Fire and Ice (20 page)

“Very well, then,” he said,
throwing up his hands in surrender. “If I tell you, you’d better start eating
or it will get cold. I suppose you could say it’s a Cinderella story.”

Rashmi spooned some mango pickle
onto a samosa and bit in with relish. “A good love story always gives me a
healthy appetite,” she said, wiping her mouth. “But I only like stories with
happy endings.”

“Then I’ll have to make sure that
this one has one,” Sebastien promised her with a sudden wide grin. “That sounds
like a great plan to me. But I warn you, I’m not about to burst out singing.”

“That’s ok with me,” Rashmi said
off-handedly. “You can dance instead.”

Sebastien regarded her fondly.
“You really remind me of somebody,” he told her. “Somebody special.”

“I am somebody special,” she told
him archly, regaining a bit of her starlet aplomb. “But it means that she’s
definitely worth winning back, isn’t it?”

“I can’t argue with that logic,”
Sebastien acknowledged. “Least of all because I would offend you.” And because
she was right.

Kate looked around her room one
last time to make sure that she hadn’t forgotten anything. There had still been
no word from the Pichards and it was time to retreat with whatever grace she
could muster, accepting her disgrace and not expecting anybody to bother
speaking to her. At least they hadn’t called the police.

She reread the note she had
prepared and propped it on the dining room table. She would have loved a chance
to explain to Sebastien in person, to let him know that she had intended to
tell him and that it had never been a plot to use him for a story. To tell him
that she loved him and had never felt safer or more at home than that night in
his arms. But these were words to whisper in person, not to write as she
slinked away with her tail between her legs.

Instead she had written a simple
apology to the entire family, thanking them for their warm welcome and saying
how sorry she was for the misunderstanding that had arisen. She chose not to be
more explicit because she was unsure exactly what Sebastien had told his
family. Perhaps he had let them believe it was simply a lover’s quarrel, to
save his pride, indirectly saving her reputation as well. In any case, it was
up to him how he wanted to explain her abrupt departure.

She locked the chalet behind her
and dropped the key in the letterbox at the end of the snowy drive. Her duffel
bag bit into her shoulder as she lugged it down the street toward Mimi’s flat.

Afternoon was drawing to a close
with the purple-blue light on the snow that would forever bring her back to the
moment on the step when she had first seen Sebastien. She remembered her
nervousness and anticipation at the time, and then the simple joy that had
slowly grown in her as she adjusted to her new life. She thought of all the
hope and potential she had begun to feel which was now all washed away, eroding
her self-confidence at the same time.

This time she was running away
without a fixed destination. But she had enough money for a ticket back to
London where she could borrow a friend’s flat for the next few weeks while she
looked for a temporary job in the restaurants or call centres until she found
something more permanent.

As she made her way down the road
her gaze lingered on the twilight silhouettes of the now-familiar peaks that
had marked her horizons for the past two months. She had grown to love this
craggy valley the way she had grown to love her cold boss, seeing the softness
under the rugged edges. She would miss both in a way she had never missed
London or Mickey. For a brief period, she had felt as if she really belonged.

Emily was waiting for her,
enveloping her in a huge bear hug as she opened the door. “I’ve been thinking
about you all day,” she told her as Kate put down her bag and shrugged out of
her coat.

“About what?” Kate asked dryly.
“About starting to charge me for your services of post-relationship crisis
centre as we start round two?”

Emily ignored her comments and
continued briskly. “Your ticket is still refundable up to the last minute, so I
really think you should cancel it now and finish the season here in Verbier, staying
with me. Yves is looking for somebody part-time in the ski shop and you could
still have time to job-hunt on line. You’d be so much better off with me to
distract you than alone in a borrowed flat in the London rain.”

Kate shook her head firmly. “No,
Mimi, I really can’t stay. Verbier has too many memories for me now. And what
if I bumped into one of the Pichards?”

“Then you could explain the truth to
them and Sebastien would forgive you,” Mimi urged. “He obviously was in love
with you or he wouldn’t have taken off like that. You might not even be fired.”

“So I should hang out in an empty
chalet, jumping out of my skin every time the phone rings or a car passes?
Waiting for somebody who will never show up? I’d go mad, Mimi. I have to get
away from   here.”

Emily looked worried. “You’ll get
all depressed again back in London,” she warned. “This is not a time to be
alone.”

Kate’s eyebrows drew together in
determination. “Yes, it is,” she contradicted her friend. “It’s exactly what I
need so I can see the reality of my situation and think clearly and get on with
starting my life again.”
                Her voice faltered on the last sentence but she managed to
remain dry-eyed. She had shed enough tears over a hopeless situation that was
really all of her own making. Self-pity was going to get her nowhere. It was
time to be sensible for once, not sensitive.

“What if I get you really drunk
tonight?” Emily persisted. “And make you either change your mind or miss your
flight tomorrow?”

Kate smiled faintly. “Not a
chance. I’m glad to sleep here tonight and we just might have to drink that
bottle of red I see on the table, but even if you sneak out early to work  I’ll
be coming by your shop in the morning to hand you your keys and catch my train.
The show must go on.”

“The show is here, Kate,” Emily
said insistently. “I saw the way he looked at you when he gate-crashed the
Sound of Music. And I saw you after you two finally kissed. There’s something
real there and you just have to clear up the misunderstanding. Whatever
happened to the girl who always said “love conquers all”?”

“She grew up,” Kate said flatly.
“She realised that Walt Disney musicals form a weak basis for adult life.
Musicals are not the answer. In the very short term, however, red wine just
might be.”

“It’s a band-aid, not a cure,”
Emily said with a little grin, heading toward the counter for a corkscrew. “But
a sensible course of action in the present circumstances. But don’t give up on
musicals, Kate. As you always claim, there’s a song for every occasion, a chance
to be a romantic heroine even when things fall apart. How about “I Dreamed A Dream”?”

“She ends up dead,” Kate said
brusquely, bending down to search in her duffel bag.

Mimi watched her curiously. “What
are you rummaging around for? If you’re going to need a box of tissues or a
crying towel, I have plenty of both.”

Kate looked up from her duffel
bag, holding aloft a travel alarm. “I’m taking no chances and setting my alarm
now. I don’t quite trust you about tomorrow.”

Mimi was already pouring them each
a glass. “Look, it’s just a name,” she repeated stubbornly. “The rest is real.
Don’t give up on that.”

“I lied to him,” Kate said
bluntly. “He is probably furious and hurt, like I was with Mickey, and nothing
I could tell him now would make him believe me. Trust me, I know how awful it
is when the person you are with turns out to be somebody else entirely.”

Emily handed her a generous
portion of wine and poured herself the same. “It’s not the same situation as
with the rat,” she said firmly. “You’ve been yourself as far as personality
goes. And it isn’t as if you’ve gone and told any tales about him. He must have
figured that out by now.”
                Kate had been back through all the columns she had written
since her arrival in Verbier. If he had wanted to, Sebastien could certainly
have found them to see everything she had published about Switzerland.  He must
know that she hadn’t said a word about the Pichards at all, and still he didn’t
try to contact her. The damage was permanent.

“It’s just such crap timing,” she
told Mimi, taking a sip of her wine. “Don’t even think about singing “Send In The
Clowns,”, but it’s true that it’s brutal to lose my timing at this point after
all my stage experience. Whereas his timing is impeccable.”

                “I should hope so, if he makes Swiss
watches,” Emily said smoothly, managing to coax a reluctant smile from her
friend.

“This is why you could play Wilde
and I could only ever play Rogers and Hammerstein,” Kate said with a trace of
her old self-mockery. “This turned out to be a drama, not a musical after all.
So not my scene.”

Emily regarded her fondly. “You
could have played dramas if you wanted, you know,” she informed her.

Kate made a face. “Not that well,
apparently. Look how I messed this one up. Time to pick up my toys and go
home.”

“You have no idea how much I’ll
miss you if you go,” Emily complained, handing a generous serving of wine to
her friend. “So tell me what it would take to make you change your mind and
I’ll drink to it.”

Kate raised her glass in response.
“A miracle, Mimi. It would take a miracle.”  A miracle such as the man of her
dreams knocking on the door and sweeping her off her feet. And she no longer
believed in miracles.

Chapter Twenty-One

When Kate arrived at Emily’s
boutique the next day the shop was busy with a group of young women trying on
all sorts of clothing. Kate stood outside in the cold morning sunshine,
watching her friend through the glass. She had given herself an extra half-hour
to say her goodbyes to Emily without rushing. She would miss their daily talks
and the closeness of living down the street from each other. It had felt a bit
like back in their university days, adding to the sense of potential she had
felt for a while here.

There were plenty of things she
would miss, she thought glumly, looking around her as the morning unfolded in
Verbier. Skiers rushed by toward the lifts; locals strolled by doing their
errands and the snowy peaks spread all around them.

She tried not to think of the pair
of dark eyes she would miss most of all, their guardedness suddenly breaking
into a boyish twinkle, a conspiratorial wink or a dizzying depth when he looked
straight into her. She would miss the nervous anticipation she had felt on
Wednesdays, waiting for his call, or the butterflies in her stomach whenever he
approached the chalet.

The squeal of a car braking
suddenly snapped her out of her reverie. She didn’t have time to daydream or
feel sorry for herself this morning or she’d miss her flight. She could wallow
in nostalgia once she was seated safely on the train to the airport in Geneva.
She pushed open the door of the boutique and stepped inside.

Mimi left her clients with a pile
of trendy sweaters and walked slowly toward Kate. “So you’re really leaving,”
she said forlornly. “I was really hoping you’d change your mind. Didn’t we have
a laugh over dinner last night? When you probably thought you’d never laugh
again.”

“I can’t stay drunk for the rest
of my life, Mimi,” Kate told her with a baleful look. It had been fun to put
her misery behind her for an evening but she was paying for it with a bit of a
headache this morning. But her resolution to move on had not faltered.

“Some highly functioning people
do,” Mimi said thoughtfully. “It seems to be compatible with acting, for
example. Maybe you could end up on stage.”

“I’ve had enough of acting to last
me the rest of my life,” Kate said vehemently. “Whatever I do next, it won’t be
pretending to be somebody else.”

“That’s a shame,” said a low voice
from the shop entrance. “You’d make such an excellent spy.”

Sebastien Pichard stood in the
doorway, his strong frame silhouetted against the bright snow outside. “There’s
quite a market for corporate spies, if you don’t feel like playing Jane Bond.”

Kate grabbed onto one of the
clothing racks to steady herself as her knees threatened to give out. Mimi
looked from one to the other, wide-eyed, before suddenly hurrying back to throw
lavish attention on her clients.

Sebastien ignored her, his dark
eyes never leaving Kate’s face as he advanced slowly toward her. “What’s the
matter, have we forgotten our lines? I thought you were quite a master of
improvisation.”
                Kate couldn’t speak. She couldn’t quite grasp that this was
Sebastien approaching, the man she had been dreaming of and longing to see. All
the explanations she had imagined giving him if she ever had the chance, all
the heartfelt declarations of love had vanished from her mind. Instead she
gaped at him like a stunned goldfish.

By now Sebastien stood in front of
her, looming over her almost menacingly. Still her mind remained blank as she
stared at him. He was looking scruffy, as if he hadn’t slept in a while, but as
sexy as ever. Sexier, Kate realised with a jolt, as he practically hummed with
an explosive energy.

“Why the hell didn’t you tell me
who you were?” he demanded angrily, looking down at her with a dangerous glint
in his eyes.

“Why did you disappear like that without
giving me the chance to explain?” Kate shot back instinctively, surprising
herself with her own sudden fury. In her daydreams she had been prepared to
throw herself at him and beg forgiveness, but instead she felt her red-headed
temper awakening in response to his, fuelled by days of tension, frustration
and lack of sleep.

 “The chance to explain?” he
repeated incredulously. “You had weeks to explain yourself, and certainly ample
opportunity.” The last phrase was spat out with such force that Kate couldn’t
mistake his meaning.