Fire and Ice (16 page)

Reality intruded into the
dreamlike quality of the evening in the form of a chilly wind, but Kate felt
immune to it all. With her new jacket pulled tightly against her chest and
Sebastien standing close beside her, she was warmed by an inner glow.

Simon kissed Kate on both cheeks
and gave Sebastien a friendly pat on the arm. “This is where you two finally
get a chance to be alone together,” he said with a wry smile. “I’ve already
been your accompaniment through a lovely dinner and Michelle’s first opera and
I think it’s high time that I leave you in peace and head home. I’ve managed to
monopolise two of your evenings already now.”

“You haven’t monopolised tonight
at all,” Sebastien protested, giving his good arm a gentle cuff. “Unless you
manage to break something now or fall in the lake. Then you might be getting
more than your fair share of attention.”

“It was a lovely evening, Simon,”
Kate told him thankfully. “La Traviata is a superb musical.”

Simon started to walk away and
then stopped, remembering something. “I’d forgotten, I wanted to take a picture
of you two in your finery. You both clean up alright, you know.”

He fished his telephone out of his
pocket with his good hand and shoed them toward the nearest streetlamp. “Work
with me here, folks,” he coaxed them as he tried to frame the shot. “A little
closer, that’s it...”

A little closer would be
impossible without becoming indecent, Kate thought to herself with a smile as
Sebastien threw an arm around her waist and drew her tightly against him. Little
physical warmth actually passed through the thickness of their two winter
coats, but the pressure of his strong hand grasping her possessively against
him made the heat rise.

“A stunning likeness,” Simon said
in self-congratulatory tones as he examined the image.

“I’d love to have a copy,” Kate
said, looking with pleasure at the photo on his tiny screen and thinking of her
own attempts to capture the evening on film.  Her dress was hidden by the long
coat but her hair had miraculously managed to stay in place and she loved the
idea of having a picture of Sebastien. “Will I see you in the morning?”

“My flight is at eleven and Nick
and Caro are coming over for breakfast, so I’ll see you then if you’re up,”
Simon responded, tucking his mobile away. “If I’m not too knackered, I’ll print
out a copy for you tonight on Seb’s printer. In any case, I’ll email a digital
copy via Seb. If I don’t see you in the morning, it was a real pleasure to meet
you.”

“Oh, the pleasure was mine to be
sure, kind sir,” she responded, laying her Irish brogue on thickly.

“I assure you, I’m the winner in
this case,” Simon told her with a wink. “It’s been a long, long time since
Sebastien had such charming company. Makes a nice change for me not to have to
stare at his scowling mug all through dinner.”

Simon had made the same sort of
comment during their supper in a chic little restaurant before the theatre.
Sebastien had excused himself to make a phone call, leaving Kate and Simon
alone, and he had told her simply that she was “good for Sebastien.”

“Since his divorce, he hasn’t been
the same,” he had confided in her. “Not just because he threw himself so hard
into his work and had no time left to play. He also became darker, broodier, colder.
Suspicious of women almost. When you’re around he comes back to life, becomes
fun and happy again.”

Kate felt an irrational pleasure
at Simon’s assumption that they were an established couple. He made it seem so
natural that it seemed almost inevitable rather than some sort of exaggerated
charade. Unless tonight was a real date, not just the continuation of a luge
party at Simon’s insistence.

Of course it was still a charade,
she reminded herself. Until Sebastien knew and accepted Kate’s real identity,
she could hardly consider this real. And yet the attraction between them was
definitely genuine and she tried hard to convince herself that a slight
discrepancy in names meant nothing. She would tell him soon. Tonight. But not
quite yet. This moment was too perfect to risk spoiling.

Both Sebastien and Kate were
silent as Simon strode away down the sidewalk. After an entire evening spent in
Simon’s boisterous company, Kate suddenly felt shy at finding herself alone
with Sebastien.

It was a moment she had both been
waiting for impatiently and slightly dreading, nervous about what really was
going on between them. In Simon’s presence, there had been a relaxed
camaraderie as if the three of them were all old friends, not a boss and his
employee who barely knew each other and found themselves in ambiguous
circumstances. It was impossible not to feel at ease with Simon, who kept
conversations light and entertaining.

 And all through the opera there
had been the spectacle itself that demanded all of their senses and attention.
Kate had found the whole experience overwhelming, the music, costumes and
lighting and simply being one of the glittering people watching. Of course she
had been conscious of Sebastien beside her, his hand resting on her arm, his leg
brushing lightly against hers, but he remained in the wings, allowing the
performance to take centre stage.

Kate had been grateful not to be
too distracted to permit a complete immersion in the world of opera. The
awareness of the man beside her was just the finishing touch of a perfect
evening, the thrill of his masculine presence looming in the corner of her eye
when she caught his profile, the angle of his jaw, his eyes looking forward and
yet somehow encompassing her.

As the final stragglers of the
theatre crowd dispersed Kate realised that the last time she had been alone with
Sebastien was in the chalet kitchen on her girls’ night in.  She felt her heart
starting to race nervously and was considering a continuation of the evening’s
bantering tone to relax the tension when she felt a pair of dark eyes boring
into her.

Sebastien also seemed to feel the
sudden change in atmosphere because he spoke stiffly. “I would love to suggest
that we head back to my flat for a nightcap, but I’m afraid that we’d find
Simon still in the lounge and I think it’s time we have a moment for ourselves.
Would you care for a drink? There’s a cosy little bar just down the street from
here.”

Kate nodded in agreement. A drink
might help to ease both of their nerves and finally give them a chance to talk
away from his guests, to see how much was real and how much was just show. She
also didn’t want this evening to end and was happy to get to wear her dress a
little longer.

Sebastien took her arm formally as
he guided her across the road and into the narrow streets of the old city. “It
isn’t far,” he assured her, looking down at her elegant but freezing footwear.

Kate barely noticed the
discomfort, distracted by wondering why he was now treating her with the polite
manners he used for guests instead of the closer contact he had been quick to
create during the photograph.

Fortunately for her toes, the
welcoming glow of pub windows shone just a few doors down. Sebastien held the
door open and a waft of warm air and chattering voices poured out to greet
them. Inside, a cheerful group of men discussed sports loudly by the bar but
the rest of the room was half-empty. He took her elbow and steered her between
the tables to a small corner near the window.

He pulled out her chair and stood
behind her, helping with her coat. Perhaps it was automatic for him, she
thought, simply good manners, or maybe he was treating her like a lady to match
the fancy occasion. Or perhaps he was distancing himself again, she couldn’t
help but think.

He busied himself with removing
his own coat and hanging both on a rack near the door, signalling to a waiter
in passing. The whole time Kate sat waiting, feeling her anxiety grow and
trying to prepare herself for whatever it was he was steeling himself to tell
her. That the sledding night had been a mistake? That he’d been attracted to
her but it was a bad idea because of his family, because he was her boss,
because there was someone else, because he was too busy with work...

Finally he returned to the table
and dropped heavily into his chair, undoing the top few buttons on his shirt
and pulling it open as if it were constricting him. “I took the liberty of
ordering red wine for both of us,” he informed her, running his hand
distractedly through his hair and leaving it tousled again.

Kate couldn’t help staring at his
now slightly-disreputable look. The man somehow managed to look sexier every
time she saw him.

He seemed to have been waiting for
a response, because he continued, “Unless you’d like something else. I can
still change the order.”

Kate shook her head dumbly. Red
wine was a good choice. It had a soothing effect on her, mellowing her more
than other alcohols which tended to excite her and make her talk too much. Although
right now that didn’t seem to be a problem, as she couldn’t seem to find her
tongue.

Across the table Sebastien
half-closed his eyes and leaned back in his chair, regarding her like a cat
getting comfortable. “Alors, Michelle. No guests to entertain, no friends
around. Just you and I. So do I get to see a bit of the real Michelle finally?”

That could be tricky when the real
Michelle is a fake, Kate couldn’t help thinking with a dry smile.

“And why does that make you laugh,
Michelle?” The cat-like eyes opened a crack wider.

Kate toyed with her opera
programme, frantically trying to think what to say. This was the perfect moment
to come clean and explain everything but her mind went blank when she tried to find
the right words to begin.

She was saved momentarily by the
arrival of the waitress with two glasses of wine. Kate reached for hers, raised
it in a silent toast to Sebastien and took a large mouthful.

“You do not normally strike me as
the shy type, Michelle,” Sebastien prodded, raising his glass and taking a more
modest sip before setting it back down on the table between them. He leaned
forward on his elbows, closing in on her.

“What’s there to know, really?”
Kate asked with a laugh that bordered on hysterical. “I work as a chalet
hostess and I love musicals and chocolate. And long walks, actually. I love walking.”

“You love walking,” he repeated, pronouncing
each word as if it were acid. “Thank you for that insight into your character.”

Kate looked at him in embarrassed
dismay, realising how childish her response had been. She stared wide-eyed and
then burst out laughing and he joined in. The laughter helped her to release
the tension that had been building in her ever since the opera had ended.

“Come, Michelle,” he continued,
showing himself to be not as easily diverted as she had hoped. “We finally have
a moment to enjoy ourselves out of the limelight. Although I suppose you must enjoy
the limelight since you love the stage.”

Kate shook her head. “It isn’t the
limelight,” she said slowly, thinking. “It really is just the singing for me.”

He studied her closely. “So why
not just sing in the shower then? All the singing and no audience.”

“Oh, I do that too,” she assured
him with a grin. “But making a musical is such fun, the orchestra, the
costumes, pleasing the audience, everybody singing together. I guess it’s about
being part of the cast, more than about the audience. You are part of a team,
really.” The idea brought back memories of the pleasure she had felt in the
moments of complicity with Sebastien, their little act for the guests.

He toyed with the stem of his wine
glass. “So have you thought of making a career of it? Unless you plan to be a
chalet host forever.”

“No and no,” Kate responded
firmly. “That is, this is a one-off” – she caught herself just in time – “my
one last season as chalet girl. Just to give me time to decide what I want to
do next.”

“And how did such a
musically-talented young woman such as yourself end up in the chalet girl
circle? Or did you study chalet-girling at uni? You probably don’t realise
this, but it remains the only job you can find in Switzerland where they won’t
ask you for papers proving that you’ve taken some sort of special training. I
suppose that will come next.”

“Ah, but I have had special
training,” Kate corrected him with a smirk. “Lots of siblings. I grew up in
chaos and madness where just having breakfast involved event management. I was
a dead ringer for the job.”

He smiled his wide smile that made
his dark eyes crinkle at the corners, giving the darkness an inviting depth.
“And how did you even hear of the chalet girl job? I always thought it was
Switzerland’s best-kept secret after the roesti restaurant in le Sepey.”

“You’ll have to take me there one
time,” Kate blurted out impulsively and then regretted it immediately, not
wanting to sound desperate for another date and scrambling to come up with a
plausible reason for Michelle Clark’s career choice. She decided on the classic
vague response tactic. “I sort of fell into it, really, desperation being the
mother of invention.”

“The desperate desire to be a
chalet girl?” Sebastien prompted. “Desperately fleeing the UK after a scandal
with the royal family?”

“Looking for a change of scene,”
she said, draining her glass and waiting while he refilled it before deciding
on a bit of honesty to pave the way. “Running away from a bit of bad luck.”

“Unlucky in love or unlucky in
work?” he insisted, reminding her again of the Spanish Inquisition.

“Both,” she replied simply,
looking down at her hands before raising her chin defiantly. “But it turned out
to be the best thing for me. It was time for a change.”

“And so what will the next step
be?” he asked, refilling his own glass as well. “Will we be seeing your smiling
face on the stage? Will you leave musicals behind and head to the opera now
that you’ve seen the light?”