. Instead of kissing his mouth, she pressed her lips to his cheek, feeling his heavy exhale on her own skin.
‘Let’s go!’
Sacha had to carry his skis to the bottom of the children’s area and Ren wasn’t surprised to see that Charlie was acting like a small child himself and followed them out of spite. But Sacha wasn’t fazed. He leaned heavily on Ren as she helped him onto the carpet lift, where he wobbled and nearly fell off. Charlie laughed behind them, but so did Sacha.
At the top of the slope, he nearly slipped over again and clung to her gloved hands, trembling, as she showed him how to set up his skis out of the fall line and dig in the edges until he could stand still.
She couldn’t believe the nerve of Charlie, flying down the side of the practice slope just to intimidate a man who obviously wouldn’t play that juvenile game. But it was easy to ignore her ex-boyfriend when all she wanted to do was watch the creases of concentration on Sacha’s face and stay close to catch him while he learned to brake in the snow plough ski formation.
He managed a few descents of the gentle slope, but when she encouraged him to up the pace a little, he ended up at the bottom, groaning in a tangle of skis. She raced down to him, but he was laughing, and she forgot all about Charlie and his stupid pissing contest. Making Sacha laugh was her new goal in life.
Charlie eventually lost interest and the morning sped by as she skied backwards in front of Sacha, coaching him and occasionally grabbing him when he wobbled. She liked it when their faces were close, sliding slowly down the hill together.
He made it down one blue slope before lunch, only falling when he caught an edge trying to get off the lift, but Ren wasn’t surprised when her phone beeped with directions for lunch and they’d chosen a restaurant that could only be reached via a red slope.
‘I think that means I’m not invited,’ Sacha said drily when she told him. He raised his face to the sun and gazed up at the jagged peaks. ‘It must be amazing up there.’
‘It is.’
‘I hope you do some real skiing, too. I can practise on this slope myself, now. And if I’m not wanted at lunch, then…’
She scrunched up her face. ‘I’m not really wanted either, you know. Ziggy and Grandmama just hide behind my smile when they’re putting on the hard sell.’
‘That sounds like an important job to do.’
She gave him a playful shove, but he slid backwards and she had to grab him again. ‘I don’t want to know how many bruises you’ve got today because of me.’ Maybe I can kiss them better, later.
‘I’ll come to lunch if you want me to,’ he blurted out suddenly. ‘I’ll get down somehow.’
‘I want you there.’ Always. Perhaps she shouldn’t, but the wanting was getting too hard to ignore.
He had an audience for the awkward descent down the steep red slope. Ziggy, Charlie and his parents and the rest of the company all loomed at the bottom, ready to exult in his spectacular failure. The slope itself looked like a sheer drop from his position at the top. Sacha’s knees knocked as he stared into the valley far, far below. It was stunningly beautiful – glittering ice and snow and a sky so blue it didn’t look real.
He could barely believe he was here, in the crystalline cold of a landscape from a fantasy world. He couldn’t help thinking it was a long, long way from the neuf trois, from anything he’d ever seen. His deep, agitated breaths puffed out in clouds and his body was so tense he had no hope of maintaining the technique that Ren had taught him.
But she was beside him. Her hair was back in a short plait down her back and her eyes lit up whenever he unlocked a new skill on the slopes. It was enough to motivate him to aim for the Winter Olympics. It was enough to get him down this hill.
‘Do you trust me?’ she asked over the whipping wind.
‘Yes,’ he replied with a smile.
‘Then follow after me. I’ll get you down.’ She studied the terrain and then set off slowly, leading him along the flattest parts and coaching him on where to turn. Keeping his eyes on her allowed him to forget the terrifying drop, the images of falls and rescues and broken bones, as he whipped through the turns after her, crunching snow. And then they were nearly down, and he’d almost… had fun.
Only near the bottom did things go wrong. His skis slid out of control and he wobbled backwards instinctively, picking up speed. He heard her voice dimly, telling him to lean forward and curve. Leaning forward was not what his brain wanted him to do, but he forced it anyway and a second before he reached the edge of the piste, he managed to throw his weight into a turn.
He was about to shout gleefully to Ren, but one of his skis clipped the other and he ploughed right into her, rolling the last few feet to the bottom of the slope. He groaned, trying to get his breath back and wondering why nothing seemed to hurt.
‘Ow,’ Ren said from underneath him.
He lifted his head and rolled quickly to the side, pulling off his gloves and lifting her visor. ‘Ren,’ he whispered urgently, his hand on her face. He pressed a quick kiss to her lips. ‘Did I hurt you?’
She kept her hand fisted in his jacket so he couldn’t move too far away. ‘I’m fine. The snow is soft here and… I didn’t mind you landing on me.’ He met her gaze and lost all perspective on what was for show and what was real.
A pointed cough made him look up. Sacha and Ren stumbled to their feet, only one ski between both of them still attached. She gripped his hand tightly and they approached the party together, the two of them against the world.
Livia had arrived on a snowmobile, her expression taut. Sacha was sick of seeing her limit Ren’s potential – and he was very sick of her trivialising his relationship with Ren. Despite the ruse, she meant more to him than he’d ever imagined, and he hated to see their feelings dismissed.
He focused on Ren over lunch, wary of the rebelliousness of his feelings. She was keen to ignore Ziggy’s disapproving glares and ate from the platters and fondue with gusto. She even slipped a chunk of toast dipped in cheese into his mouth with a cheeky smile and he was struck by how much had changed since afternoon tea at the Ritz.
Although her grandmother and Ziggy did bring the conversation around to business matters a few times, Ren didn’t join in. The conversation with Charlie’s parents, which he’d expected to be awkward, turned out to be pleasant; they were obviously relieved to see her moving on from their son and took a genuine interest in Sacha.
Livia and Ziggy were unrelenting in their disapproval, but it only gave him a sense of vindication. He could stand up to them. To see Ren be herself like this was worth it. And if she wanted him…
The mountain air and the giddy happiness of having her beside him buoyed his mood after lunch and he subdued his fear at the top of the slope with a few deep breaths. And then he flew down the mountain with her, breath tight, icy air whooshing in their faces and the surrounding peaks rising to support them.
At the bottom, she popped off her skis and threw her arms around him. ‘You did it! You were incredible! I hope it wasn’t too awful!’
His arms came around her and he held her silently. ‘It wasn’t awful,’ he said after a few moments of deep, slow breaths. ‘I can’t believe I did it.’
Ren tugged off her helmet and dropped it carelessly into the snow. Her fingers fumbled under his chin as she did the same for him. Her breath caught and she stilled with her fingertips on his cheeks, her eyes roaming his face.
He had to kiss her. With no audience, no reason to pretend, no murky motives or second-guessing, he dipped his head and pressed his mouth to hers with a sharp passion and all of the tenderness welling up inside him. She opened her mouth and the kiss quickly escalated, frustrated desire no longer bearable. He breathed her in. She held him tight and it all came flooding out.
He kissed her from a place inside him that insisted his feelings were allowed, and held her tight to make her feel everything that had been churning inside him. She didn’t pull away. Her fingers tangled in his hair and she met kiss after aching kiss with equal intensity.
He was drifting into trouble. She stirred more trouble when they paused for breath and she started speaking.
‘I’ve wanted to kiss you like that since the night we met,’ she said between gasping breaths. ‘If I’d known it would be that good…’ She stroked a clumsy hand around the back of his head. ‘Are you going to say anything?’
Je t’aime… Those were the first words that rose in his mind – the only words he could find for a few breaths. He pulled himself together at the last moment. ‘Did I hit my head, or did you really say you wanted to kiss me the night we met?’
‘I don’t normally kiss strangers, but…’
‘I know,’ he murmured, settling his forehead against hers. ‘It was the same for me.’
‘Maybe I’m deprived of oxygen,’ she said between breaths, ‘because I thought you just said it was the same for you.’
He clutched her more tightly and kissed her again, this time a little softer and a lot sweeter. His oxygen supply definitely faltered.
‘I’ve enjoyed every moment with you,’ he whispered. He hated the finality that had sneaked into those words, but they would have to do.
‘A near-death experience, was it?’ Charlie’s voice broke into the intensity of the moment like a bucket of cold water. ‘Are you going to let Ren up onto the real slopes with us, now?’
Sacha pulled away from her reluctantly. ‘Ren is free to choose what she wants to do.’
‘And you think she’ll choose you?’ Charlie was clearly no longer talking about the ski slopes. ‘Over her own family? Her inheritance? She didn’t even choose me over dear Grandmama.’
‘What?’ Ren exclaimed, stunned.
The crétin ignored her. ‘Well, it’s the purse strings, too, right? She doesn’t stray too far from the hand that feeds her.’
‘You know nothing about Ren.’ The only thing tempering Sacha’s words was the knowledge that Charlie was at least partly right: Ren would always do her duty to her grandmother. But not for the reasons Charlie assumed.
‘And you do?’ Charlie rebutted him with a laugh. ‘A teacher from the hood? You think you understand her life?’
‘This is unnecessary, Charlie,’ Ren said before Sacha had to reply.
‘I’m not allowed to be worried about you any more?’
‘There’s no need to worry about my choices.’
‘Ever the peacemaker, Ren,’ Charlie muttered. ‘Always doing what’s expected of you.’ He glanced once more at Sacha, a warning that he would never fit into the carefully constructed life she led. Charlie didn’t know that wasn’t news to either of them.
‘I will do the blue piste again,’ Sacha said, clomping back to his skis without even a glance for Charlie.
‘I’m coming with you.’ When Ren’s voice sounded behind him, he was touched – but worried about the future and what trouble he might cause for her.
